Seasoning my new Master Forge 2 door LP smoker

Hello SMF Family,

I have a question concerning my new Master Forge Propane Smoker, I have read all of the instructions that came with the smoker yet I have heard of two different ways to season my smoker.

1. Place wood chips in the smoker box, light the smoker and run it for anywhere from 45 min. to 1 1/2 hours. Sounds simple enough.
2. The other way I have heard of from other web-sites and from a friend of mine who does a lot of smoking for himself and for large parties and other events.  They both say to open the smoker and remove all of the grates in the smoke chamber, either wipe the entire inside of the smoke chamber with bacon grease or spay a lite coat of PAM non stick cooking spray on everything the sides, the top, the doors, everything sprayed down with PAM and then wiped lightly with a paper towel to spread. Reinstall the cooking grates, and close the smoke chamber.  Fill the wood box with damp Hickory chips and start the smoker, monitor the temp inside the smoke chamber, run it up to 225 degrees and try to hold that temperature for 30 min. Then start raising the heat until the smoker has been burning for 1 1/2 hours.  Turn Smoker off and let set for 24 hours. Your smoker is now completely seasoned and ready to smoke anything you want to smoke.

I have no problem with doing it either way but I want some advise from my friends before I do it.  Has anyone ever heard of doing the seasoning the 2ND way?  Is there another way that I should do it?  Is seasoning method 1 the right way to go?

This is my 3rd smoker, the first was a Brinkmann ECO that was never seasoned as far as I know.  The 2ND was a Brinkmann Smoking Pit Professional that had been used for a couple of years as a charcoal grill and did not appear to need further seasoning but when mods were done I did fire it up put some chunks in and let it cook out on it's own.  Now I have a brand new fresh out of the box Smoker that I plan on using for a good long time!  It has been very very cold here in Southwestern Virginia or I would have already had this done but it is supposed to be a bit warmer next week and I hope to season it so that I can start smoking with it.  Any help that any of the SMF Family can give me will be greatly appreciated and any thing I can ever help you with just give me a yell !

Thanks,

VirginiaSmokeSignal

By the way, I have read all the post on seasoning a wood or Charcoal Smoker but was wondering if there was any diffrence in seasoning a Propane gas smoker, I just don't want to mess this thing up ! Someone please tell me if it is the same for a propane as it is for a wood or charcoal smoker?????