The best way to add lump or briquettes during smoke?


 
I just toss a handful of unlit through the door about every couple of hours. One of the guys on here gave me the idea to use the charcoal baskets that are in the kettle. YOu could handle them with some welding gloves and dump them in.
 
Personally, I work to never have to load additional charcoal. I load my charcoal ring as full as possible and do not use water. I can easily go over 12 hours and 16 is about max. If I did have to load charcoal, I would pull the middle and reload. That's not the safest way to load charcoal, but that's how I'd do it if I needed to. Thankfully, I've never had to.
 
HA HA! So my wife brought home this deal called a charcoal bucket from a garage sale a few years ago. It was laying in my shed for about that long until I bought a WSM and on my first smoke and then again on another I needed to add coals. Low and behold the "charcoal bucket" to the rescue. This thing works great for adding coals. It was that pointed tip so you can get it deep into the smoker and the coals close to the center. I thought this thing was junk and it ends up working great for adding coals to WSM. Have no idea where to get one of these deals, but heck it works great. Check out garage sales???
a>


BTW this is my first time adding a photo to this site soooooo.........
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another try on the photo
http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af9/dflavell/Mobile Uploads/image_zpsd6dceb9e.jpg

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Okay one more...really think the photo should be in the post
 
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Jerry N. said:
Personally, I work to never have to load additional charcoal. I load my charcoal ring as full as possible and do not use water. I can easily go over 12 hours and 16 is about max. If I did have to load charcoal, I would pull the middle and reload. That's not the safest way to load charcoal, but that's how I'd do it if I needed to. Thankfully, I've never had to.
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I'm with Jerry. The so-called "hot squat" is much less hazardous if you have handles installed on the middle section, and don't use water in the pan. But if you always start with a full load of charcoal you probably won't need to add any.
 
I'm a "chuck it by the handful through the access door" kind of guy. But that's only if I'm doing a real long,multiple meat cook,like for SD. I can usually get 14-16 hours on a full load of charcoal.
PS-the "hot squat" ain't no fun. Had to do it once. Never again,I promised myself!
 
I'm with Gerry too however if you have to...first up shut down your bottom vents. That way the ash does not want to float up on your cook when it's disturbed. Get yourself a piece of eves trough about a foot long. Slide the fuel down the shoot through the fuel door on to your coals wherever you want it. Simple. Return your settings as they were and carry on.
 
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I use tongs through the door and place them individually around the ring.(you can adjust the door position on the circumference by lifting the middle section and rotating. you don't even have to get clear of the bottom section, just off enough to rotate)
 
I don't like leaving the door open too long, it gets too much air in and screws up the temps.

What I do is load a starter with unlit. Then I open the door to about 45 degrees and dump the starter onto the door. The unlit slides right on down and ends up in the charcoal ring. Door is only open for about 10 seconds and I've got a whole starter full of unlit dumped in there.

But, I only ever need to do that if it's *really* cold out. Otherwise, a piled-high charcoal ring started with the minion method easily lasts for 15 hours at 250.
 
Here's an idea. This is SmokinAl from Smoking Meat Forum. He attached some flashing to his chimney starter.

 
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Don't know, never had to add any, one time I did burn them all, well, just a few left, and that was after 13 hours...........................d
 
Dwain Pannell said:
Here's an idea. This is SmokinAl from Smoking Meat Forum. He attached some flashing to his chimney starter.

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I like that idea. That charcoal deal works similar but the chute is shorter. I can see by what the others are saying about not having to add, but I am a cheapskate and consistently put in too few brikets to save a buck and hope it is enough :)
 
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