Just getting into smoking I picked up one of these at Walmart for $74. I have added a wok grill pan for my charcoal and added sand to my water pan to get temps up. Each time I have used the smoker the food turns out fine, but with this smoker it seems like you have to babysit it, I`m having to add charcoal or wood chunks every 1 hr or so to keep temps steady. Yesterday I smoked a NY Strip roast and I started out with my charcoal pan half full of unlit kingsford and got my chimney going and dumped it ontop. With the small charcoal pan when the unlit charcoal lit the temps shot up to over 300 even with the lower vents closed off. I had to remove a decent amount of the charcoal to get my temp back down, so I`m guessing with this kind of small inexpensive smoker the route I have to take is small fuel loads at a time to keep my temps where I want them. Makes it interesting if I want to do a brisket or a large butt, lol. Anyone else use one of these or had one of them that could give me any advise on how to get longer burns but maintain temp? Thanks so much
