also seeking advise with the lid

[robby]

Hey All, I'm enjoying the beginning of year two with my KK. As I write I'm cooking some pork ribs. I'm noticing a lot of smoke escaping from in between the body and the lid. Also, a full fire basket of charcoal is exhausted after every cook. I've not had a lot of long slow cooks so I guess I don't notice this a lot but I do see it happen after I shut it down after each use. Shouldn't the lid close tighter? I also would love to get a 40# bag of charcoal to last more the 4-5 cooks. Any advise would be great! Thanks Robby

[Firemonkey]

Give us some info about which build you have, and we can help you out. You have the beveled rim, flat rim, etc? Also, where is the smoke leaking - front, back sides, all around??

You might need to just adjust your front latch, or maybe loosen the bolts in the back and reseat your lid. In some cases, with an older build, you might need to put some silicone under your gasket.

[robby]

It's a 23 in gen ll with a beveled rim. The smoke is coming mostly from the sides towards the rear. Thanks again Robby

[Firemonkey]

Sounds like you just need to seat the lid a little tighter in the back. Its very easy to adjust:

Have a helper hold the KK lid open for you, then loosen the bolt that goes into the spring completely. Carefully close the lid.

Loosen the big nuts that hold the hinge to the lid, so the lid can slip down and seat fully. Give it a little wiggle to make sure its seated tight, then tighten the nuts back.

Lift the lid again and reset the spring tension so that it has just enough force to hold the lid open.

Grab a beer and enjoy your next cook.

[robby]

Gracias, Senor Monkey, I'll let you know how it works out tomorrow

[LarryR]

A couple more ideas

I'm sure you're not making the same mistake I made but I thought I'd throw it out there. I ran the first three hours of my first cook with the lid in the first position and couldn't figure out why there was so much smoke escaping, doh!

Also, when my KK got full of ash the rear door got forced out just enough to let additional air in the cooker and the next morning I woke-up and she was burning just enough to exaust my fuel and keep her at 180 all night.

Just a couple of additional thoughts

EDIT: An additional thought; what brand/type of charcoal are you using? You will get different burn times depending on the brand. For my everyday cooks I use Rancher with great success. For last night's cook I loaded her with just about 3/4 of a Weber charcoal chimney, then threw 5 lit briquettes on and let her come up to temp very slowly, after about 2.5 hours she was at 325, ran her at 325 for about 45 minutes, then cranked her up to around 450/500 for about 5 minutes then shut her down. Below is what I was left with this morning. It's tough to see from the picture as you don't get a good feel for the depth but I'd guess I have just under 1/2 of the fuel I started with.

[DennisLinkletter]

Was I right? Common mistake..

Heylo Robby,

I'm guessing that you did not notice that the latch has two positions. When you close the top the latch catches on position one.

You then want to press firmly down on the handle and firmly press the latch towards the cooker's body.. There is a cam in the latch which will pull the lid snugly closed.. When the grill is new it can be tight.

Was I right?

[robby]

Thanks for the extra input guys. I'm aware of the latch and it's two positions. ( Got that down after the first several burns! ) But it still leaks al ot out of the sides towards the rear. I just went to release the spring and reset the lid but I don't have a ratchet that fits the bolts to the upper lid. I assume it's metric. Dennis, would you have that info?

[mguerra]

sizes

The lid nuts are 17mm, the spring adjust bolt is 19mm.

[DennisLinkletter]

walk you thru your options.

Hi Robby,

I'll give you a call and walk you thru your options.

[robby]

Thanks Dennis, Number remains the same, I'll assume you still have it on file.