My stickburner has a heat management plate similar to the one in the picture. This is a smaller model but from the same company. I have always ran the cooker with the plate installed. It runs fine and likes to settle in around 275F. All good. When I want to run around 225F, I simply open the firebox top a bit and it's fine. Even when running at 275F, with smokestack and intake fully open, I can't use big splits because it will shoot up to 300-350F.
So I have been wondering if this heat management plate isn't causing it to draft harder then when I would run without it. It already has a fairly long smokestack. Any thoughts? Anybody compared running with or without such a plate? Guess I have to try running mine without the plate to find out.