Warm up question...

[Sam3]

When you warm up your smoker, what do you generally warm it up to prior to putting in your sausage, ribs, etc?

Do you turn on the heat plate on the smoke generator to warm that up as well?

[TedEbear]

I warm it to whatever temp I plan on cooking at. With dual elements it only takes 9-10 minutes to get up to temp and heat recovery times when I open the door are about 1/2 that.

I also turn on the SG at the same time.  After I load the smoker with whatever I'm cooking I manually advance the pucks until the first one will be moved onto the heat plate the next time it auto advances.  Some people like to get the smoke rolling before loading the meat but to me it means wasting smoke when I open the door to put the meat in.

[squirtthecat]

Yep, turn them both on.   It takes a good 20+ minutes for my smoke generator to get hot enough to get the pucks smoking.

I usually give it at least a 30 minute head start while I'm inside futzing with the meat/cheese/nuts/whatever.

[Sam3]

Great. Thanks for the help guys.

[OU812]

I turn on my smoker and let it fully warm up to 20 deg. above what Im cookin then when I put what Im cookin in the smoker I turn it down to the temp I gonna cook with. Then I turn on the smoke generator and advance 2 pucks.

This allows the generator to warm up in the colder months so theres no stripped gears or anything stickin due to the cold and only advance 2 pucks so the hot plate has time to warm up before a puck gets there.

I do it the same way year round,,,that way when Im on auto pilot I know its gonna work.  ;D

[viper125]

I load my pucks and add 1 hour to front of smoking time then turn it all one. by then the pucks advance three times the burner is warm and i usually have meat in just before smoke starts.

[devo]

If you have to let your generator warm up more than 20 minutes there is something wrong with it.
OU812 has you covered on the times. I use his method I have smoked in 40*F below weather before.

[viper125]

If you have to let your generator warm up more than 20 minutes there is something wrong with it.
OU812 has you covered on the times. I use his method I have smoked in 40*F below weather before.

SG works just fine. Just gives smoker plenty time to warm up and saves me advancing pucks. Also if it lets me make sure advance is working on SG before getting into the smoking.

[devo]

If you have to let your generator warm up more than 20 minutes there is something wrong with it.
OU812 has you covered on the times. I use his method I have smoked in 40*F below weather before.

SG works just fine. Just gives smoker plenty time to warm up and saves me advancing pucks. Also if it lets me make sure advance is working on SG before getting into the smoking.

All i;m saying Viper is if your SG heating element takes longer to get to temp than 20 min. there might be a problem with it. Plug in a soldering iron and try and touch it after 5 min. and see what happens, same thing with your SG element. We are not all retired (yet) to have the free time waiting for stuff to happen  ;)

[viper125]

Well I understand but dont think you do. LOL If when I start heating the smoker i start the pucks. I still feel like I'm rushing to get it in before the pucks start smoking. Joke i did do that one time. Mostly I don't Just mean I'm getting old. And what I call hustling, is probably a slow crawl to you. LOL Sorry for interrupting. And yes the plate heats up fast. I can prove it too! Just check out the fingers with no print.