new wsm curing.


 
Shawn Catron

Shawn Catron

New member
ok i did a quick search through the threads and did not see if anybody cures there new wsm's. i've seen that they get hot when they are new. iam thinking about putting a slab of bacon with extra wood for a good season on saturday. with mothers day on sunday i dont wont to ruin moma's tenderloins. thanks in advance for any advise.
 
Shawn,

Many have cured their WSMs but it does appear most do not. I fall into the DID category. Used Harry Soo's method. I believe what is truly the determining factor is your intended usage for the WSM. If it's going to be used in competitions, doing a proper cure (while not essential) is a good policy. Either way, you are looking to attain a delightful buildup of, shall we say..., gunk. Basically rendered fats with a nice smokey flavor.

A proper cure is not a one off process. It takes mulitple cycles to develop that build up. There's a section on here where Harry Soo describes his method

You can proceed with the method you noted. The only change I would recommend is to limit the amount of smoking woods. A little goes a long way.

Wishing you enjoyable BBQ and a happy mom, on her day.
 
Harry Soo knows how to get a new smoker ready for him to use on the bbq circuit. However, JMO, for backyard smokers, there is no seasoning needed. Just cook on it and it will "gunk up" on its own. When I got mine, I washed the top cooking grate (haven't used the bottom grate yet) and smoked some ribs. Maybe a case of ignorance being bliss, but I've been fine ever since.
 
Seasoning is like "instruction manuals", real men don't need either ;). Stop overthinking and start cooking :wsm:
 
I didn't season my 22 but I did on my 18 per Harry's method. Honestly I probably wouldn't waste my time again. They do run a bit hot but not enough to wreck a cook unless your doing a KCBS comp. Highly recommend the water pan filled for the first few cooks. It helps keep the temp spikes to a minimum.
 
Not only did I not "season" my 18.5" WSM, I routinely clean it with hot soapy water and a Scotch-Brite non-scratch scour sponge. This is considered blasphemy by a lot of folks on this board, but I am a fan of "reasonably" high heat smokes for my pork butts (325-350 degrees F). That said, you will never remove all of the build-up of smoke inside the WSM, and I don't try to. I DO try to go low and slow occasionally even though I clean my WSM and have had some success keeping temps below 300F...without water in the pan (but I do foil the bottom and top of it). Hate the water clean-up....

Anyway Shawn, you have received a lot of good advice from seasoned veterans as well as some advice from others (like me) that are still perfecting our own style. You are going to use your WSM and figure out what is going to work for your style of smoking and then nail it down. All I can say is "have fun and enjoy the experience"!
 
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