How to start grill for smoking temps

Welcome to your new hobby....I mean obsession!

For low and low cooking, I start with a full load of lump and then light a small amount of lump in 3 places....let that burn with the vents wide open for a few minutes a then start shutting everything down to 250 (bottom and top each cracked less than 1/4"). I'll watch it closely as I don't want to overshoot. If you get too much lump burning initially, it will be very hard to control a low temp.

I can only speak to my method, but it works well for me. I use starter cubes- any will work- and get the fire going in two spots with lump filled to top of fire ring. Daisy wheel holes open and bottom vent completely open. I leave lid open until cubes are gone and fire lit. Then close dome and watch temp. After a while you will figure out where vents need to be to achieve your temp. I usually stabilize the egg a little higher than my target temp of 250 and let it burn off VOCs. You will notice the platesetter soaks up some heat so have it in there when you close dome to stabilize. If you put in later on, the cold meat and plate setter will lower temp and then you have to play with vents to get it right. Sooooo, shoot a little higher and put platesetter in when close dome. Once stabilized and smoke burning clean, raise dome and platesetter and drop your smoking chips on fire, lower platesetter, and then put meat on. Hopefully the combination of lid being open, and cool meat will not lower egg below target temp. Then watch temp rise back up. I usually have bottom vent open a sliver and daisy wheel shut with only the holes open to achieve 250 dome. I have had it go for 18 hours like that with leftover lump. Just my two cents. One of a million ways to do it I am sure.

Learn to ease into the temperature you want, approximately. Don't worry too much about getting just the right temperature. For lo-n-slo, 10F plus or minus is just fine.

For lo-n-slo, don't light too much lump. I light 3 small spots, either with a weedburner, or half starter cubes, 60 degrees apart. Bottom vent wide open, and daisy all off. When the dome temp approaches 200F, I shut the bottom vent half way, and put the daisy on, w. petals open. At 225F, I close the bottom to 1/4", and the daisy petals most of the way. The temperature usually stops increasing around 250. It is not unusual to have the bottom vent down to 1/8". Later in the cook, the vents may only be open a crack.

Do put all of the gear, platesett, adjustable rig, whatever, at the start.

Once the temp is stable at 250F, let the fire burn till all the billowy smoke goes away. This can take anywhere from 15 min to 45. Depends on quality of lump, humidity, how much smoke wood, etc.

Once there are just wisps of smoke, put the meat on. This will make the dome temperature drop, but it should return to 250 in about 1/2 hour. (Be sure a big hunk of meat isn't pressing into the thermometer probe.) There is a chance that a big mass of meat will change the airflow enough that the temperature actually does drop. If it hasn't recovered after 45 min, start tapping the bottom vent open by 1/8". If the temp rises beyonf your target, say 265 instead of 250, don't worry. That just cuts a little time off the cooking period. If it continues to rise, tap the vents back to where they were before putting the meat on.

It is not unusual for temperature to climb a little as the meat cooks. I usually check ribs at about 2 hours to see if the temp is going up to far. For me, that 300F.

Good luck.

It may sound fussy, but once you get the hang of it, takes almost no thought at all. Even letting the temperature run up to 700 can be corrected if caught quickly enough.

what's good about this is never coming back to find you are at 700

Yes, but it is good to go to 700 and know how to get it back.

Case in point.

Last Saturday I prepped one of my Eggs, with the notion of starting a pork picnic at 5 a.m. the next day, and cook hot to be ready at the end of the day. Its a long story, with the bottom vent frozen shut, then frozen wide open, then the fire billowing out heavy smoke for 45 minutes with the vents where it should have had a 350 F fire, and only getting a dome of 200. Finally opened all the way, and waited till the smoke cleared. 700, and burning clean. Shut down to where I expected 350, landed at 300, and put the meat on.

Whatever was going on, nothing I expected to happen worked out. Dome too cold, fire endlessly smoky. So I could equally recommend starting a fire and let it rip. Or maybe 500. Might take less time to cool than it does to let it burn clean at a lower temperature.

But when I was new to this, a blue jet out the top kind of freaked me.