# Burning wood on a fire grate



## Paulie Walnuts 440 (Sep 6, 2020)

Hey everyone 

I wanted to get some advice on burning wood on a fire grate thats in my offset smoker. It seems like most of my coals fall through the grate onto the firebox and seems like it's harder to maintain temps like that. I ordered the lone star grills firebasket and waiting on that but doing a cook tomorrow and figured I would seek advice.


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## smokin peachey (Sep 6, 2020)

Paulie Walnuts 440 said:


> Hey everyone
> 
> I wanted to get some advice on burning wood on a fire grate thats in my offset smoker. It seems like most of my coals fall through the grate onto the firebox and seems like it's harder to maintain temps like that. I ordered the lone star grills firebasket and waiting on that but doing a cook tomorrow and figured I would seek advice.


Looks good from here. You want the small coals and ash to fall to the bottom like that. I’m not sure what a fire basket is going to help


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## Alphonse (Sep 6, 2020)

It works and you will love it.  Makes it easy to keep a flame going and the smouldering white creosote smoke at bay.


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## radioguy (Sep 6, 2020)

I had a coarse grate made from re-bar in my RF.  I noticed large coals falling through the grate.  I made a charcoal basket out of #9 expanded metal and my fire control and heat improved a lot.  I got rid of the re-bar grate and replaced it with another #9 grate.  The 2 expanded metal grates work wonderful.   I get good air flow, a shake gets rid of ash.

RG


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## daveomak (Sep 7, 2020)

Try making a bed of firebrick ..   Burn the wood directly on the brick...   It holds the heat VERY well and will keep the fire smoldering....


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## BG-IA (Sep 25, 2020)

I'm a little late to this, but I had the same situation you did ( Piggyback). I eventually had a buddy make a basket, but what I first didn to keep the coals on the grate longer was just put a Weber charcoal grate on the fire grate with the grates running crossways.  You can get one about anywhere they sell weber kettles. To be clear, not a cooking grate, but the one made for placing the coals on.


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