I purchased my WSCGC within days after Weber introduced it, so it’s been something like 8 or 9 years now, I think? Anyway, in all that time I’ve struggled with a problem of directional burn, meaning the fire would tend to burn in a certain direction, leaving unburned charcoal and wood chunks in its wake. Most of the time the burn would be from left to right, but not always, and unpredictability as to where the fire was actually going to progress made it pretty much impossible to place wood chunks effectively. I tried placing fire starters in all different locations, but with no real success. In a previous post on the subject Andrrr offered the creative solution of placing a fire starter to the far right, leaving no way for the fire to progress but to the left, a great idea. I hadn’t gotten around to actually trying that yet, but a few days ago a couple of my diminishing brain cells must have connected and gave me an idea. The only non-symmetrical aspect of this cooker is the snap jet gas starter tube entering from the right side. It was like a “DUH” moment, I couldn’t believe it took me that long to think about looking into that. I wrapped up three areas in aluminum foil where air could be entering, and gave it a go on a 10 hour pork butt cook today, placing the fire starter dead center. The burn progressed as expected in a round pattern, perfectly outward from center. Thought I’d post it here for those struggling with the same issue. Pics follow, although the snap jet outlet wrapped in foil can’t be seen as it’s beneath the charcoal. This may not offer a perfect solution for those that prefer using the snap jet gas starter, but the only thing I’ve ever really used it for was lighting off a chimney of charcoal now and then, and there are plenty of other ways to do that, so I’m just going to leave the foil on all the time as kind of a permanent fix without actually modifying the grill.
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