Leaderboard

To cook with a 1/4 basket of charcoal, put the vertical divider in the center of the basket and then lay a half grate in horizontally in one of the halves created by the vertical piece. Fill this side with charcoal. I like to pile it high so that I'm maintaining the same distance from the top of the burning coals to the grate as I would with a mounded full basket of charcoal. Then the solid metal piece goes on the empty half of the basket to force the air coming in from the vent through the half of the basket with the charcoal to promote air flow. Other configurations would be a deep half basket, 50% charcoal, which would be just the vertical splitter, one half filled with charcoal and the empty half with the solid metal piece. Or you could do a wide shallow basket, 50% charcoal, with the two half grates in side by side horizontally and fill both sides with charcoal. You wouldn't use the solid metal piece in this configuration. I don't know if you need the vertical splitter piece in with the wide shallow basket configuration since I've never done it but it would be easy to figure out if you need it while you are putting it together. The basket splitter works so great for small cooks - I just love it!! I can do my Pittsburgh style rib eyes with a crispy sear on the outside and rare center just as well on 1/4 gasket of charcoal as a full basket in the same amount of time. I also highly recommend that you buy an extra charcoal basket so you can have one dedicated to the splitter and the other dedicated to full basket cooks. It gets real messy trying to use one charcoal basket for both kinds of cooks. This is for a 23" KK which only has one solid half moon piece with the splitter kit. I orient the basket so that the coals are to the left rear of the KK at an angle which is very comfortable for me to come in with a spatula or tongs to turn the food cooking over very high heat without significant heat under my hands - so much so that I don't even need gloves. Susan