Rupes

Thanks both! It was the minion method, and I was around 230F on the first and 230-240 on the second. The first time I scattered wood chips across the top, the second time I put them in a foil pouch.

Hi all, bought one of the Callow smokers off Amazon and had a go last weekend. Mixed results due to underestimating the amount of time and charcoal I needed, I think (everything tasted good but had to be finished in the oven): a 2kg lamb breast and 1.5kg pork shoulder the first day, using about 3kg of Weber briquettes (these from amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weber-charcoal-briquettes-black-17591/dp/B01F10ERPW/), which was fine for about 4 or 5 hours but I was too cautious on the temperature and ended up ovening them And then another 2kg pork shoulder which didn't get up to temp and had to be ovened after 4 hours with another 3kg or so (I thought the joint was smaller than it was, and it got dark!) Anyway, I think my issues can be resolved with more briquettes and more time. But my main issue, as in the title, was that after 4 hours the air vents on the bottom were becoming blocked with ash. Is this because I was using the wrong type of charcoal or something? Should I have tried to take the top section off and cleared out the hot ash? Thanks in advance for any advice!