Temp control is fairly easy, i just do the minion method, along with some buried wood,just got to figure out how much charcol i need. started it up at 5am, about half full on the charcol basket, add some more pieces of wood, small, and it was still 200* at 2:30pm. i just need some mre time with it, clean up not too bad, pull the racks out and wipe/brush off,clean out the water pan and dump the ash. I'm really gonna like this thing, just got to remember to cut my wood smaller to fit this thing, my offset will take some long peices.