What’s the right time to put up your cholent on Friday?

How far in advance do you have to put the meat in  the cholent? I can't give you a number of minutes   because everyone's cholent is a different size and  not everyone's cooking temperature is the same.   But I can tell you this, the concern is that one  might turn up the fire in order to finish cooking   the cholent so that they can eat some on Friday  night. Therefore, one has two options. First,   one can put the cholent up early enough so  that it would be ready to eat on Friday night.   This standard is called Maachel Ben Derusai,  which is either 1/3 or 1/2 cooked and that's   enough to be considered edible. The  alternative is to put the cholent up   so late that it won't be ready Friday night no  matter what you do. It's only in between these   two times that's a problem, but you'll have  to determine for yourself how long that is.