Originally Posted by
oley55
most of the silicone mats I've come across include instructions for heat seasoning them. I'll guess you didn't and the smoke was merely surface contaminants cooking off the mats. I precook my mats and mini-ice cube trays.
For what it's worth, the super cheapo silicone mats seem to work just fine for our purposes as long as you don't have abnormal hot spots in your oven. When I was first in the market for silicone mats, I read a lot of reviews and most of the negative reviews seemed to be from heat failure. I'd put a lot of money on crappy ovens vs bad silicone mats. Taking temp readings at various points of your chosen rack level in the oven is probably a good idea, although a convection/air recirculation type oven mitigates hotspot issues, IMO.