Maintaining fire for long cooks?

[Fougy53]

Hello everyone I am more to smoking and to the forum. I was wondering if I could get some pointers from anyone. How would you maintain your fire on long cooks once the charcoal has died down? Do you just have another chimney of charcoal ready to put in? Or I’ve seen in videos they put a bed of unburnt charcoal in the bottom and out there lit ones on top? Thank y’all in advance for any help

 

[6GRILLZNTN]

Welcome to the forum. What type of smoker do you have?

 

[krj]

Really depends on you're temperature situation and you're smoker type. Also, how long of a cook are we talking? When I'm using my WSM I can go 14hrs with a full load of Royal Oak briquettes minion setup. I'm a wrapper, so this is always more than enough time for me. Going beyond that it really depends on how low you're current temp is, and how many coals you have left.

If you still have a good temp, and coals you can always just add some more, and via minion they will eventually light and you can adjust airflow as needed. If you've gone "cold" and you don't have much left for hot coals, then yes you're probably gonna have to light another chimney, and then reset with more unlit as well. Again, you need to pay attention to your airflow doing this as well. You can see a huge temp swing from introducing a fresh lit set of coals.

 

[Fougy53]

Welcome to the forum. What type of smoker do you have?

Dyna Glo wide body vertical smoker