My Mini Build

[Big T]

[Squiggle]

What about leaving the side door open for a while, will that help? That's what I was going to try when mine is done.

[WyomingLawDog]

Thanks guys, I was thinking about the top door RC, the heat would go rite out the top of the charcoal chute if I left that door open, I think I will leave the ash door open and maybe put a small fan blowing air in to help get the charcoal going, putting a charcoal chimney with coal in the CC bottom rack on a old pan should help help heat the CC quicker.

[Weldun]

I think Rodcrafters idea is worth a try, I've fired mine 4 times now and it takes about an hour to reach 225, keep in mind there's quite a bit of cold steel that the little bit of burning charcoal has to overcome not only to reach operating temperature but also to stabilize.

[Frank_Cox]

It is normal for these to take a while to get to temp with natural draft. But they lock in great! With a draft controller they hit temp in a half hour

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[WyomingLawDog]

Ok, I have it dialed in now. Like Frank said it takes awhile on natural draft. When I first started using it, it was taking me 2 hours to get up to temp (275) that I smoke at. Then I tried RC idea of putting some hot charcoal in a metal bowl in the smoker, it cut it down a little but what I found out is it does not get enough oxygen from natural flow to keep the charcoal in the bowl going that is inside the smoker CC, so it goes out. The smoker does hold temp great on it's own but was wanting to get it up to temp quicker, so I bought a cyber-Q for it. The way I do it now is I start a chimney full of charcoal, once it is all going good, takes about 15min for the whole chimney to get red, then I dump half of it in the charcoal chute and immediately dump charcoal to the top of the chimney and close the door. Then I dump the other half in a metal bowl and put it in the CC of the smoker, 30 min it is up to 275 and I pull the bowl out of the CC and put the Q in the smoker. Now I monitor my smoker temp from my smart phone in the AC of my house, love it! Stays with 2-3 degrees up or down with my cyber-Q. Like I said it holds temp great on it's own once it is up to temp. So that is how I do it now, the fan of the cyber=Q give the smoker plenty of oxygen to keep the charcoal going in the bowl inside the CC and it just boosts the smoker up to temp that much quicker. That means more sleep for me at competitions (YA), I am starting to compete in 1 month for my first competition. The smoker also recovers really fast with the cyber-Q after opening the door.

[Rodcrafter]

Yes I have one on mine too I picked it up at the last gathering. There HQ is right where the gathering was.


Making memories.

[Michael303]

I've only run my newly built mini twice now, both with my controller, and it gets it up to temp very fast that way.

The first time I started the charcoal in a chimney then dumped it in the chute which worked well enough but I got hot ash all over and burned the door seals a bit and had to clean up the burned newspaper.

Last time though I just put unlit charcoal in the smoker chute and hit it from under the grate for 30 seconds with my propane torch then closed it up and let the controller fan go to work. It was up to temp as fast as using the chimney without dealing with dumping hot coals down the chute. I wouldn't bother trying it any other way.

The only thing I might try is lighting it with newspaper in the chute next time just to see if it can be done without a torch.