Need help with Backwoods/Spicewine fire basket mods

[moocow]

Just Built my new smoker and I am needing Info, pics and theory on firebox Mods for longer cook times in these type of cookers. Will do a test burn today with no partitions/maze in the box to see what happens but want to understand why the maze works so well. It will be Stoked if that makes any difference in your opinion. Drums have no dividers in them and thy seem to run a long time on a load so I am wondering why it won't work the same way. Thanks for your help!

[btcg]

Guy,

It looks perfect to me: your fire basket is huge, it slides out (my BWS doesn't), and has handles (again, mine doesn't).

Super job! Extra hay for you!!!!!!!

[btcg]

Here a pic of my fire grate from my BWS Chubby:




Hope this helps.

[jestridge]

Give us more pictures , , what you have look great

[MilitantSquatter]

The maze is nice, but not necessary...

When I had by SW, I actually preferred using a WSM ring in the Spicebox using a minion method over a maze I had as well ... The WSM ring was not necessary, anything with some walls to contain it and allow it to be build up high would work. The fire grate on the backwoods already has higher walls than the standard firegrate on the Spicewine. You may be able to load that up and be good to do.

[JiveTurkey]

I built a maze for my med SW and used it a few times then got rid of it. I reused the expanded and made a square box, kind of like the weber ring but square instead of round. I would fill with charcoal and use minion method. That worked pretty well but it did take about 1 hour to get to 275 without water. After that hour it was on cruise control after that.

[MilitantSquatter]

Originally Posted by JiveTurkey

I built a maze for my med SW and used a few times then got rid of it. I reused the expanded and made a square box, kind if like the weber ring but square instead of round. I would fill with charcoal and use minion method. That worked pretty well but it did take about 1 hour to get to 275. After that hour it was on cruise control after that.

One of the things I used to do to expedite the process was light off a full chimney of charcoal on the grate and use this to get it up to temp first (a weedburner would save even more time)

Then as temp was near 200 or so, at that point, I would push over any remaining lit coals, add my ring & fill with unlit coals & wood, then use a pair of tongs to put the remaining lit coals on the top or a maybe a 1/4-1/2 ring of lit coal from a chimney on top and around the ring but not touching the ring... This way, everything in the ring would be used for the cook, and not for getting the pit up to temp