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Hey gang. Greetings from Kansas City. I've been smoking for about a year with some success, but I'm here for pointers. Right now, I'm using a Meco vertical smoker ("droid"), but eventually I want to build my own.
I've noticed that the "troubleshooting" seems to be spread all over the board. And there are a lot of "HELP PLEASE!" topic headers, which make it difficult to search for an answer before I post a question that has probably been asked a thousand times.
Any suggestions on a good way to search for solutions? (I'm having trouble maintaining high enough heat on my vertical smoker without constantly feeding it coals and/or stoking the coals)
Welcome aboard. Find a topic area that appears appropriate and peruse it. It's amazing how you wind up learning more than you expect before you reach the subject you started after.
Looking forward to hearing about your smoking experiences and seeing lots of Q-views.
Welcome to SMF! Glad you found us. Try searching for "vertical charcoal smoker" and one more word such as technique. Look up the "Minion Method" while your are searching.
Try getting a few coals real hot and grey then move them near the edge and add a small pile of coals (say 8 or 10) to the iddle and pile the hot coals on top. This is basically called the minion method and it works pretty well. You will have to add coals about every hour or so but hey it coal!
Also add a few piece of wood chunks near the outter edges of the coals so the barely touch the coals. you don't want the wood to catch fire just smolder. Remeber - thin blue smoke!