When do you put your meat on

[RobinC]

Just been reading the beginners sticky. And one of the posts in there sort of implied to wait until the cooker is up to temp before putting your meat on.

My modus operandi has always been to light minion then assemble the cooker and put the meat on straight away. I don't wait for it to get into a cooking zone. What's the logic behind waiting?

[Steve]

Firstly the cooker may not be burning cleanly when first assembled as you will be choking the fire in the first instance.

Secondly bringing it up and stabilising reduces the risk of a spike and overshooting your target temperature. Some cookers are more probed to this than others.

Hope that helps.

[RobinC]

How would it choke the fire? Surely if that happens it kind of implies that maybe you should have put more lit on in the first place as effectively you are waiting for it to "catch" more. The waiting for it to get up to temp just seems to be a waste of fuel to me.

Certainly open to new ideas and ways of working but have never seen the issues you mentioned. As you say other peoples mileage on different cookers may vary. I'm using a WSM.

[wade]

Getting it up to temperature first will make sure that the fuel is burning cleanly and also ensure that anything left in the BBQ from the last cook or clean will probably be burned off. However I guess that at the end of the day it is personal preference and if it works for you then that is great. I always wait till mine is up to temperature before introducing the meat.

[RickRS]

I start with hot water when smoking. So, my routine for the WSM involves loading unlit charcoal and the wood chunks to the ring and starting some charcoal in a chimney (minion method start). I put a full electric kettle of water on at that time. Since it takes three pot of water to fill the water bowl I will put the first pot of boiling water in as I dump the lit charcoal on the ring and stack the middle section and bowl. WSM lid goes on while I start a second kettle. The second and third kettle of water will be hot but not necessarily boiling, so I estimate it's 10-15 minutes after first adding the lit charcoal I finish this and add the meat. This delay to top up the bowl is all I allow. Typically the smoker is quickly up to temperature or close when doing this.

I have always cleaned the grates in the sink between cooking sessions so I'm not concerned with burning off any nasty stuff.

Rick

[RobinC]

Yeah Rick your routine is pretty similar to mine. I always clean my WSM grates away from the cooker as the WSM never really gets hot enough to do a proper burn off imho. On the kettles I do tend to burn stuff off along with intermittent cleans in the sink.

I don't get the fuel burning cleaning thing to be honest. But that's probably because I've never had any issues in that regard. I used to wait for the WSM to get up to temp but haven't found any difference in final taste from loading earlier

[Steve]

When you light you're coals they get red hot and burn at the same rate as they would in an open grill. When you assemble the cooker, the oxygen supply is restricted, this chokes the fire down, it then settles at a stable burn rate but when you first restrict the oxygen feed the fire will burn dirty for a little while. You see this in the colour of the smoke.

WSM's are also very prone to spikes.

[RobinC]

It's the assembling of the cooker that is restricting the oxygen. Adding the meat isn't restricting the oxygen (unless you really really pack the cooker and stop airflow which isn't the case if you've put a butt or two on it). So whether the meat is on or not really shouldn't make a difference to the fire. Yes its acting as a heat sink and dissipating heat of the fire but that's not the same as saying it smothers the fire.

Re the heat spikes on a WSM I only experience these when using lump never get them personally when using briquettes.

Still it's good to hear different viewpoints/tips

[Steve]

You're bang on, it's the cooker assembly that causes the choking effect but the point I probably wasn't clear on was that if your meat is in there when the fire is burning dirty then it's potentially going to take on acrid smoke.

I can believe you on the briquettes not causing spikes as they tend to take more oxygen to get them going. Lump does react even if you have the WSM lid off too long. I only cook with lump though so have had to get used to working towards preventing spikes