Seasoning an Oklahome Joe

[ov10fac]

I will be seasoning my new smoker today. The cooking grates are porcelain coated, so do they need to be seasoned? The lower grates are not coated so I will season them, but curious about the cooking grates.
Thanks.

 

[ov10fac]

Ok, just finished seasoning and in the process I did a "test" burn. Started with a bed of charcoal, a full chimney to start. That raised the temp to about 275 and held it there. When the temp began to fall I added more charcoal and the temp stabilized again about 275. The thing really like is the lack of wild temp swings I had on my Brinkman. I added wood to try and bring the temp up to 350. I was able to get the temp high enough finely after about an hour. Keeping it at 350+ was a bit of a challenge, and took a lot of wood, but it was worth it. I think in the future I'll rely more on charcoal to hold the temp steady and wood for smoking. Its going to be a journey and it will take some time but.....
The Joe has some thinks I really like. The temp control is something I really love. What a difference. The porcelain grates are really nice and should make cleaning easy. The temp probe access points in both ends are a great idea. So much nicer that having to close the lid on the probe wires. The overall construction is great. A very solid feel and the steel is think enough to hold heat really constant. I plan on putting some fire bricks in the bottom to help hold the temp and to maybe make the temp even more stable.
Some things I don't like, the intake vent on the fire box seems to be too small for high temps. I have to open the "ash door" to get enough air in for higher temps (over about 300). But that is fully workable.
Some things I will have to work on. The door of the smoke chamber leaks pretty bad as does the fire box lid. I think I can fix this with some smoker gaskets. The temperature is wildly different across the smoke chamber, like 100+ degree difference between the middle half and the end closest to the fire chamber and about 50+ difference between the center half and the exhaust end. I think I might be able to fix that with some "equalizer plates" (I think that's what they are called). The center half is very stable and temp is constant for both quarters.
All in all I am really happy with the smoker and look forward to my first smoke.

 

[ov10fac]

Thought you might like to see a chart of temps during the Seasoning process. I used 4 probes spaced approx at the 25% sections in the smoke area. Probe 4 is closest to the fire box, probe one is close to the exhaust stack. I thought it was interesting that the middle two probes measured almost exactly the same temp throughout the process. Probe 1 was a consistent 20 degrees warmer than the middle probes. Probe four was way hotter than the rest of the chamber. I will repeat the test at the first smoke later this year for comparison.
Here is the chart:

Temp on the left and time is in blue. Temps were taken every 15 minutes for the duration of the seasoning. Notice the lack of data on some of the times for probe 4. At those points the temp was too hot for my probe to record. That high temp could be an area of concern I think. It took a lot of fuel to reach 350 which was my target temp. The Joe seemed to like about 275 and it took a lot to get to the seasoning temp. Notice the fluctuations at the end. That was due to not having enough charcoal to keep a good coal bed. Good lesson for me and brought home some of the things I have read.