Stiring Charcoal before light

kilo

When I bought my first egg the dealer showed me how to stir the charcoal before I add new for my next light using the ash tool. I feel like I am often breaking the slightly used charcoal into smaller pieces. Is there any recommendations on a good method to get the ash to drop out? He also had me remove ash after every cook, seems unnecessary, what do you think?
Thanks!

Smokin Bob

kilo,[p]It has just become habit for me to move the used charcoal to one side of the firebox clearing out ash and tiny pieces and then restacking back on the other side to clean out the other half. This takes about 5 minutes with the addition of a little more new lump and then all of 30 seconds to remove the ash from the bottom vent. Once you get it down 5-6 minutes is all it should take. I found that my performace was much better when going through this routine each time. It's not to say you can't just light the used lump from your last cook but, you might have a tough time hitting higher temps or extended cooks in that scenario.[p]Just my view...[p]B o B

The Naked Whiz

kilo,
You don't need to remove the ash after every cook. Having some ash in the bottom insulates the bottom. As long as the ash isn't restricting airflow, you don't need to clean it out.[p]TNW

fishlessman

SmokinBoB,
i do pretty much the same thing, move everything to one side and stir the bottom residue, smll pieces get moved to the top of the pile, move everything to the other side and repeat. sometimes i save the small pieces for doing low fire jerky, but they burn easily on the top of the pile. i dont do this regularly, about every 30 to 40 pounds of lump i clean the bottom out and about 2 or 3 times a year i take everything out for a thoruogh cleaning