Lid on or off?

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TurkeyLeg

Knows what a fatty is.
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After adding lit coals to my UDS basket I put the lid on. It usually takes over an hour to get thin blue. Seems like a long time. Does anyone leave the lid off when starting their UDS? I get them temp I want quickly,just bad smoke for a while.
 
My experience is lid off is a bad idea. Usually you wind up with a raging fire.
 
^^^^
What IbrahimSS said... fire will burn out of control with lid off, and then you're trying to calm down a monster instead of creeping up on desired temp.

My UDS takes an hour to come up to temp and start blowing thin blue. It's just the nature of the beast.
 
Me? Lid on- every time. So it takes 45 min to an hour? Let the temp stabilize and the smoke clear- the wait is worth it. You could use that time to mix your rubs, or prep your meat, try to talk your wife into... well you know?
 
Nuco59 said:
Me? Lid on- every time. So it takes 45 min to an hour? Let the temp stabilize and the smoke clear- the wait is worth it. You could use that time to mix your rubs, or prep your meat, try to talk your wife into... well you know?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I always make mine a margarita before I ask her to...





Make potato salad.
 
The same here w/WSM.
Somewhere between 1 hour to 1:30 hour to get thin blue smoke and steady 250F
 
I use that hour to trim and rub. It's just part of my routine.
 
Usually throw a half lit chimney in,put the lid back on and have 2 intakes open and let it settle in till it hits the temp I want.
As Mikemci said it just gives you time to prep the meat.
 
When I had a UDS I got thin blue in 15 min. Full basket, 1/2 chimney of hot, lid off, watch the side thermo when the temp got to 250 I had TBS. Add meat lid on, valve at 2/3 open, 1 cap on, settled at 300 in 10 min. 275 cap both nipples valve WFO, 250 cap both nipples valve @ 2/3 open. 225 valve at 1/2 open
 
When I had my uds I'd throw on about 15 briquettes on top of my fire basket and then put the lid on with all 3 intakes open and top vent open. Then slowly choked down the bottom vents.
 
I always found that if you get the right amount of hot coals to begin with, the faster I would get thin blue. If you put 12 cols on and wait for the temp to get to 300, you'll be there a while.

300=3/4 chimney
250=1/2 chimney
275= somewhere between

Experiment with how many hot coals you add to start, it definitely makes a difference. If you know what it takes coal wise and where your valves need to be set for that temp, you can hit your temp with TBS pretty quick
 
I have WSM, dump my hot coals and put it back together I'm usually at 150-165, let it run with all vents open in 20 to 30 minutes it's up to desired cook temp (275-300). I'll start shutting down vents to maintain desired cook temp and let it run at that temp until the fire cleans up which is usually another 45-60 minutes.

After reading Bludawg's post I'll probably go with a full chimney instead of 1/2 to 3/4's and see if my fire cleans up faster, I use the Weber compact chimney which holds about 50 Briquettes full.
 
Mine always took about 45 minutes- I'd light it and go prep the meat.
 
My PBC takes about 10 minutes to get up to temp but 45 minutes to get clean smoke.
 
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