Well, you learn a new thing everyday...

[BCSmoker]

Wouldn't you know it...if you go to preheat your smoker (in my case BDS4) with the vent at 1/4 open, thinking it'll heat up quicker, rest assured you will be 100% wrong!
Yes, I read everywhere that the vent should be in the permanent position of WIDE open, but no...the Einstein in me said "it'll work". It took 1 hour for the temp to go from 51F to 95F as opposed to 51F to 225F in 40min with te vent wide open! I assume that this is because I loaded the water bowl with hot water, to which it became a "coolant" of sorts within the enclosed "chamber". DANG, an extra 1 to smoke a turkey breast! Oh well, I guess I learned my lesson....read and learn within the BSF...so many years of experience should never be neglected.

Lesson learned

[KyNola]

Moisture trapped within the tower will actually hold the temps down.  Thanks for posting so other folks can learn from your experience.

[beefmann]

Moisture trapped within the tower will actually hold the temps down.  Thanks for posting so other folks can learn from your experience.

x2

[Habanero Smoker]

Different people have different experiences that they can learn from. You need to use the method that works best for yourself. I'm an advocate for vent adjustment. There is a balance between having the vent too closed (which can cause condensation and loss of heat), or to too wide open where you are loosing too much heat through the opening, thus bringing your temperatures down. I rarely run wide open, even when I only had one element. I have never experience such a slow rise in temperature, even during much colder weather. Probably using hot water in a small enclosed cabinet that was at 51°F saturated the air and brought the RH to 100% (or close to it) rather quickly. Also if you replaced the small bowl with a large pan, you are creating a situation that is the same as cooking a load of chicken with skin. If you are using a pan of water, you have a large surface of water, which can put out a lot of steam (evaporation).

Next time take your experiment one step further. When you are running with the vent wide open, and after it gets to your set temperature, start closing the vent and see if the temperature either goes up or down. Of course this will depend on what you have in the Bradley. If it is a load of chicken with skin, then you may want to remain 3/4 to fully open until most of the moisture is expelled.

[terry08]

Great read and advice.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2

[pokermeister]

Learn from others' mistakes- you won't live long enough to make them all yourself.

[BCSmoker]

Hey Hab, you may have something there. I believe the problem I came across was due to the fact that I had the vent closed right from the get go. If I preheat with the vent wide open with my water boiling hot, bring it up to temp, then play with the vent...we'll see how it goes tomorrow