Clearly it's understandable that more fuel would be used in the larger smoker. Now that many of you have them, you can also see that it became pretty tall.
Not all of us are giants, so it was necessary to keep that bowl of the bomber low. With all that fuel burning and often left "unattended" hours at a time -some have decks or a lawn.. it wasn't a bad idea to protect those surface.
As a result, there was also a bit of "reflection" back into the smoker. I bet this can vary with ambient temp, fuel load, etc. All the factors we've all learned about.
-Mike
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