Yes, ok, so your able to load the charcoal basket up, throw in some lit charcoal, few chunks of wood, chunk the brisket on @225 for a l&s and come back tomorrow morning and know its still gonna be @225 with no fear of loss of fire or a huge temp spike from overfueling. With a daisy chain method, how many hrs do you get out of the cooker with water In it? I know water almost doubles the fuel consumption.
I have cooked on many pieces of equipment, the MOST economical is my BGE, I love it! With the stoker on my BGE I can get a load of lump charcoal to cruise at 225 for about 48 hours! That's amazing! HOWEVER... the cooking capacity of the BGE is extremely limited!
The PM vault is insulated (like the bge) with 2" rigid insulation, so it doesn't slide down the walls with time and travel.
After I preheat my cooking chamber, I can load up my basket (around the edges in a U shape) with briquettes and some chunks of wood, light the start of the coals, and it WILL cruise at 225 - 250 for many hours, unattended.
The water will help it maintain a stable temperature, as I said, just like a WSM, only on a larger scale. Yes, it does take energy to heat water... if you do it while you're preheating your chamber, it will last you a long time.
For example: In Stevensville, MT earlier this year I preheated the cooking chamber and preheated the water in the water pan for a friend that was going to use my vault for a charity cook. I didn't put any charcoal in the basket, figuring he had his own. When I went to bed, the pit was cruising at 275... when I woke up 7 hours later, and went out, I discovered he did not use the pit... after sitting all night the pit was STILL at 225!! The ambient temperatures were around 35 degrees, there was even some frost on the windshield. There was NO fuel in the pit!
Is the vault customizable? Yes! Does it NEED customization to make it work? NO! You can add a guru, and get many more smoking hours out of your fuel, it's true. So if you wanna run the vault like a BGE, it IS possilbe.
I do not run lump in my vault, I DO run lump in my BGE. Why? Because I find it effects the flavor of my food in the BGE (because it's so small) but NOT the food in my vault.
There are MANY major competitions that have been won with the PM vault, and this unit has been proven a winner time and time again. I'm happy with mine... sorry you weren't happy with yours. I have a question... what unit ARE you happy with? if any....