I have pictures that show the rest of that grate section Gary. After it was all in place I filled up to the top of the angle iron part of that hearth with the water reservoir with cement mortar and then to the edge of that lid with refractory cement so everything is sealed. Part of the plan for this thing was that one or more nozzles could be easily added to make it a simple fire. Right now there is a pipe from the lighting port that extends to the edge of the hearth and it seems like if the air in the bottom plenum was blocked that it could run as a simple fire right now. I mainly went with Don’s design because I liked how he was feeding the steam into the system.
I don’t know how much charcoal I have in the hopper Don but I’m going to cut a four by four access port into it today and empty it and see what’s up with that grate. I had three feet of charcoal above that hearth when I started. I don’'t know how much is left or what the minimum is for it to run properly. I really appreciate all the help you guys are giving. Probably wouldn’t figure this out by myself. Anyway before I cut the hopper I’ll fire it one more time and bypass the filter like Gary suggested.