1st time Blackstoner

Powak

Bout to be the proud owner of my first Blackstone here as soon as Amazon ships. 36” four burner. Gotta few questions:

what’s the cheapest and best stuff to season the griddle with? Can you get the surface hot for good maillard affect to make crisp smash burgers? How long do they take to heat up?

nolaegghead

I like to use unsaturated oils with high smoke points for seasoning.  But not olive oil.  Grapeseed oil, soy oil, almost any refined oil with high levels of unsaturated fats like omega 3/6/9.

Heats up in around 10-15 minutes.  Yes on enough heat for a maillard reaction, but that's not that high.  It gets much hotter.  There are temp gradients all over the place, you will quickly see the hottest areas visually.  They are where the flame is closes to the top.  Not even heat, unfortunately.  You have to work it.   To get even heat you would need either a very expensive banjo type burner with a million jets or an extremely thick top, maybe 3/4" range.

fishlessman

i just season with bacon now. dont think it even needs to be seasoned for smash burgers, let it rip on the highest setting a few minutes, then add the burger ball and smash, you want the first side to stick a bit