Put the Fire Where You Want It
Charcoal Baskets & Fire Rings
Steel baskets, rails, and rings that hold charcoal where you want it in a kettle or smoker: banked to one side for two-zone, in a ring for a slow burn, or in a tall basket for a drum. They turn a pile of coals into a fire you can plan around.
What it is
Steel baskets, rails, and rings that hold charcoal where you want it in a kettle or smoker: banked to one side for two-zone, in a ring for a slow burn, or in a tall basket for a drum. They turn a pile of coals into a fire you can plan around.
How to choose
Buy for your cooker: kettle baskets come in pairs for two-zone or as a single half-moon; drum baskets are sized to the drum; vortex-style cones focus heat up the middle for wings. Heavy expanded steel or stainless lasts; thin wire baskets sag and rust. A basket with a handle you can lift with tongs is worth a few dollars more, and one with legs keeps ash from choking the fire.
Right tool
- Two-zone fires that stay two zones for the whole cook
- Long, slow burns in a kettle with the snake or ring method
- Drums, where the basket is the firebox
- High-heat wings and searing with a cone that channels the heat up
Not the move
- A kamado, which has its own fire bowl
- Piling coals against the wall without one; it works, it just moves
- Cheap wire baskets on a cook over 500°F; they warp
The lineup
All Charcoal Baskets & Fire Rings We’ve Tested
We haven’t cataloged any yet.