smoke economy

jake42

<p />I like to heat my platesetter up along with the smoker (You know... that ceramic heat mass thing). I had found myself going through too much trouble to lift the platesetter and put my wood in just before putting on the meat. Put a chunck of wood under all three gaps of the platesetter depending on how long your cook is going to be (I hate to waste smoke).
I'm sure someone has already thought of this but here is my pictorial.

Getting everything set up. This forms a nice air gap between the drip pan and the hot platesetter. I found that your fluids don't burn up as fast this way.

Setting my drip pan.

Using ash scraper to knock wood into the hot spot.

Put on first level of riblets just as the Egg starts to smoke. No time or smoke waste here.

Put on second level of riblets. Close it down and cook.

Charcoal Mike

jake42,[p]I picked up a tip somewhere long ago about the copper fittings - definitely keeps the drippings in the pan from cooking/burning so fast. I usually use 6 of them - one on each of the four corners, and two in the middle to help keep the pans from sagging.[p]Here is a link to my setup.[p]By the way.....those look really tasty. :-)[p]Cheers to ya -[p]Mike

[ul][li]Setup[/ul]