I was wondering about building a bigger fire to start with, right now I'm only using 6 or so 3' to 4 inch pieces, and putting the meat on as soon as the smoke chamber warms up, Should I try using 10 to 12 pieces, letting it really heat, say, 350 or so, and then put the meat on when it cools back down to 225? I'm guessing that would take about 2 hours from lighting the match to putting the meat on. What do you think?