Got it seasoned last night. The guy said that a good way to start it up was to put a base layer of "cold" charcoal down, then dump a full chimney of hot charcoal on top to get a huge bed of coals going. Then, throw some logs on top of that, so that's what I did:
^ Fire started up really nice, but after about 2 hours, I noticed that the smoke coming out was thick and white, which is the exact opposite of what you're aiming for, lol. Even after opening all of the vents fully, it was still pumping out thick, white smoke. It was like the fire was getting "choked" out. Hmmmm.... started scratching my head, then finally realized that the charcoal ash wasn't dropping down into the ash pan, and was completely blocking the gaps between the pieces of angle iron that hold up the fire.
Because of the height of the intake vents (they're down as low as the ash pan), not enough oxygen was making its way up to the fire:
At least, I hope that what the problem was, hahaha
Once I cleaned that out with a steel rod, and emptied the ash pan, everything burned a lot "cleaner," by the time I was burning straight wood.
Also wanted to see where any hot or cool spots were on the cooking grates, and I remembered an easy "pro tip" from one of Jess Pryles' videos....
Grab a few packages of some biscuits and spread them out all over the grates and cook them. Observe the rate that they're cooking at, and boom! Now you know how evenly your rig is heating everything
Don't mind if I do!
I've gotta say, I'm pretty impressed with how evenly this thing cooks! Top rack cooks just a little warmer than the bottom, with the warmest spot being on the top, by the exhaust.
(Top plate was from the top rack, with the biscuits on top of the pile being closest to the exhaust. Bottom plate was on the bottom rack)
Everything got seasoned nicely, and there's a nice base coat of built up grease on everything
I'm definitely gonna need a lot of practice on this thing to figure out maintaining steady temps, how much wood to add and when, etc., but for my first go at it, I'm pretty satisfied. Just gonna have to keep playing with it, that's all
Oh yeah, I kinda knew that the thermometer that came on this was probably just gonna be "for decoration," and I was right
^ This thing was WAY off, haha
Thanks for looking! This is gonna be one hell of a ride!