FAQs

Any number of things:

• Let the ashes cool throughly, then dispose of them in your trash. Just be sure that you DO let them cool thoroughly, perhaps 48 hours.

• Dump ashes on snow and ice to give you better traction.

• Ashes can be used to add nutrients to compost, mixed in the soil around calcium-loving plants or sprinkled around garden beds to keep away pests like slugs and ants. However, DO NOT SPREAD ASHES ON ACID-LOVING PLANTS such as camelias, rhododendrons and azaleas.

Oh happy day! The answer to this one is that you generally don't have to clean the cooker out! Obviously, you will want to clean the grid and occasionally clean out excess ash, but the walls of the cooker itself will turn black with use. They will build up a layer of smoke, fat, ash, whatever. This is ok! The cooker isn't supposed to stay white inside. You may find that this layer of build up will flake off from the inside of the dome over time. You probably want to help this along by scraping with a crumpled ball of aluminum foil so that the big flakes don't fall into your food. But in general, there is no need to do any cleaning of the inside of your cooker.

You will find many people recommending that you do a "clean burn" which involves taking your cooker up to 600°F or more for an hour or two in order to burn everything off the inside walls of your cooker. This turns out to be a somewhat controversial question. There are a number of things to consider when deciding if you want to do a clean burn.

It is probably a good idea. Although most ceramic cookers have fired exteriors, some do not. Tiled cookers would probably benefit from a cover to prevent moisture from penetrating the grout, should you not be diligent about sealing the grout. At least one brand of cooker has a painted exterior and it would be wise to consult the manufacturer about this issue. All ceramic cookers, however, have a hole in the top for a thermometer, and water can enter the cooker via this hole. This can contribute to moisture levels in the cooker when you are not using it and thus make mold more likely to form. A good cover can never hurt.

Not really. You don't want to simply burn wood in a ceramic cooker. You are asking for creosote deposits on the inside of the cooker. Also, you may find it very hard to regulate the temperature because the wood may choose to ignite and burn with a flame, sending the temperature sky high. If you cut down on the airflow, the flames may go out and the wood will smolder producing clouds of smoke. If you want to try using wood in a ceramic cooker, you should probably do it the way that folks do in normal BBQ pits: burn the wood down to coals in another container, and then add the coals to the cooker as needed to keep your temperature where you want it.

Note that this information comes from personal experience. We were asked to review a wood fuel product which was going to be advertised as a replacement for charcoal. When doing our normal burntime test, we ended up with creosote on the dome of our cooker, and the top vent was stuck shut. We couldn't regulate the temperature and the wood only lasted about 25-35% of the time that even the worst charcoals would burn.

You may be tempted to put some other pans in your cooker, heat it up to frying temperatures and then deep fry some catfish or something like that. BAD IDEA!! If you spill the oil, or if the oil bubbles over the edges of the pot into the fire, you will have quite a firebomb to contend with. Do not use your cooker as a fryer! You can saute using small amounts of oil, but do not deep fry!

Absolutely.