On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 08:41:22 -0700, "Duwop" > wrote:

>Jesse Skeens wrote:
>>
>>
>
>If it wouldnt get hotter it sounds like poor air circulation? How raised are
>the coals from the bottom of the firebox? Does that gap become full of ash
>quickly? You might want to get a local metal shop to cut you a grate that
>sits about an 1" higher than the existing one.
>A tip I followed, and am glad I did, was to run the vents full open the
>first year/summer. The idea is that would accelerate my understanding of
>firetending in a offset. It worked, and the effort payed off.

I had plenty of airflow on the bottom after using M&M's sideways
firegrate trick. I remember you mentioning the vents full open
idea not too long ago. I think initially I will do that just to
get the temp up and then choke them down as per M&M's
suggestion a few posts up.

It seemed that the last two hours of the cook went much
better. Maybe it was the fact that it got dark out but the
coals seemed much hotter ie: glowing/white ash at that
point. I had much less coals as well yet my temp did get
up to where I wanted it to.

When I first started the fire I had lots of cold lump and
kept adding chimneys of preburned on top of that
yet it never seemed to get that white hot look to it.

I just wonder about adding hot lump on top of cold
as this seems like it would cause airflow problems so
thats why I mentioned maybe a ring would do. I should
probably head over to the VirtualWeber site and take
another look at their minion shape.

Jesse