Pre-heating smoker

[pwven]

Most of the info I see state that the smoker must be pre-heated before the meat is loaded. With the low and slow proses of smoking, why can the meat not be loaded into the cold oven and started?

[KyNola]

If the smoker isn't preheated it will take even longer to hit your smoker target temp when loading a cold smoker with cold meat.

[Grouperman941]

Most of the info I see state that the smoker must be pre-heated before the meat is loaded. With the low and slow proses of smoking, why can the meat not be loaded into the cold oven and started?

While what KyNola says is true, I often throw the meat in before fully preheated and roll smoke. Turns out fine, as long as the puck burner is hot enough to not waste the first puck.

[pwven]

If the smoker isn't preheated it will take even longer to hit your smoker target temp when loading a cold smoker with cold meat.

Thanks for your comments KyNola. I do not seem to have the heating problems with my smoker as discussed here on the forum. It is not very cold here jet, will wait and see. I am going to try and do a cold start to see what happens.

[pwven]

Most of the info I see state that the smoker must be pre-heated before the meat is loaded. With the low and slow proses of smoking, why can the meat not be loaded into the cold oven and started?

While what KyNola says is true, I often throw the meat in before fully preheated and roll smoke. Turns out fine, as long as the puck burner is hot enough to not waste the first puck.

What I will do Groureman941 is put the meat in the oven, make sure everything is setup correct, close the oven and start the oven and puck burner with no pucks in the unit. Add the pucks to the puck holder, 15 to 20 minutes after starting and advance the puck until one is on the heating pad.
My units heating pad gets hot very quickly and the pucks burn out at least 90% before being pushed off by the next puck.