Yes, I agree. I know some gravity feed units were built with square grates in the fireboxDirtytires wrote: ↑November 10th, 2018, 1:54 pmI believe this is on a gravity feed...where the charcoal drops down a chute into a firebox. If not bumped every couple of hours the ash will definately build up as the fire can burn unattended for hours. Charcoal is a different animal than logs and does tend to ash over some.
The other post was on a log burning offset where the user appeared to be constantly knocking all the coals thru the grate. In my opinion, logs don’t really ash over all that much and simply adding a new log every 45 min will keep your fire stirred up. I never knock down my log fires in either the smoker or my fireplace as I don’t want to destroy the coals.
A long time buddy of mine is of the opinion that the entire smoker needs to mounted on devices such that it can be given a "pop" or vibrated remotely.....
BINGO.JKalchik wrote: ↑April 21st, 2019, 8:32 amAnd I think I'm building a new firebox grate, with 3/4" spacing instead of 1/2". The natural lump charcoal that I use (2 different brands, actually,) seems to have just enough non-burnables that lodge in 1/2" spacing to cause airflow problems. About every 40-50 lbs. of charcoal, I need to burn it out completely and pick the rocks out of the grate. I've said it before, I'll say it again: I consider a removable grate in this style of smoker to be a mandatory requirement.