How best to pre-heat and then vary temp. through the smoke?

[chiroken]

My first preheat is on the go! (seasoned already). Scanning posts to figure this out. I turned on smoke generator and oven together and had it set to 250^ and is currently pre-heating. It defaults to 4 hours I believe. Not sure of the best procedure once it hits 250.

Once pre-heated I'm thinking to load the pucks, open the door, load the jerky, push the wood button until I see the 1st puck reach the element, then close the door and lower oven temp to 140^ to start.

What to do with the  timer settings?  For smoke, can I re-push the smoke timer button and lower it down to 2hrs (my desired smoke time)? Do I just leave it higher than my desired smoke time as once no more pucks are there to advance nothing more will happen. Do I do this before or after I load the pucks and hit the wood (advance) button?

As I have no idea how long this will take to finish the jerky, do I also re-set the oven timer to 8hrs or something so it doesn't shut off? And as I want to increase the heat (based on reading posts) over time do I just hit the oven temp button and raise it to what I want, when I want?

Thanks a bunch

[classicrockgriller]

You need to have a secondary way of monitoring the Cabinet temp as the digital temp gauge may read higher or lower than actual temp.

[Habanero Smoker]

I don't have the digital, but from what I've read you can adjust the timer and temperature as soon as it turns on or at any time after that. For jerky you don't want to preheat to 250, and if you have the generator attached to the cabinet, you don't want it running no longer then you plan to apply smoke. The generator will add (in this case) unwanted heat, making it difficult for you to maintain low temperatures.