Preheating smoker

Hello Smoke Ring.
Personally I can't think of a time I would want to preheat my smoker. I want the meat to remain below 140 as long as possible in order to absorb the maximum smoke. Like Jack the prison chef, I now smoke my butts from frozen. Bark is at the maximum while the inside meat is nice and moist. Cooking time is the same for frozen or room temperature. Sounds crazy but it works. Keep stokin and smokin.

Sometimes I will preheat for poultry when I want it to get as hot as possible as quick as possible. For low and slow, I want it to creep up slowly and soak up lots of smoke.

I always preheat mine even if I am cooking on the Smoke setting. That's the way I was taught.

On the traditional CS,you can get by without a preheat.

Use the cookbook for recipes.

Check the forum for times and temps.

If using mesquite,preheat and burn off the yellow smoke-until it runs clear.

GLH is right on about yardbirds.

140º has to do with developement of smokering and formation of nitrates and nitrites.

IMO it has nothing to with laying on of smoke.

You can coat a frozen chunk with soot,or take one that is 400º internal and coat it with soot.

Just my $0.02 ,of course

I like to preheat if I am doing something quick like pork chops or steaks. I preheat to 250 without the wood box in, then throw in the meat and wood for like 1 hour and finish on the grill.

We've discussed the book a few times.

1. Do NOT go with the temps/times, ask here first

When in doubt, ask the forum before you do something, just like you did.

smoke ring,
hi and welcome.
i hit on the dead cold smoker and dead cold meat out of the requirement to make the product coming out of my two sm150's match the product coming out of my fec100 but this was in a commercial setting.
just for fun get a note book and on one cook preheat your unit and record your results and then on the next one go dead cold, dead cold and decide for yourself which works best for you. after that since you already have the notebook just write down what you do everytime that you cook. the books are fun to look at two years later when you look at the techniques you used to use and scratch your head and go why did i do that???
main thing is to have fun
and the nice part is the worst que you can make still beats the stuff that you buy