minion or snake method????

What kind of smoker?

For indirect cooking I use the fat snake method - which is almost minion too I guess. You will find this easier with good quality, hard, briquettes than with lump charcoal as they will give a more predictable burn over a longer period of time. I use this method for almost every cook in my Weber. The picture below is from a comparison I did between two brands of briquettes to see how long they would last.

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/171812/coconut-briquettes


In order to more evenly distribute the heat around the cooking chamber I place a double layer of foil on the cooking grate directly over the coals. This acts as a heat baffle forcing the heat more into the centre of the cooking chamber rather than just up the side and out of the vent..

The temperature can be finely controlled by three-quarters closing the top vent and finely tuning with the bottom. The picture above used 1.5 Kg (3.3 pounds) of briquettes and 400g (0.9 pounds) of pellets. This gave me a continuous cooking temperature of 120 C (250 F) for 8 hours. More briquettes would have extended the cook time further.


Another cook - this time with ribs. http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/171042/ribs-blind-test


In the past I have tried using the Weber charcoal baskets (one on each side) to try to get even heat source on both sides. For this I filled each basket with unlit briquettes and then placed 3 lit briquettes at one end of each basket. I found this method unreliable though as, when trying to maintain low cooking temperatures, one basket would usually quickly became dominant whilst the other remained cool and sometimes even went out.  

I hope this helps

Thanks Lumpydrey 

Don't forget to post some photos of your smoke