PRE-HEAT: Most if not all recipes, require preheating the smoker (or grill, oven, etc). Why not put the meat in while you are right there, instead of coming back in 10 or so minutes? I would think the meat would just start cooking at the lower temp.
Someone must have a good reason for which I am not aware.
Most smoking apparatus burning charcoal or wood need preheated to get to a clean smoke state. When starting a fire there is an over abundance of dirty,acrid smoke that you do not want to cook with.
My guess would be it gives you a more consistent way to estimate cook time since you will always be starting the cook at the same temperature. It may not be as significant in a low and slow cook, but on a hot and fast cook I think it would affect how the meat cooks and may dry out the meat. Oakgrovebacon makes a good point. Of course, what her wrote absolutely applies to a charcoal or wood fire, but therevwould have to be other reasons when using a smokeless gas fire.
Last edited by LA Pork Butt; May 13, 2019, 04:32 AM.
Indoor oven recipes always carry this instruction because of the way ovens preheat—at full blast until temp is reached. Some foods placed in at that stage could be ruined. I do it on outdoor cookers to clear the smoke and stabilize the cooking environment.
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I most often put the meat in as the smoker is pre-heating. If anything it will help deepen the smoke ring. Rarely do I wait until up to temp. The relatively brief amount of time there's any thick acrid smoke will not affect your meat, I've tried it to see and for my cookers I have dispelled that myth.
EDIT: These comments largely refer to my charcoal & pellet cookers. I need to add though that with my stickburner I do give it a bit of a preheat. Stickburners can put out a LOT of bad smoke initially. I will wait for that to clean up and for the 600+lbs of steel to warm up, but not necessarily all the way. I will usually only wait until 175-190 with it.
You made me a convert to this method, Huskee, when using my WSCGC. It goes through a short window of white smoke between 200 and 225°, but that literally lasts a minute or two. I like putting the cold moist meat in at 180° or so--I agree, the smoke ring is pretty and the temp stabilizes with the meat already on board.
Thanks for the tip--I've been using it for a couple of years now with great results.
I’m with you all with the exception I put the wood underneath the charcoal in my WSM from watching Harry videos. I will toss one piece on top after I put the meat on just to get things going.
Can't answer the why question but in my vertical gas smoker l mostly put my meat in during the preheat but have always waited when using charcoal or wood on my other cookers.
The only reason I wait is the quality of the smoke. If you want to capture bitter, acrid smoke in your meat, by all means throw it on right away. If you want to let the fire get established a little more and calm down to a thin blue smoke, then wait. Doesn't mean you have to be at the ultimate cook temp, just means that I would avoid placing it in the cooker immediately.
But that, as Sir Huskee says, may be a myth. I just reason better safe than sorry, do as you will otherwise, the smoke police ain't gonna come to your house.
It depends on the type of cooker, imho. In a Weber kettle, once the initial briquettes are ashed over, you're good to go before it gets up to temp. In my stickburner, the preheating involves a full-blast fire that way overshoots my cooking temperature and warms up the body of the smoker. Takes about an hour, but then once it comes back down to cooking temperature it is under control indefinitely with a regular feeding of splits. If I mess with that procedure, I will be chasing temperatures all day. Not to mention, I would end up with grilled meat rather than smoked meat if it was in there from the start.
Good point! I wasn't really thinking of my stickburner with my above comments. I too preheat that, otherwise it's more of a chase and a hassle. However, I don't look for or wait for 225 (or whatever my target cook temp will be) necessarily, once it's inching toward 190 and the smoke looks good I call it a green light personally.
With my pellet cooker I have just been putting the food on right away... I haven't noticed a negative impact yet....
My stick burner is a different story... I usually get that thing up to temp first... not only for quality of smoke but also for temp stabilization since it takes a bit more tweaking than on a pellet grill.
I guess just to stoke the fire a little bit here.... Technically when you toss a wood chunk on a bunch of charcoal it usually just smolders... isn't always what I would call a clean burn... but maybe i'm off base on that one.
I get the Weber going with the wood chunk on. Then go get the meat from the kitchen. The kettle has warmed to about 140 the smoke is blue and the meat after sitting out an hour with the rub is about 45 degrees a little more than ref. temp. Just have to keep the smoke out of my eyes as I put the probes in.
I agree with mountainsmoker . I start all my cooks with getting the fire going. By the time the prep is done, the fire is ready. The weber takes about 20 minutes, the BGE about 45. The BGE is airflow controlled rather than fuel controlled, and the entire cooking chamber needs to come up to temp, so the charcoal itself needs to all get pretty close to ignition temperature for the gray smoke to clear.
As long as the source of smoke it clean I put the meat in. I am almost-religious about making sure the meat is super-cold, to the point of being at least partially-frozen, before putting it in the cooker. This is especially true with meats like steak, that aren't going to be cooked for a long period of time. Cut them really thick and strip or ribeye will already have really good color BEFORE it's time for the reverse sear.
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