Proper Puck Positioning

[st3v32k12]

Not sure if I am doing this right:

Let's say I want to have 4 hours of smoke.  Each puck is 20 minutes, so I would load 12 pucks into the tower turn on the smoker.  It will initially move one forward.  20 minutes later it will move another forward.  20 minutes later the first puck will hit the burner.  By this time it should be nice and hot.

Now do I add pucks or time to account for the first 40 minutes of non-use?  I have heard of "puck savers" and I assume these are to add to the end of your stack of pucks to help move the last ones along.... So would that be 4:40 minutes with two puck savers and 12 wooded pucks to do 4 hours of smoke?

I also notice that if I have screwed up and I run out of pucks before the time is out (meaning no more pucks in the tower so none moving forward) the heating element seems to turn off.  I hope this is normal?  I hope this is a safety feature or something... I add more pucks and increase the time but they do not seem to smoke anymore.  My smoker is less than a year old.

Please help...

[Jim O]

I push the wood advance button on the SG twice after adding 20 minutes to my total smoke time.This puts the first puck ready to advance onto the burner. The extra time allows the puck burner to heat up,and after the extra 20 min. has passed the first puck advances onto the already heated burner and the smoke starts to roll .

Jim O

[KyNola]

The puck burner element turns off based on the time for which you set it.  I set mine for as long as I can to aid in retaining heat in the tower.  When I am ready to smoke I place the number of pucks it requires to apply as many hours of smoke as I want plus 3 "puck savers".  The 3rd puck saver causes the last wood puck to kick into the water bowl to extinguish it yet the puck burner element stays on to aid in heat retention.  The smoke generator will continue every 20 minutes to attempt to move another puck to the burner but with 3 "puck savers" in place the generator cannot kick the first one into the water bowl.

[beefmann]

pucks  last 20 minutes so it is  eas to figure if you want an hour of  smoke,, it is  3 pucks plus two puck or three puck savers to get an hour of smoke,,, if you want another hour of smoke it  would be a total of 6 puck plus tow additional pucks or puck savers

[TedEbear]

I always do one less puck than the amount of time I want to smoke.  For instance, if I'm smoking ribs and I want to apply 2 hours of smoke I use 5 pucks plus 3 Auber bisquette savers.  I figure the smoke from the last puck will still linger in the chamber long after it has been pushed into the water bowl.