Typical time to heat

[Adam Ag 98]

I'm soon to order a 21" KK which will be my first komodo style grill. I've only used natural gas or propane to this point.

For a normal day (not sub zero temps), what is the typical time required to heat the grill for something like cooking a steak? If I get home at 5:30 and want to eat dinner at 6:30, is that sufficient time to get up to temp and cook a steak?

I know when I plan to sous vide I need to give myself about a 2 hour head start for the typical steaks we sous vide, which includes time to sear in cast iron following the soak.

Thanks!

[AJR]

I was in the same boat you are, Adam (my name as well, good name!) just a month or so ago (only ever used propane before my KK).

For steak here's what was recommended to me, and worked well just this last week in a 23 - fill the basket with charcoal, and light it in four different places (I use a MAPP torch).  Open the top vent wide (4+ turns), and pull the bottom vent out from the KK a few inches.  Using that method, the dome thermometer was showing 450 degrees inside of 20 minutes (so closer to 600+ down by the coals where I put the sear grate), which is comparable to the pre-heat time of my old gasser.  I was impressed.  I've heard you can get it up to temp even faster with a blow dryer/leaf blower blown into the bottom vent.  Once I got it to temp, I left the top open about 3 turns, and closed the lower vent but opened the left side to the most open setting.

Make sure you've gone through the burn-in process (talked about elsewhere in the forum) before taking it to a high temp for a cook.

[Adam Ag 98]

That's great to hear, thanks Adam! (typing that makes me feel like I'm going crazy  )