self built backwoods clone warm up time when cold.

[Ufo8mycow]

So I built a backwoods clone and have been having problems with warm up time. All three times I have fired this thing up the temps have been right around zero. I am using a pitmaster iq110 and have learned that I have to wait for the temp to come up before I can use it.

On my seasoning run and my first cook the warm up time took hours. I blamed it on an air diverter plate that I put in to spread the intake air around the firebox and stop the cold air from being sucked straight up the sidewalls. Fast forward to yesterday when I cooked up some ribs. I removed the air diverter and I did the initial heat up without the water pan or heat diverter in place. Once the temp hit 250 in about 30 minuets I put the water pan and diverter in place and added about 2 gallons of boiling water and the temp dropped to arround 175 and took over an hour to warm back up to about 225 when I put in the ribs and the temp droped again and took at least 45 min to an hour to warm up to 250. Once it was there it seemed to be stable even when I wrapped them at 3 hours the temp came back up pretty quick. Is this normal in cold weather or do I have a problem with my design?

[Ufo8mycow]

Here is my original build thread

*backwoods style build finished with q-view

[pjtexas1]

How much lit charcoal are you starting with? I had this same issue in one of non-insulated verticals. I start with more lit coals and I don't have this problem anymore. Don't worry about the cold air from the intake because the hot air should rise not the cold air. Just my .02 but I have never built a smoker so I may not even know what I am talking about... Also, try without the heat diverter. I was told that it was only really necessary if you were cooking hot and fast to help you from having to add water all the time.

[Jason TQ]

I start with water in the pan of my backwoods and fire them up. They take about 1-1.25hrs to heat up. I don't notice any affect heating up when it is cold and this includes freezing temperatures.

[Ufo8mycow]

I have been starting with about 10-12 briquettes from my mini chimney same as I do on my uds. Next time I will try more.

[Untraceable]

We always give 2hrs to get to temp and run clean.

[pjtexas1]

Originally Posted by Untraceable

We always give 2hrs to get to temp and run clean.

Is this what everyone is experiencing? I thought the idea of an insulated cabinet smoker was it was all around quicker to start, easier to maintain temps, quicker to recover temps and they cooked a bit quicker. Am I making things up? Have you tried putting your charcoal chimney in the smoker while you wait for the charcoal to ash over? Maybe that will help preheat the metal. I hope that my new smoker won't have this issue when it arrives in a couple of weeks.