Astroimage
05-21-2012, 08:01 PM
Hello Brethren,
Here comes another one of my dumb rookie questions...
I will begin by saying that I have only done two cooks so far.
My equipment; Large Big Green Egg using Big Green Egg lump. Both cooks were St. Louis cut ribs that were purchased at the same time. Target temperature was 225 at the grate 250 at the dome. cook times were 3 hours on the grid and 2 hours in foil.
The delta between the grid and the dome has been confirmed using a BBQ Guru CyberQ Wifi. The reported temperature of the BBQ Guru has been confirmed using boiling water. Water measured 208 instead of 212 but I am not going to argue about 4 degrees... could have lost that much in the time it took to get the probes in the water and read a stabilized temperature...
Round one of the ribs... Farkin' AWSOME. The thiner section was "fall off the bone"; perfect for my wife. The thicker section held the bone till you pulled... very good but slightly overdone for me. The Egg controlled beautifully, very little dicking around to get to temperature and cruse thru the cook. I was amazed at how easy it was to set the temperature and forget it.
Second cook... okay ribs... thermal runaway when I started. I overshot 225 by 70 degrees and it took over an hour to get the temperature back to 225. The temperature kept bouncing around thru the cook. I would throttle it back a little then have to open it up a lot. This went on thru out the cook, thank goodness the Guru beeped and complains or I may have never noticed.
So, tonight after work I go to clean the Egg to get ready for this coming weekend (Monday and getting ready for the weekend :oops: damn that is *almost* embarrassing) What do you thing I found? Three of the air holes in the fire ring were plugged up with nasty @$$ lump AND 40 percent of the air holes in the lower grate were plugged up from the same chit.
When I started shoveling the lump around in the firebox I noticed that the fire had burned a diagonal tunnel thru the lump... about the seven o'clock position an the bottom to the 2 o'clock position at the top. The burn tunnel made since to me because the fire was avoiding the plugged up holes in the firebox. The fire found the air where it was available and burned the lump according...
Okay, so I clean out the Egg and get rid of the small lump and the ash in the bottom gearing up for the weekend... Now I am reflecting...
The procedure that I used to restock the firebox after my first cook was to mix in new lump into the old using a spatula. I feel that when I did this the small pieces of lump found their way into the air holes... Soooo... I gotta ask, what is the correct method to begin a second cook? Just pile on new lump and relight it? no mixing? Remove all of the old lump and reload?
My reason for asking is that I have plans to be using the snot out of the egg this weekend... Thinking that I will be doing pulled pork on Friday, Ribs Sunday and Ribs and a beef roast on Monday... Not enough time to second guess so I am asking what to fark to do to make efficient use of the limited time that I have...
...Okay, I am done and will just stand by and listen. Please help a rank amateur .
Brian
Here comes another one of my dumb rookie questions...
I will begin by saying that I have only done two cooks so far.
My equipment; Large Big Green Egg using Big Green Egg lump. Both cooks were St. Louis cut ribs that were purchased at the same time. Target temperature was 225 at the grate 250 at the dome. cook times were 3 hours on the grid and 2 hours in foil.
The delta between the grid and the dome has been confirmed using a BBQ Guru CyberQ Wifi. The reported temperature of the BBQ Guru has been confirmed using boiling water. Water measured 208 instead of 212 but I am not going to argue about 4 degrees... could have lost that much in the time it took to get the probes in the water and read a stabilized temperature...
Round one of the ribs... Farkin' AWSOME. The thiner section was "fall off the bone"; perfect for my wife. The thicker section held the bone till you pulled... very good but slightly overdone for me. The Egg controlled beautifully, very little dicking around to get to temperature and cruse thru the cook. I was amazed at how easy it was to set the temperature and forget it.
Second cook... okay ribs... thermal runaway when I started. I overshot 225 by 70 degrees and it took over an hour to get the temperature back to 225. The temperature kept bouncing around thru the cook. I would throttle it back a little then have to open it up a lot. This went on thru out the cook, thank goodness the Guru beeped and complains or I may have never noticed.
So, tonight after work I go to clean the Egg to get ready for this coming weekend (Monday and getting ready for the weekend :oops: damn that is *almost* embarrassing) What do you thing I found? Three of the air holes in the fire ring were plugged up with nasty @$$ lump AND 40 percent of the air holes in the lower grate were plugged up from the same chit.
When I started shoveling the lump around in the firebox I noticed that the fire had burned a diagonal tunnel thru the lump... about the seven o'clock position an the bottom to the 2 o'clock position at the top. The burn tunnel made since to me because the fire was avoiding the plugged up holes in the firebox. The fire found the air where it was available and burned the lump according...
Okay, so I clean out the Egg and get rid of the small lump and the ash in the bottom gearing up for the weekend... Now I am reflecting...
The procedure that I used to restock the firebox after my first cook was to mix in new lump into the old using a spatula. I feel that when I did this the small pieces of lump found their way into the air holes... Soooo... I gotta ask, what is the correct method to begin a second cook? Just pile on new lump and relight it? no mixing? Remove all of the old lump and reload?
My reason for asking is that I have plans to be using the snot out of the egg this weekend... Thinking that I will be doing pulled pork on Friday, Ribs Sunday and Ribs and a beef roast on Monday... Not enough time to second guess so I am asking what to fark to do to make efficient use of the limited time that I have...
...Okay, I am done and will just stand by and listen. Please help a rank amateur .
Brian