Pre Warming an insulated cabinet smoker

[jtbarbecue2020]

Due to the long time it takes to get up to temp, has anyone used a weed burner, boiling water or grill gun to help warm up the cooking chamber?
I just received a lone star grill large insulated cabinet and the warm up time without a guru can be 90 minutes.

 

[smokerjim]

not much help i'm not familiar with your set up, but 90 minutes seems like an awful long time, i'm sure you'll get some answers though.

 

[Ranch House]

I agree with smokerjim that does seem like a real long time. But I have used a weed burner to preheat large smokers but they generate very high heat you have to be careful how you use it. I'm not familiar with your smoker but I would try something other than the torch to start with.

 

[ofelles]

I have a large LSG and yes without a fan and controller it can take a long time to heat up. My first 5 or 6 cooks were without the fan because I wanted to see how it responded and acted on its own. Plus you never know when you'll have a power failure.
Since I have used a Fireboard and Pit Bull fan, heats up reasonably quick. I'm with Ranch House regarding the weed burner and harming your cooker.

 

[bill1]

We can calculate how long it SHOULD take to warm up, based on the following:

• What is the starting temperature of the unit? (If outside, how cold is it?)
• What does the unit weigh?
• I assume this is an electric unit...what is the power (or voltage and current) usage? (Should say on a nameplate if you don't have a "kill-a-watt" meter or know how to do this safely with a standard meter.)

Most electric smokers (particularly if they're 120V-based and not 240/208V) are somewhat under-powered compared to their wood or gas counterparts. The Plus is they're capable of very precise temperature control once they're at temperature. The Minus is they take a while to get to temp. The idea is you prepare your meat as the unit heats up. Unfortunately the "better constructed" units take even longer because their strength comes from the thermal expense of their additional pounds of metal.

Do NOT use a weed burner...you'll warp the metal in what I suspect is a very nice unit. And you would need to nearly fill the unit with boiling water to get much heating...I think you'd prefer waiting the 90 minutes.

If you have at least one or two additional 15-20amp electric circuits around, it would help to put a couple ~800watt charcoal starter "rings" onto a couple lower grates for ~20 minutes. (Most LSGz have a nice seal design that would permit bringing the power cords out while the door remains closed--v. important.) Another recommendation is starting a small "chimney" of charcoals and, as they start burning, move the chimney inside the unit. (A pan on a grate underneath to catch ash and a steel plate on a grate above to arrest flames would be good ideas.)

Both these approaches will somewhat "confuse" a PID controller (if you have one) but it should be pretty good about re-learning the real environment after the unit's up to temp and you've removed these extraneous heat sources.

ADDENDUM: You mentioned smoke guru...if you use the charcoal chimney, it needs air...air-controlled units may shut off air flow during warmup to speed up the process...so make sure any such units are disconnected when using auxiliary charcoal heat.