How to Maintain an Electric Smoker: A Pitmaster's Guide
To maintain your Pro Smoker home electric smoker, every good pitmaster should check the equipment each season, clean and season your smoker regularly, and get your mobile app ready.
The Pre-Season Tune-Up: Inspect, Replace, and Upgrade
The pre-season tune-up is where pitmasters separate themselves from weekend cooks. Check every wear part through a real inspection and replace what's failed. Here are a few things to check:
1. Validate your probes are operational.
Missing data can cost you a cook. Replace any of three meat probes you may have added or the main Pro Series RTD Probe which measures the heat inside the cabinet. This article and video provides some detailed instructions to replace the RTD probe if needed.
2. Test the heating element.
Off-season corrosion is the number one cause of mid-cook element failure. Five minutes with a multimeter beats losing a brisket. If you need a replacement, we have one available: 4-Wire Burner and a handy video to help you install it.
3. Replace any damaged seals.
A leaky gasket lets smoke and heat escape, which breaks every other temperature variable downstream. Parts you'll need: Neoprene Sponge Door Gasket, Gasket Adhesive.
4. Inspect the sawdust pan, burner drip pan, and water pan.
Warped or pitted pans can wreck smoke production, trap residue, or harbor bacteria you can't fully scrub out. Replace any of these three at the first sign of damage: 7 1/2" Sawdust Pan, Burner Drip Pan, and Water Pan.
How Often to Clean and Season Your Electric Smoker
You should deep clean your smoker after every five smokes, and re-season after every deep clean. But how many pitmasters actually do all three? Be honest.
The full cleaning cadence:
- Drip pan: clean after every cook
- Deep clean: after every five smokes or any heavy use
- Re-season: after every deep clean and once at the start of every season
Pro-level pitmasters work a healthy cleaning and seasoning cycle into their process to maintain optimal cooking flavors and performance.
Get step-by-step instructions on how to clean your Pro Smoker smokehouse, and how to season your smoker with these articles:
How To Clean Your Pro Smoker Smokehouse
How to Season Your Pro Smoker Smokehouse
Use the Pro Smoker Mobile App to Monitor Performance
A key feature that sets apart the Pro Smoker vertical, electric smokers is the ability to monitor and track your smokers using the Pro Smoker mobile app. It's also a great way to zero in on any performance issues that might need attention.
As you track your cooks, you should see clearly degradation in heat or time. See here a guide to setting up and using the mobile app, if you aren't already.
Following this quick maintenance checklist will help you get the most out of your Pro Smoker smokehouse and elevate your game beyond beginner into pro smoking.
