Fire Question

I just close off all of my air intake and exhaust vents and let it smolder itself out.

Close the exhaust and Gag the intake, A little rain never hurt nothin.

Closing the vents is the only way I know of to snuff out the fire. I've forgotten to close my vents, but I've never not had time to close them. I'm curious, what kind of pit are you using?

Matt

I guess i keep mine under a covered porch, but i always opened everything up and let it burn completely down to ash.

I leave the one I have outside. Rain aint going to hurt it

I open the vents and let it burn to ash. Next day when it's cold, I remove what I can and the rest with a shop vac.

Flat shovel and steel bucket. You can also get cheap welding gloves from HD. Pull out your fire grate and any large chunks, and the scoop out the ashes and coals into the bucket. Let the rain or your hose cool the ashes/coals down. You can pretty much bring your pit inside, as long as you don't let the firebox touch anything!

I've never had that problem with my offset. When I'm finished cooking I just open everything up and let as much air as possible get to the coals so it burns down to ash. If it rained, I think I'd just close the exhaust and the firebox intake and worry about it the next day, since the thing doesn't seem to leak when it gets rained on. Mine lives outside on the patio, since the thing is too heavy to be moving in and out of the garage.

I know you want a method other than smothering the fire by cutting off the oxygen supply, but that is by far the best way to go about doing it. I've watched teams on Pitmasters throw water on their fires when they get eliminated, but I think that's an excellent way to damage your pit.

Rain on the outside of the pit shouldn't be too much of a problem. I realized a while back that my work schedule will never allow me to wait for perfect weather to do the cooks I want to do. I have a porch umbrella anchored by a heavy iron stand that is dedicated to my pits. It helps keep the rain off when I'm using them, and when they're shut down. I think this past July 4th was the worst storm I've cooked in, and there wasn't a trace of storm in the sky when I cranked the WSM up. It turned nasty around hour 4 with VERY strong winds and a massive amount of rain. The umbrella was already in place (it is always set up), and I opened the vents all the way up because I knew I was about to lose a lot of heat. The WSM chugged right on through.

My advice: find a good umbrella, or shelter of some sort and just cut off the oxygen supply to shut the pit down.