Did a 10 hour practice run

[the dane]

Did a 10 hour practice run on the akorn yesterday after last weeks akorn kept going out drama. Had good temps of 225F-280F was good for 4 hours then went out, i did not use heaps of charcoal, but i have a funny feeling my problem is the charcoal!

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[Michael_Dunn]

> last weeks akorn kept going out drama

by the look of the pic, you have lots of 'little bits' of charcoal,
and they tend to block the airflow.

I had the same problem once and ended up buying a $4 K-Mart
cutlery strainer(?) (looks like a mini chimney starter) - put that
in the middle and the charcoal around it - to guarantee the flame
has sufficient air.

[the dane]

All that was left. I find with the char griller brand charcoal the chunks of too big and do not light up

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[12x7]

If I get chunks which are too big I use a hacksaw to make it the right size.

The other thing which I found can affect things is moisture in the charcoal.

[food&fish]

Moisture is a killer hadn't used mine for a while took agers to get going

[Lovey]

G'day Dane,
it could be the camera angle, but it doesn't look like you had a lot of charcoal to start with.
As the charcoal is burning down, the gaps between the lumps get bigger and you can lose the connection between the lumps. When one piece of charcoal that is burning out has nothing close by to ignite, the fire will go out.
That probably sounded really weird, but think of the snake or fuse method using heat beads. If you have the slightest gap between the beads, the fire goes out.
I've been using the chargriller stuff and agree that there are some huge chunks in there. I haven't found it difficult to light though, I point the looftlighter at the junction of 2 or 3 pieces and away she goes.

[the dane]

G'day Dane,
it could be the camera angle, but it doesn't look like you had a lot of charcoal to start with.
As the charcoal is burning down, the gaps between the lumps get bigger and you can lose the connection between the lumps. When one piece of charcoal that is burning out has nothing close by to ignite, the fire will go out.
That probably sounded really weird, but think of the snake or fuse method using heat beads. If you have the slightest gap between the beads, the fire goes out.
I've been using the chargriller stuff and agree that there are some huge chunks in there. I haven't found it difficult to light though, I point the looftlighter at the junction of 2 or 3 pieces and away she goes.

Cheers mate, went with low charcoal as a test run. Read on kamado guru about the volcano methed.

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