Burning off reverse flow prior to use

huxleypig · Post by **huxleypig** » October 10th, 2016, 3:47 am

I am building a 24" reverse flow smoker and I've heard you need to light a fire inside prior to painting and cooking. Can someone explain to me why this needs to be done, and what this process does ?

Cheers Glenn ( Australia )

Post by **Pete Mazz** » October 10th, 2016, 4:11 am

You want to burn off any oils or chemicals that may be on the steel. Burn at ~350 for an hour will do. After it cools down to the touch, wipe or spray the inside of the CC and grates with cooking oil or such and burn a normal fire to season the steel. After a few cooks you'll have that nice black seasoning built up and it will prevent rust and add flavor to your cooks.

huxleypig · Post by **huxleypig** » October 10th, 2016, 5:39 am

Thanks Pete.

Post by **Rodcrafter** » October 10th, 2016, 8:21 am

Dirtytires · Post by **Dirtytires** » October 10th, 2016, 10:46 pm

For the record.....I never built a fire inside my cook chamber. I hit it with a wire wheel, wiped it well with solvent and then scrubbed it pretty good with detergent. Then sprayed with PAM, wiped it even with a cloth and ran the smoker wide open with a medium fire in the firebox for about 6 hours.

No problems, no regrets.

As a sidenote, I started with new pipe and steel.

Rufus T. Doofus · Post by **Rufus T. Doofus** » October 12th, 2016, 2:53 pm

I recently converted a used 275 gal fuel oil tank into a smoker. It was a lot of work to get the fuel smell out of it. before I cut the opening for the doors I flushed the tank twice with hot water and 10 full bottles of Dawn liquid dish soap. (I have a hot water hose connection.) The tank still smelled of fuel after that so I filled it one more time before cutting/drilling so sparks couldn't ignite.

It was much easier to scrub and clean the inside of the tank with the door opening cut into it. I noticed the "cleaned" areas would get slightly rusty overnight. But it still smelled like fuel.

I built the smoker anyway, and when it was ready to go I ran it as hot as I could for 8 hours. This was about 325-to-350 degrees F. The fuel smell was gone after that. I wire wheeled the whole inside with my drill and fired it again for 8 hours the next day. The rust didn't come back after the wire wheel treatment and smoke. On the third day I "painted" all of the interior surfaces with a thin layer rendered pig fat/lard. 3 full quarts of it to cover everything. I fired the smoker for another 8 hours at 325-350. No hint of fuel smell and everything is coated in a black non-stick surface now.

Of course this regimen might be overkill. But my CC is/was a 25 year old fuel oil storage tank. I didn't want to take any chances. And I'm sure there are folks here that would say I'm stupid for using such a tank for cooking.

Post by **Rodcrafter** » October 12th, 2016, 9:09 pm

I don't think anyone would say you were stupid for using that tank. I do know there are more than one way to skin a cat. But burning a wood fire in the tank would have done a lot toward cleaning the smell out.
After you use your Smoker for a good bit it will build up some undesirable stuff on the walls. What I do is once in a while run her up hot and spray the inside with the hose. It doesn't take away the seasoning but all those flakes of dried smoke so they don't fall on my Q

Making memories!

dportz87 · Post by **dportz87** » October 29th, 2016, 7:35 am

I bought a old air compressor tank, when I cut the door in it I found that there was a lot of oil from the compressor leaking. Cleaned the junk out and made a fire to burn the oil off.

Post by **Big T** » October 29th, 2016, 9:54 pm

I use a lot of old tanks and pipe for my builds. I usually don't know what was in them so I burn them out real hot for a while, just to make me feel better about it.

Smokinchicken · Post by **Smokinchicken** » October 29th, 2016, 10:54 pm

I sandblast the inside of the tank. Then I rinse out the inside with water and dry with propane torch. Shortly thereafter I put vegetable oil in a sprayer and coat the inside of the CC. Build fire in firebox and get CC up to 350 for a couple of hours. Start cooking.

forty_creek · Post by **forty_creek** » October 31st, 2016, 4:56 pm

I built a wood fire in my CC,FB and WC to rid it of impurities. It did cause some warping but once it was cooled it was easy to fix. I never plan on it getting that hot again.
Then I cleaned it out. Then I took cooking oil and put in a clean spray bottle and coated everything inside and seasoned it. If I saw a hot spot I would hit again and again. I used less than a gallon of cooking oil on a 500gall RF w/ WC.

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huxleypig · Post by **huxleypig** » November 1st, 2016, 3:55 am

Because my build has taken quite a while, I had a lot of surface rust inside the food chamber and also weld spatter and crap. Should I get the internals sand blasted before I season it ? I'm having it all externally blasted anyway prior to painting.

mp4 · Post by **mp4** » November 1st, 2016, 5:10 am

I did - it doesn't take much time at all for them to blast the inside so additional cost would be minimal.

Post by **Rodcrafter** » November 1st, 2016, 6:27 am

That is a good idea since you're getting the outside done anyway.

Making memories!

Post by **Big T** » November 1st, 2016, 4:47 pm

huxleypig · Post by **huxleypig** » December 8th, 2016, 7:37 am

I finally finished my smoker.

Post by **Rodcrafter** » December 8th, 2016, 7:40 am

Let's see the pictures. You know what we say "no pictures, never happened"

Making memories!

The Czar · Post by **The Czar** » December 8th, 2016, 7:55 am

Yeah that

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Post by **Big T** » December 8th, 2016, 7:22 pm

Squiggle · Post by **Squiggle** » December 9th, 2016, 6:42 am

Totally

temurf · Post by **temurf** » December 9th, 2016, 1:00 pm

Rodcrafter wrote:Let's see the pictures. You know what we say "no pictures, never happened"

Making memories!

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