Gonna smoke a chuck on my PK360 for the first time this Saturday. How do you guys use your charcoal? Dump a full, lit chimney in or like a SnS - just a few lit coals on the end and let em burn through the rest of the unlit coals??
I've only had mine a little more than a month but I think you'll find its easy to smoke on. For 225 I use the PBC chimney starter, so roughly 30 to 40 briquettes. I have their basket but even without I'd stack maybe half a chimney or more in a rough minion method. Pour the lit coals on open the opposing vents up and usually just adjust the top to bring it to temp. Once you've got your temperature you'll get 5-6 hours easy before you need to refuel. It is steady once your dialed in, last weekend i left for an hour and a half (probably does better because I'm not around to mess with it). Lighting less with say a cube and keeping the vents closed more may get a slightly longer cook. I'm positive once you start you'll have no issues. It responds quickly to vent adjustments. Opening the lid to check doesn't affect the temp coming back up at all. Have fun I know it will go great, the PK360 is a beast at anything.
A lit chimney will start you around 350F. I always start with a couple starter cubes in the corner and let it burn across the pile. I smoke most things around 225-250F.
You can do pretty well with manually adjusting the vents. I usually use a controller and I get about 12-15hrs without reloading coals, but I stack them in high on a basket I made.
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