How to Season a New Pit Boss Pellet Grill (Step by Step)

Short answer: fill the hopper with a cheap cooking pellet, prime the auger, run the grill with no food inside at 400-450°F for 30-45 minutes, shut it down properly, then oil the grates once it is cool. That is the whole job, and you do it once.

Seasoning — "burn-in" is the more honest word — is the one piece of pellet grill setup that genuinely matters and gets skipped most often. A Pit Boss is not harder to season than any other pellet grill, but it has two brand-specific quirks worth knowing before you plug it in: the auger ships dry, and the P setting does not mean what most new owners assume. Both are covered below.

If you are seasoning a Traeger rather than a Pit Boss, our how to season a new Traeger guide covers that one's startup cycle.

What Seasoning Actually Does

1. It burns off what the factory left behind

The interior of a new grill carries manufacturing oils, metal dust, protective coatings and packaging residue. None of it is dangerous once burned off and all of it is unpleasant in your first cook. High heat with no food inside is the only way to remove it.

2. It proves the grill works before food is involved

A pellet grill is an appliance with four things that can fail out of the box: the auger motor, the hot-rod igniter, the combustion fan and the controller. The burn-in exercises all four. Finding a dead igniter during a dry run on a Tuesday is a warranty claim. Finding it with eight pounds of pork shoulder on the counter is a ruined Saturday.

3. It starts the seasoned layer

Oil applied to clean, hot-cycled metal polymerises into a thin, slick, carbon-based layer — the same thing that makes a cast-iron pan non-stick. That layer is why fish and chicken skin eventually stop welding themselves to the grates.

Before You Start: The Pit Boss-Specific Bits

The auger ships empty. This is the single most common cause of a failed first ignition on any Pit Boss. There are no pellets in the auger tube, so when the igniter heats, there is nothing in the firepot to catch. If your controller has a Prime function, use it. If not, start the ignition cycle and be patient — the auger needs time to carry pellets the full length of the tube.

The P setting is not a temperature control. You will see P0 through P7 on the controller and assume it adjusts heat. It does not. The "P" stands for pause — the gap between the auger's fixed 18-second feed cycles — and it only applies to the SMOKE setting. The moment you dial in an actual temperature, the controller reads the probe and ignores the P setting entirely. The factory default is P4: 18 seconds of feed, then a 115-second pause, per Pit Boss's own documentation. Leave it there. Our Pit Boss P setting guide covers the handful of cases where changing it is correct.

Check the firepot is seated and empty, the grease tray and bucket are installed, and the grates are in place before you start. Read your model's manual for the shutdown cycle, because it differs slightly across the Navigator, FB2 and Carbon lines.

What You Need

• A bag of inexpensive all-purpose cooking hardwood pellets — not heating pellets, ever.
• A high-smoke-point oil: canola, grapeseed or vegetable. Not olive oil, not butter.
• A paper towel or lint-free cloth, and heat-resistant gloves.
• About an hour, mostly unattended.

Step by Step

Step 1 — Fill the hopper

Load it with the cheap cooking pellet. A full hopper is not required; enough to run 45 minutes at high heat plus the startup is. If the bag has been open in a garage, check that the pellets snap crisply rather than crumbling — soft pellets mean absorbed moisture, and that is the main cause of auger jams. See how to store wood pellets.

Step 2 — Prime the auger

Run Prime if your controller has it. Otherwise start the ignition cycle and let the auger work. You are listening for the auger motor turning and watching for pellets to begin dropping into the firepot.

Step 3 — Start the ignition cycle

Follow your manual: lid position during startup varies by model, and getting it wrong is the second most common cause of a failed first light. You should hear the fan, hear the auger cycling, and within a few minutes see white smoke as the firepot catches.

If nothing lights, do not keep re-triggering it — pellets pile up in the firepot and the next successful ignition becomes a flare-up. Clear the firepot and start again. Our pellet grill flame out guide covers diagnosis.

Step 4 — Run at 400-450°F for 30-45 minutes

Once it is lit, close the lid and set 400-450°F. Let it reach temperature, then time 30 to 45 minutes from there.

Expect heavy smoke and a chemical smell in the first ten minutes. That is the residue burning off and it is the whole point. It should taper noticeably. Do not open the lid during the burn — you are letting out the heat doing the work.

This is also your first look at how the grill behaves. Note how long it took to come up to temperature and how steadily it holds, because that is your baseline for everything later. Pit Boss grills are solid for their price but show wider swings than premium double-wall models, more noticeably in wind and cold — that is normal, and our temperature swings guide explains the mechanics.

Step 5 — Run the shutdown cycle

Do not unplug it. Use the shutdown cycle so the fan clears remaining pellets out of the firepot. Skipping this leaves unburned fuel sitting in the pot, which is how the next startup becomes a flare-up.

Step 6 — Oil the grates once cool

When the grill has cooled enough to handle the grates safely but is still warm, wipe them with a thin coat of high-smoke-point oil. Thin is the operative word — a heavy coat goes gummy rather than slick. This is the step that creates the non-stick layer.

Step 7 — Cook something forgiving

You are done. Cook chicken thighs, wings, burgers or sausages first: fatty, forgiving of temperature wander, quick, and the rendered fat keeps seasoning the grates. Our first cook on a pellet grill guide covers the whole first session, and Traeger smoked chicken thighs works on any pellet grill.

Save the brisket for cook four or five.

What to Look For When You Buy the Supporting Gear

Before the picks, the criteria — because three of the four things a new Pit Boss owner should buy are easy to get wrong.

Pellets: cooking grade, cheap, and dry. For burn-in the flavor is irrelevant, so cost per pound is the only metric that matters — but it must be a cooking pellet with a stated hardwood species. Bags advertising BTU per pound and ash percentage are heating pellets, and they must never go in a cooking grill. Our heating pellets guide covers how to tell them apart.

A cover: fitment before fabric. Pit Boss grills have the classic barrel-and-hopper silhouette, which means third-party covers cut from the same measurements fit as well as OEM for a fraction of the price. What matters is that it is cut for your model family — a loose universal cover flaps in wind, abrades the lid finish and forms pockets that hold standing water against the steel. Buy it now rather than later; the grill starts rusting the first wet week, not the first wet year.

Probes: a spare is cheaper than a ruined cook. The meat probe is thin wire living in heat and getting handled, and it is one of the first things to fail on any pellet grill. A spare costs a fraction of what it costs you mid-brisket.

Grates: an upgrade, not a necessity. Cast iron over the Flame Broiler is the upgrade Pit Boss owners most often make, and it genuinely improves searing — but do it after you have cooked on the factory grates a few times, not before.

What to Buy With a New Pit Boss

Do You Ever Need to Re-Season?

Not the full burn-in. You re-season the grates — oil them again — after any deep clean that strips the surface, and that is it.

What you do need is routine maintenance, because the firepot is the part that affects every cook. Vacuum the firepot and ash roughly every 40 to 60 pounds of pellets burned, keep the grease path clear, and change the drip liner in season. Our maintenance schedule sets the intervals, and how long do pellet grills last explains why the grease path in particular decides the grill's lifespan.

If you hit an error code in the first few weeks, our Pit Boss error codes guide decodes them — and in the warranty window, a genuine fault is a claim, not a project.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to season a new Pit Boss?

Yes. Manufacturing oils and metal dust need to burn off before food goes on, and it proves the auger, igniter and fan work.

How long and how hot?

30-45 minutes at 400-450°F after it reaches temperature, lid closed, no food, then the full shutdown cycle.

Do I need to prime the auger?

Yes — the tube ships empty, and that is the usual reason a first ignition fails.

What pellets for the burn-in?

A cheap all-purpose cooking hardwood pellet. Never heating pellets.

Do I oil the grates?

Yes, after it cools, with a thin coat of a high-smoke-point oil. Not olive oil.

What should I cook first?

Thighs, wings, burgers or sausages. See first cook on a pellet grill.

Does the P setting need changing first?

No. Leave it at the factory P4 — it only affects the SMOKE setting. See the P setting guide.

The Bottom Line

Prime the auger, burn it at 400-450°F for 30-45 minutes with nothing inside, shut it down properly, oil the grates, then cook chicken thighs. One hour, once, and you have both a clean grill and proof that every moving part works while the warranty is new.

Then buy a cover before the first wet week. On a Pit Boss, that single accessory does more for the grill's lifespan than anything else you will spend money on.

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Explore more: Pit Boss P Setting Explained | Pit Boss Error Codes | Best Pit Boss Pellet Grill | Best Pit Boss Accessories | First Cook on a Pellet Grill | How to Season a New Traeger | How Long Do Pellet Grills Last