Questions

[fulldraw]

Hello all, i am new to the forum and i am finding a lot of useful information.  I just recieved a digital 6 rack smoker for x-mas.  I was wondering if most of you preheat your smoker before use or if you just put in the meat and set the temp?  Also i was smoking some venison salami at 170 F and the smoke side only read up to 84 F the whole time, is this normal or am i doing something wrong? Thanks for your time.

[Wildcat]

Welcome to the forum.  I do not know much about the digital, but others on here do.  I have the stainless original and I always pre-heat for hot smoking.

[fulldraw]

Do you preheat by just turning on the oven side and then when it comes up to temp turn on the smoker side?  Thanks

[jmielke]

I have the digital too and I preheat the oven side always. But sometimes, if I have a recipe that calls for the meat to be dry before it goes in the smoker--and I believe I've read here that that is always a requirement--I'll put the meat in just before the oven reaches the desired temperature.

[Wildcat]

Speaking from just the non-digital smoker, I recommend that you preheat utilizing both.  If I want a box temp of say 205 for smoking/cooking, I will preheat to about 115 to 225 and then add the food and once the box temp gets close to what you want then adjust to maintain.  When you open that door to do anything, your box temp will drop rapidly.  Therefore, do not sneak extra peeks if you can avoid it or unless you are trying to lower the temp some ;).

[West Coast Kansan]

Greetings and welcome.  I would recommend always warming the 6R to help the unit come back to temperature when you put your food in the tower. 

Sorry I dont really understand your question about temps. If your talking about the set temp being 170 and the DBS temp display being 84 that would be unusual.

Are you selecting degrees F ?

[Gizmo]

I always preheat the oven box (unless cold smoking) and the puck.  I have seen pucks that were not burnt all the way through when I first started and believe they were the first on the burner and without the burner being preheated, I suspected the first puck did not get a change to burn through before getting dumped.

The difference in temp reading is the set point of the oven and the temperature probe in the oven.  I have seen a large difference in those as well.  It is common when you first put in your meat and is more noticable (stays a large difference longer) when you have a heavily loaded box and don't preheat.  As the meat comes up to temperature, the reading of the built in thermometer will read closer to the air temperature of the box.

The best advice here is to not use the digital thermometer on the BS display.  Get a remote digital thermometer and monitor the box temp just above the meat if possible.  Toward the middle of the tower if loaded with goodies for an average.  The tower will vary in temperature from bottom to top and from front to back but will lessen if you install a stir fan (convection style).

[West Coast Kansan]

Gizmo, how long does it take your DBS 6R to come back to say 200 on a typical temperature day when you put in a good sized load?

[Gizmo]

I never really look at the time, just the thermometer (and funny now that I read my previous post) on the DBS.  If I had to guess, 45 minutes to an hour.  Sometimes I get impatient and after the 1st 20 minutes of the puck burner I'll toss in the meat if I am not heavily loading the box. 

[West Coast Kansan]

45 to hour not that much different than my DBS 4R. I too should probably be more diciplined on warm up but... anyway wondered about side by side differences 4R to 6R ,,, would have guessed 6R would move slower.

[Gizmo]

I actually wonder if the inside is any taller or if the shelf spacing is just closer for the 6 rack.  I have 33 inches of height inside.

[West Coast Kansan]

25 and change inside high. 

[fulldraw]

So to preheat just turn on the oven side and then turn on the smoke side when the oven side has heated up?  I think that I had better get a digital thermometer to stick through the vent.  Thanks for the help.

[Mr Walleye]

I agree with Gizmo. Preheat the puck burner as well that way when you start shooting pucks through your first puck burns more completely.

Mike

[West Coast Kansan]

Yep on the Digital Thermometer. Great tool, you will be glad you have one.  ET73 as I am sure you read is excellent providing one probe for IT and one for box.  Includes remote which is nifty to use to keep an eye on things w/o visiting the smoker (you can still go out if you want but really dont need to). 

Warm up with both the Puck and Heater is the way to go... you can be sure as said above the first puck will smoke.  If the first puck is not already on the burn plate, just use the wood advance button to put one there when you load the meat.