Stirring the coals

[nh3b's]

When burning charcoal or lump, do you shake or stir the coals during a burn? If so, how often?

 

[smok'n steve]

I don't do either, but occasionally if I am at the end of a smoke and i don't want to add more fuel, I will rake hotcoals all to one spot to gain on heat:-)

 

[flash]

I have. If I am doing a long smoke and ash is building up, I have even removed the firebox and dumped the coals on a grate. Sift out the ash and returned to firebox.

 

[walking dude]

just like flash.......i stir and sometimes shake and/or dump the coals, when i get ash buildup.........it chokes off the air circulation in my verticle ecb gourmet........

 

[desertlites]

yup I'm with flash & dude during a long smoke

 

[walking dude]

i also don't like the way my fire pan is setup in my ecb gourmet.........so i plan on drilling 1/2 inch holes in several places in the bottom of it........so the ash buildup does'nt get so bad

 

[packplantpath]

I was gonna say yes and no. On my ECB, yes, it smothers bad like others said. On the SnP, no, the grate is high enough that I can go 12 or so hours without ash buildup problems. Much like steve, I occasionally do take a stick and shuffle coals to clump them together.

EDIT: Dude, I drilled holes in the bottom of my ECB. Go bigger than 1/4 inch for sure. That's what mine are and they need to be bigger, I think 1/2 inch may even be a bit small, but you can always make them bigger.

 

[richoso1]

What Walking Dude said... it helps the air circulation and helps prevent smothering out the burn.

 

[low&slow]

Same here. I can go about 10-12 hours. The side door on the snp makes ash removal easy.