Seaoning of new Smoker question

[k-dog80]

HI everyone, so i am new to this site and smoking food.  I'm very interested and excited to get going with. 

First off, i have River Grille Vertical smoking chamber with a side firebox compartment. 

I'm getting ready to season it, and based on the reviews i read on my particular smoker, i fairly certain it will be a task to maintain heat for extended time.  So, i went and got gasket material to seal the chamber door, and lid to side firebox as well as got the lava rocks high heat caulk to help seal the weak welds of the walls of the chamber and firebox. 

my question is, when i start the fire in the box with charcoal, can i just throw any old seasoned wood to get the fire roaring if i need to keep the heat up?  Or should i just use the apple chunks that i was going to use for cooking? 

Also, the vertical chamber ALSO has an area at the bottom to place charcoal and wood...shoudl i fill both compartments (side firebox AND vertical chamber) with coal and fire them both up?  or just the side firebox?  Any help would be much appreciated, thanks and im looking forward to smoking meat! 

K-dog

 

[kaveman42]

Hi K-dog,

Welcome to the forum. After you oil up the entire inside of your smoker just use charcoal in the firebox, no need to use wood. You're only going for the heat to burn off any chemicals on the material from the factory.

 

[k-dog80]

Ok great. Thank you for your reply.

 

[kaveman42]

No problem, good luck! Enjoy your first smoke.

 

[SmokinAl]

I kinda disagree.

When you season the smoker, yes part of the process is to burn off any manufacturing oils or residue.

But also part of the process is to put a nice coating of smoke on the inside of the smoker.

So in this case some white smoke is OK.

I would try to get the heat up to the 300 degree range for a couple of hours.

Start the fire with charcoal, then add a couple of splits & keep adding splits after that to maintain the temp.

Al

 

[gary s]

  Good evening and welcome to the forum from a nice chilly day here in East Texas, and the best site on the web. Lots of great              people with tons of information on just about everything.

        Gary

 

[k-dog80]

al, thanks for the reply.  your suggestion is exactly what i did.  I wanted to see how hot i could get it anyway, so i can get a feel of how to regulate the temp.  so i ended up keeping it around 250-300 for almost 3 hours.  i thought the same about the white smoke, the more the merrier.

i do ahve another question about the stack.  during a smoke, is the stack wide open?  or how/when should i be adjusting the stack, if ever?