Need some emergency help


 
J

Jim Creasy

TVWBB Fan
I had some left over, unfinished oak flooring that I burned in my cooker yesterday. I did not put any meat or water in. but I did put the pan in. The idea was to burn off any bad stuff and grease. (There was a split of opinion as to whether this wood had any chemicals in it). It got pretty hot, but then I closed out the vents and smoked it for about 7 hours at 350.

There is now a slick sheen that is slightly sticky/tacky on part of the inside of my lid. The other half is burned completely clean and shiny, almost as new. This stuff has the consistency of very hard sap or something... It is what I would expect if I burned wet pine, but this was kiln dried red oak. It has no chemical smell that I can detect when sticking my head in the lid and, digging at it with my finger and smelling that.

I am hoping I have not glazed my lid with some industrial compound. Could this just be the grease and gunk cooked out and glazed on the lid? The bottom of some of my iron skillets have a similar look, or am I screwed?

My plan is to use oven cleaner, but if it is chemical, I am not sure it would cut it.

Incidentally, this substance is not anywhere else... Not the sides of the barrel or the water pan.

Please help as soon as you can.

Thanks.

JKC
 
The slightly sticky-tacky and the look of a well seasoned CI pan sounds completely normal to me.
As you say it doesn't smell like sap which is almost like smelling turpentine.
I think you're just fine Jim..

Tim
 
Jim, I tried to research oak flooring, but I could not come up with anything solid on it. IMHO, which means little, I would think that the wood would have some sort of chemical in it to preserve color, unless you cut it yourself. At any rate to be safe, I would use some grill cleaner as you said to get all the sappy stuff off, then clean it with soap and water. Then burn it off (re-season it) with regular fire wood, etc. That may be overdoing it but if it is some sort of chemical, heating it up during a cook might be very bad, either to the food or from the fumes it produces. Just my thoughts though

....or you can give me the smoker and go buy a new one, lol
 
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I think the key to this is that you used "unfinished" oak flooring. Which I believe would be raw kiln dried oak. So I don't think the oak deposited anything onto your smoker, but rather what you are seeing is what is left of the residue that was inside your smoker and didn't make it out the top vent while burning off the rest of it. Shutting down the vents and lowering the temperature to 350 probably prevented what you are seeing from burning off completely.
 
I use Red Oak a lot and that reads completely normal to me without water in the pan. But I don't use flooring remnants sooo when in doubt, clean it out.:)

Tim
 
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