uds cooking grate placement

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jchilders

Newbie
Original poster
Dec 6, 2013
2
10
On my second uds build I followed a design I viewed on you tube. The first cooking grate is 7" from the top rim and the next grate is 6" below the first. The plans call for a diverter between the lower grate and the charcoal basket. But using the diverter (pizza pan with 3/4 holes ) causes my temp to be extremely high under the bottom grate. My coal basket is 12" square 3" from the bottom of the drum ( 10" high ). Is my lower grate too low or is there another diverter method I can use
 
I have a rack in mine roughly 2/3 of the way up the drum. I use a water pan on that and just use one rack for now, roughly 6-7 inches from the top of the drum. Once a get a dome, weber-style lid I think I'm going to add another rack closer to the top.
 
That's the setup I used on the first uds build but without a water pan. I have not been able to locate a kettle top for this uds. If a can find a kettle top I still would be intrigued about using 3 grates during a big cook for family.
 
My water pan is just a disposable aluminum pan from the grocery store. I have found that it helps keep the temp from getting too high. If you have a standard drum, a weber 22.5" dome lid should fit.
 
If you don't want to use a diffuser or water pan the minimum recommended distance between the bottom of the charcoal basket and the lowest rack is 24". I achieved this while using 3" legs on my basket, my top rack 1" below the top rim, 2nd rack 6-7" below the top one, and of course using a kettle lid. This made my bottom rack almost exactly 24" from the bottom of my basket. My temps are usually 20 degrees warmer on the bottom rack but close enough to use both simultaneously.
 
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