First Smoke on the BGE XL

halfprice · Sep 25, 2011

Long post. If anyone has any tips for a newbie they are all welcome. Thanks

I just started smoking a couple of months ago. I bought a cheap $40 smoker from Lowes. No vents and very hard to maintain temps. It sucked so I put a wtb ad on Craigs List for a BGE and got a responce in a couple of days. XL with pizza stone, nest, and plate setter for $250. :clap2::clap2: Guy said he bought it to make pizzas and wasn't happy with it so he bought a pizza oven.

So it looks almost brand new. It has some black smoke in it but minimal.

Today I broke it in by smoking a tri tip and mac & cheese. I tried to follow some directions I've seen on Fred's Music and BBQ videos and from what I read here.

Well I let it heat up to much and it was hard to get the temp down. First off I filled the egg the a little over the fire ring.

Put about 15 pieces of lump into my weber chiminy starter. I use the side bunner on my big Jenn Aire to start the lump.

It gets it going fast. I put the chimney on the coals while it heating up.

I dropped the coals in, shut the lid, and go get the tri tip. The top is off and the bottom vent is wide open. When I get back the temp in about 450. Way to hot but from what I read it only the air and the egg hasn't heated up yet??? Idk if thats true but it was hard to lower the temp.

I put the plate setter, rack, and tri tip on and close the lid. Its now down to 350. Still to hot. I start closing everything but it takes over an hour to get to 250. My 732 show the meat at 120 by then. Cooking way to fast.

Well I'm not going to get the slow cook I wanted so I just let it take the ride for 3 hours. It gets to 160. I figure it wells done, I like medium, but this cook is an experiment.

At the two hour mark I get the mac & cheese ready. Put it together and on the egg it goes. Temp is now 200 so I open the lower vent to about 1/2. I closed it all the way down earlier to get the temp down.

1 hour later everything comes off.

I let the tri tip rest for about 15 minutes then slice it up.

I used some hickery lump and chips and it tasted pretty good. Over cooking it made it a bit dry but over all not bad for a first time on the BGE.

Jerry

Roby · Sep 25, 2011

Looks good! Pretty soon you will get the hang of that guy and be cooking some sweet Que. All I can say for the heat temps are start of slow, It's a lot easier to slowly get up to temp and maintain then trying to get it down from 450.

halfprice · Sep 25, 2011

Roby said:
Looks good! Pretty soon you will get the hang of that guy and be cooking some sweet Que. All I can say for the heat temps are start of slow, It's a lot easier to slowly get up to temp and maintain then trying to get it down from 450.

I agree. So when I put the started lump in should I have the top and lower vents closed?? I was afraid of killing off the coals before they got going.

Jerry

Roby · Sep 25, 2011

I don't have any experience with an egg so hopefully someone who does will chime in. With my ECB I will have the intake open an 1/8th of an inch and that's plenty to get my smoker almost up to temp. Let's wait and hear from some seasoned egg experts.

JMSetzler · Sep 25, 2011

Nice! Some guys have all the luck on craigslist

R2Egg2Q · Sep 25, 2011

Congrats on the major CL score!

One thing I see in your pics is you have way more lump loaded than you'd need for a tri-tip cook. My guess is you have about 1/2 of a bag of lump loaded up there and you could probably cook for about 24 hrs straight in the 225-250 range with it loaded that high.

It is likely that you got a little too much lump burning at the start and with the lump that high you're bringing some serious heat up closer to the food.

Here's a pic of my first cook in my XL (I had to search for a while to find any pic of lump loaded in my Egg - I take a ton of pics but usually just food pics):

The amount of lump loaded in the above pic was plenty to cook some spares and definitely more than enough to cook a tri-tip. I typically light my lump with 3 fire starter blocks (placed at Noon, 4, and 8 o'clock positions) and find it gives a pretty even burn throughout the Egg. Draft door and top vent are both wide open. When it gets around 200 degrees on the dome I close the draft & top vent to about 1/3 open and continue to close the bottom gradually as the its rises up to my target temp.

As you found out, the XL takes a LONG time to come down in temps so you really don't want to overshoot your target.

Just as another reference, here's a pic of the lump loaded into my brother-in-law's Large Egg. This was more than enough to cook a small pork butt:

Your mac & cheese looks good. For tri-tip, I pull mine at 130 and they rise at least a few degrees during the rest and end up right on the border of med-rare and medium. Slice across the grain and you'll find it is much more tender.

HeSmellsLikeSmoke · Sep 25, 2011

Looks like too much charcoal to me also.

That is a really great score :thumb:

shirknwrk · Sep 25, 2011

Get a lawyer and a bondsman. Hide the XL Egg... Because you STOLE it! Great score!
(Check out www.greeneggers.com too.)

If there's one tip for a ceramic newbie, it's to start closing the vents BEFORE you reach your target temperature. 200 lbs of thermal mass will hold heat for a LONG time!

Don Marco · Sep 25, 2011

Awesome deal on tha X-Large.

You will see that the egg is a lot different - and better - than other smokers but you got to learn it a bit. Learning by burning

DM

eggzlot · Sep 25, 2011

as others have said, dont overshoot the temps. You do not even need the chimney starter. Personally, I do not think it matters how much lump you have in there, you can always re-use it on the next cook.

Load with lump, use those starter cubes, light it in 2-3 places - keep the cap off the top (wide open) and the bottom vent wide open and the lid open. Do that for about 10 minutes until the cubes burn out and start 2-3 small pockets of fire. Put in whatever you are going to use (platesetter, grates, etc). Close the lid but keep the top wide open and same with the bottom vent.

As you are about 30-50 degrees away from your desired temp, put the metal cap on and close the bottom vent to about 1/2'' open. The temp will slowly start to creep up but not as fast and it will pretty much land in your desired range.

When you are done cooking, put the ceramic lid on top, close the bottom vents. Next time you go to use the egg, stir up the leftover lump, maybe add some fresh if you want, and get cooking!

Redleg71 · Sep 25, 2011

250 for an XL with all those pieces is awesome!

Tips.

1.) only fill the charcoal to the top of the the base pit (like in the pictures from r2egg2)
2.) use fire starters in the egg and ditch the chimney.
3.) open the bottom damper all the way and remove the the top damper
4.) When the the temp gets about 250 close the bottom damper half way and put on the top cast iron damper about half open.
5.)Adjust the top and bottom till you get the desired temp

halfprice · Sep 25, 2011

R2Egg2Q said:
Congrats on the major CL score!

Here's a pic of my first cook in my XL (I had to search for a while to find any pic of lump loaded in my Egg - I take a ton of pics but usually just food pics):

Your mac & cheese looks good. For tri-tip, I pull mine at 130 and they rise at least a few degrees during the rest and end up right on the border of med-rare and medium. Slice across the grain and you'll find it is much more tender.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

R2Egg2Q I have a couple of question if you have the time. I see your egg is the newer model. The fire ring is indented to fit the plater setter. How long are the legs on your plate setter.

I have the old fire ring and my plate setter's legs are probable only 1"-1 1/2" I was going to put a drip pan under the tri tip but the pan was to tall.

Is it ok to put the plate setter under the fire ring and the grate on top of the fire ring???

Yes I put alot of lump for just a tri tip. I knew that but had read several posts this was ok. I plan to just relight the old and add when needed.

Jerry

R2Egg2Q · Sep 25, 2011

halfprice said:
Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

R2Egg2Q I have a couple of question if you have the time. I see your egg is the newer model. The fire ring is indented to fit the plater setter. How long are the legs on your plate setter.

I have the old fire ring and my plate setter's legs are probable only 1"-1 1/2" I was going to put a drip pan under the tri tip but the pan was to tall.

Is it ok to put the plate setter under the fire ring and the grate on top of the fire ring???

Yes I put alot of lump for just a tri tip. I knew that but had read several posts this was ok. I plan to just relight the old and add when needed.

Jerry

The legs on my plate setter are about 2 3/4" and offers about 2" of clearance under the cooking grate. I've used some pretty tall drip pans before and just set the grate on top of the pan but most of the time I use a shallower pan (1/2 baking sheet - just under 1 1/4" tall).

I've never seen anyone cook with the plate setter under the fire ring but the BGE web site on the Plate Setter page shows a pic here with an Egg set up that way. I did a quick search at Green Eggers and found this so apparently some folks with the older XL do cook that way.

If you haven't already, check out the Ceramic Grill Store which is owned/operated by brethren member tjv. Tom has a bunch of accessories for the Eggs and you might consider an indirect setup like the one here (scroll down to the Indirect Set Up section) to solve your drip pan clearance issue. If you have questions about his products, PM or call him and I'm sure he can steer you in the right direction. I have a few of his products (lump reducing ring, woo, ang-L brackets, triangle hanger) and have been really happy with them.

As for loading up on lump, yes you can relight the old but I'd also be concerned about putting so much in that it cuts down on airflow. However, you don't want to run out of lump on a long cook either as it is not fun to remove food, a greasy drip pan, and a really hot plate setter to reload lump mid-cook. I'm sure you'll find the right balance for your needs.

First Smoke on the BGE XL

halfprice

Knows what a fatty is.

Roby

Knows what a fatty is.

halfprice

Knows what a fatty is.

Roby

Knows what a fatty is.

JMSetzler

Babbling Farker

R2Egg2Q

is One Chatty Farker

HeSmellsLikeSmoke

somebody shut me the fark up.

shirknwrk

is one Smokin' Farker

Don Marco

is Blowin Smoke!

eggzlot

Take a breath!

Redleg71

Knows what a fatty is.

halfprice

Knows what a fatty is.

R2Egg2Q

is One Chatty Farker

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