What's under the grate

[Chuck]

This was asked in my thread about scotch eggs and I thought it might make a good thread on its own.

Oh yes. Got to try those! I noticed a lot going on below the top grate? Do you have a couple of fire bricks in there? What's the black metal looking thing to the left of the food?  Please, share your set up.

What's going on under the grate.

The drip pan is straight forward. Helps to catch the drippings from the food. Can also be used for a water pan to help maintain temps or cook some beans if you're so inclined.

The charcoal baskets make it easy to move the charcoal around and keeps it contained. Put it under the hinged grates on either side and you can easily add coals during a long cook.

The black metal thing is a Brinkman cast iron smoker box. I put in wood chips there to smolder and put off smoke without catching fire. Easy cleanup and durable. The downside that I found is that it retains heat and seems to raise the temps a bit. Its not a problem for higher heat cooks, but on lower temp cooks in the 225-250 range, it gets harder to keep them low. It cost about $11 at Lowes.

Those are firebricks. Nice for retaining heat. i use them when i want to bank the coals and cook indirect on the lower grate. Also i found that when reverse searing or other things that I need the coals closer to the grate, I put them under the charcoal baskets and raise the heat to the grate without doing a higher pile of charcoal. Wrapped in foil only to keep them clean as I don't know if they're porus and may retain flavors of drippings that may happen on them. They can be found at stone stores and home improvement stores (sometimes only online).

[1buckie]

Good Deal......there is a lot going on there......

I'm always interested in how & why people set things up the way they do....part or all of it could easily pull a crummy cook that's going haywire up to a good one, from just the memory of what someone talked about doing, their reasoning & esp. pictures.......Thanks, man !!!!!!

[Lumpy Coal]

This was asked in my thread about scotch eggs and I thought it might make a good thread on its own.

Oh yes. Got to try those! I noticed a lot going on below the top grate? Do you have a couple of fire bricks in there? What's the black metal looking thing to the left of the food?  Please, share your set up.

What's going on under the grate.

The drip pan is straight forward. Helps to catch the drippings from the food. Can also be used for a water pan to help maintain temps or cook some beans if you're so inclined.

The charcoal baskets make it easy to move the charcoal around and keeps it contained. Put it under the hinged grates on either side and you can easily add coals during a long cook.

The black metal thing is a Brinkman cast iron smoker box. I put in wood chips there to smolder and put off smoke without catching fire. Easy cleanup and durable. The downside that I found is that it retains heat and seems to raise the temps a bit. Its not a problem for higher heat cooks, but on lower temp cooks in the 225-250 range, it gets harder to keep them low. It cost about $11 at Lowes.

Those are firebricks. Nice for retaining heat. i use them when i want to bank the coals and cook indirect on the lower grate. Also i found that when reverse searing or other things that I need the coals closer to the grate, I put them under the charcoal baskets and raise the heat to the grate without doing a higher pile of charcoal. Wrapped in foil only to keep them clean as I don't know if they're porus and may retain flavors of drippings that may happen on them. They can be found at stone stores and home improvement stores (sometimes only online).

I use fire bricks, never thought about them retaining stuff...is this a common problem?  Would a good burn clean them?