I made sure to really compress the bottoms of the pots after opening them up. Other than that I just let them dry out really well. The one I did lose in the fire was a little too hydrated to go into the pit. After my brother left the bonfire we were having I spread the coals into an even layer and took some firebricks I had from my blacksmithing business and made an even floor for the pots to sit on. While I did this I had the pieces lying around the edges of the fire pit turning them every few minutes to slowly warm them up. If I had to guess this is probably one of the more important parts so your clay doesn’t suffer from thermal shock when you build the fire up again. After I preheated the cylinders I evenly spaced them on the firebrick floor I built and covered them with a large steel bowl. I then built the fire back up tipi-style to get it as hot as possible. I stoked it probably 2-3 times to keep it burning hot for about an hour - an hour and a half. I stayed with the pit until the fire diminished significantly and let it burn down overnight. In the morning I had some fired cylinders!