preheating wood

[briananderson02]

Cooking a brisket this fine afternoon... bludawg style of course! Preheating some wood on top of the fire box and walk away for a few minutes and low and behold I have a fire on top of my fire box. It's happened once before and a little disconcerting.
Anyone else run in to this?
BTW I have an older New Braunfels offset smoker... haven't put calipers on it but the metal is at least 3/16 if not 1/4 all the way around.

 

[sliding_billy]

Been there. I always spend the preheating time watching the wood.

 

[briananderson02]

How long do you preheat then? I usually just throw some wood on as soon as I add the preheated wood into the firebox.
I know I'm running a little hot today... 300ish but for it to light the wood I am always a little shocked.

 

[pjtexas1]

It happens but not as much if you flip while preheating.

 

[sliding_billy]

How long do you preheat then? I usually just throw some wood on as soon as I add the preheated wood into the firebox.
I know I'm running a little hot today... 300ish but for it to light the wood I am always a little shocked.

Normally about a half an hour with a flip at 15 minutes, but sometimes the dry weather and a little bit of thin wood up against the lid is going to cause it to catch.

 

[jeffreywp1]

It happened to me today for the first time. I never leave it with wood on it.

 

[el_matt]

Glad I'm not the only one this has happened to.

Matt

 

[Richard_]

I preheated mine on the cook chamber after I saw it was charing

 

[dummy que]

fire

use to happen all the time on my lang60 till i put firebrick on top of it for insulation now i can leave my splits on for hours they will char a bit

 

[JazzyBadger]

Yep, fire brick is the cheap, easy way to fix this issue. You'll preheat it without the ignition. Well, it might ignite if you leave it on there for ten hours, but then you had way too much wood in the farking firebox to begin with.