Firing Up, Firing Down

After doing a lot of reading over the last several days. I think I've found the answer to the glaze firing problem I had recently. The potters who fire reds fire up and then ramp back down slowly. Some shut the kiln down and then manually hold the setter back on for 20 minutes in the 1800 - 1900 range to allow the crystallization of the iron molecules that reflect the color red. This is where Crystalline glazes also ramp down to and hold for a number of hours. Some potters however who were doing reds actually fired back down slowly to achieve the red coloration. This is also used to more slowly cool a kiln to allow a glaze to stop bubbling and heal over. In my case the cone malfunctioned and I did not have witness cones inside (big mistake) to tell me when I'd reached peak temperature. I've decided to do my glaze firings based on witness cones instead of relying on the setter to shut it down. This way I can fire back down slowly cooling the glaze.