Smoking ribs for the first time - New Grill

Assuming you don’t have a heat deflector I would put the charcoal on one side and maybe tent it with some tin foil and put ribs on other side of grill, you don’t need a lot of charcoal in ceramics. Do you have a chimney or something to start it, not suppose to use lighter fluid.

Pork baby back. In the past I have used the 3/2 rule while smoking, but I’m having difficulty lowering the temperature to 200 degrees. I may just need to use less fuel all together. Doing a dry run now.

I use a chimney even when using my old Webber kettle so no lighter fluid here. I plan to wrap the ribs in tin foil like you suggested. Dialing in these dampers is turning out to be more of a struggle than I expected. I’ve got them almost closed and I still can’t get it below 300.

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It takes a while to drop the temperature. You have a lot of residual heat with ceramic cookers. It doesn't just drop like when you closed off the vents on your Weber Kettle. It takes a lot more time.

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I've had some success dropping the temperature by putting in soaked hickory chunks, I guess the steam helps cool it off a little quicker

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Dialing in these dampers is turning out to be more of a struggle than I expected.

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It's incredibly frustrating at first, but if you keep at it you'll learn your grill and know the exact positions needed. It took me a couple months

When smoking, I keep the bottom draft vent about 5mm open, and the top vent barely cracked. The way it was explained to me was the bottom draft vent sets your temperature range, and the top vent controls your temperature withing that range. So once I set the bottom vent, rarely do I fool around with it during a cook unless I really need to crank up the heat

Smoking good now. I’ve got the bottom damper about a 1/4 of the way open and the top almost closed. We’ll see how it turns out.

If my wife says anything I’ll remind her of the first time she made red beans and rice

First off, if you have an Akorn, you don't have a ceramic. What you have is an egg-shaped, double walled steel grill with insulation between the two steel walls. It will work and it is lighter than a comparable ceramic, but it will also bend and dent if you tip it over and not seal as well thereafter -- as a opposed to a ceramic that would probably shatter.

With an Akorn or a ceramic, lowering the temp can be problematic. Best thing to do is watch it closely and shut the vents down when you reach the temperature that you want. With my Primo, to keep it in the 225 range, the bottom vent is opened wide enough to insert a quarter and the top is set similarly. It will stay around that temp for about 36 hours, with a full load of lump.

You just have to use it a few times to get accustomed to your grill.

That aint bad for $50