I'm trying various things...
Hmmm...sounds unusual. Are you feeding it full-length splits? How open are you running your firebox door and damper?
Well, I'm trying various things.
My firebox will handle full length splits (16-18")....lenghtwise down the firebox, but to stack sideways on top, I have to cut them to about 12"....
I've been lately experimenting with putting 2x full length splits down and then on top of that I, perpendicular, I put 3x 12" splits...then 2 more full length on top and maybe one more layer...for starting things to get a coal bed.
That seems to work. This past weekend I got up to about 250F easily....and kept that by feeding it 2-3 splits at a time, either long or short, depending on what had burned off....
But I'd feed it a couple splits every 35-40 minutes....it seems to eat them pretty fast and would keep it at 225-250F with a pretty healthy coal bed and quick split ignites.
TO get it up to 275-300F and hold it, I'd likely need to add 4 splits at a time every 40 min, which sounds high volume to my ear compared to what I thought others said they ran with their offsets.
This is running with my stack full open and my door opened to the outermost latch...so the door is open about 3/4 inch all around I believe.
This produces a good fire, seems to have high flow.
This last time, I did manager to keep the actual fire burning more in the middle and towards the cook chamber end of the firebox, that did seem to help keep cook chamber temps up a bit (250F) this time....but the cook chamber this time around was MUCH hotter where the firebox is than past times, where my 225F was pretty much almost the whole length of the cook chamber...
Anyway...I'm still experimenting.
I did my first beef Dino rib this time, turned out nice...faster than I thought.
I also tried my first set of St. Louis cut spare ribs...thought I'd burned them up...but next day they were actually pretty darned good!?
Anyway...that's trying to answer you questions....
cayenne