A while back, I wrote something like:

> So I added a simple baffle to my NBS a while back and
> have done several cooks since, and I must say, what a
> difference. It has changed my fire-tending quite a bit.
> My current simple baffle is an aluminum pie tin shoved
> into the firebox opening so there are openings on either
> side. I immediately found that the fire that used to
> maintain 250F was no longer sufficient, and that the
> firebox damper was more effective than it had been.
>
> So I pretty quickly adjusted to something like a
> minion fire; I dump basically 2 chimneys of lump
> into the firebox and push most it out of the center.
> Then I pour a burning chimney into the depression
> in the center. With the firegrates turned sideways,
> this makes the firebox look pretty full.

[...]

> A single load of fuel goes this way for about 3 hours
> with nothing but infrequent damper adjustments now.
> I need to add fuel after about 3 hours to keep it in
> the 250F range.


Since then, I've been working on longer cooks, 6+ hours
for pork shoulders, stuff like that. I've updated my
technique a little.

For longer cooks, I'll load as much as 3 chimney-loads
in the firebox, dump the lit lump into the center, then
place a couple of good-sized chunks-o-lump on top. I give
the smoker 15 minutes to settle down and put the meat in.

The smoker will come up to 250-275 pretty easily this
way and stay in that range with about one damper adjustment/hour.
I haven't gone all-night with this yet, but I'll add a couple of
decent-sized chunks when the damper requires more than hourly
adjustment; usually this is around the 5-hour mark the first
time, then subsequently more often.

I suppose if I was going 7+ hours a lot, I'd work with moving
the hot lumps to the center and reloading around the perimeter,
this ought to get me back to a 5-hour fueling interval.
Something to work on this spring, I suppose.

Cheers,
Dana