Seasoning a MES?

If you want to get a peek at the manual before you get your hands on the smoker, here is a link to the MES support website and you can download the manual for the appropriate model.

http://www.masterbuilt.com/manuals.aspx

I don't have a MES, but used the following process for my cleaning and seasoning my home built / welded Charcoal fired cabinet smoker:

1. Make sure it was clean. I washed it out with a brush and wiped all residue off with alcohol and then water / detergent.
2. Rinsed it off with my pressure washer.
3. Burn out - started a fire and really stoked it up. The temp ran up as high as I could take it (had to remove the gauges as they were being buried, and I didn't want to damage them).
4. When it had cooled down, I started a normal fire and sprayed everything down with vegetable oil. I used the canned aerosol spray. I opened it up a couple times and made sure everything was well coated. I threw on some smoke wood, and walked away.
5. Here is a pic of the nice color after it had cooled down:

From there, load it up and happy smoking! This is what worked in my situation. Hope that gives you some ideas.

BBQ Eng.

Hi lowcountrygamecock,

I recently bought the same unit and went through the seasoning process. Here's what Masterbuilt says to do:

1) Set the temp to 275 (the max)
2) Set the time to three hours
3) Let her rip with the vent wide open
4) After two hours and fifteen minutes (in other words, for the last 45 minutes) put a couple of handfuls of wood chips in in the wood loader and dump them in. The temp will spike up quite a bit and it will smoke like a banshee.

That's the long and short of it according to the manual. After I did that -and it had cooled back down - I pulled out all of the shelves, the water pan and the drip tray and washed them with dish soap in the the laundry sink. I also cleaned the window with a non-chemical cleaner. That's all there is to it.

...used mine for the first time this weekend, and it worked great. Have fun!

Paul

What Paul said.