set my egg on fire..twice.

supervisor404

please please please help me out fellow Eggers. For the past three months I have been so stoked about getting my egg off lay-a-way and I finally did this past Thursday. I built a nice UGA theme table and was ready to GO.....Well long story short...I cant get the Egg to maintain the temp. It flamed up twice on me and I could get it back down...please please help me guys. I want to do an over night cook next...

Chris88

You should try some easy cooks first like chicken are burgers to get use to maintaining the temp. Then move into the over night cooks. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

just keep the vents choked down more until you get the hang of it. Very small adjustments can have dramatic effects.. even 10-15 minutes later. keep the adjustments small and be patient to see the outcome of your adjustments. don't let the fire get out of control on the hot side.  

Start with a smaller load of lump. maybe go half way up the firebox and stop there for now. Then try starting with bottom open half and daisy wheel closed with vents open. that should get you to somewhere close to 350-400 depending on amount of lump, outside temp etc. Make minor tweaks once it's stabilized there for 15 minutes (or more) and see how they affect your temps. Do a few practice cooks and you'll get the hang of it. 

Also, when you have fires burning out of control hot, you have to be very careful for flashback! Make sure you understand this principle well before going any further. It can flash out the bottom vent, the top vent, and the grand daddy of them all, the dome when you open it. Don't ever choke a hot fire then open the dome without ventilating it. Don't ever just throw the dome open to a hot burning fire. There are all kinds of flashback threads on here so check them out and make sure you are clear on that before moving forward.

Totally agree with Chris that you need to do a few testers and get the temp control down before doing an overnight cook. That is unless you like getting up every 30 min to mess with temps!

Hang in there. It will come sooner than you think. Practice, practice, practice.

Good luck

ShadowNick

Find the nearest person with a GA Tech themed table to help. :bz

supervisor404

@ sHADOWNICK....Point him in my direction...lol. Thanks for the advice fellas...will try again this weekend.

CAWjr

Find the nearest person with a GA Tech themed table to help. :bz

If you need someone to explain the mechanics of how the egg was built, how it works, and the chemical compounds of how lump turns to ash, then a Tech grad is what you need.

If you want someone to tell you how to cook, call an LSU grad!

ShadowNick

Find the nearest person with a GA Tech themed table to help. :bz

If you need someone to explain the mechanics of how the egg was built, how it works, and the chemical compounds of how lump turns to ash, then a Tech grad is what you need.

If you want someone to tell you how to cook, call an LSU grad!

)   No argument here...  Love me some etoufee 

gatorBGE

I have to agree, it's the UGA theme which is at issue here.


For serious, practice, practice, practice.....you'll get there.

Hillbilly-Hightech

you said it "flamed up" - what do you mean? 

The ONLY time I've seen that happen is when the dome is open (though, I guess to be fair, if the dome is closed, ya can't really see if it flames up or not anyway) hehehe :P

Anyway, the point is that for 99.9% of the foods you'll cook, the dome SHOULD be closed.  Personally, the ONLY time that I keep the dome open is when I'm searing a steak, and that's only because I have the steak on the grill for 60 seconds, then I flip & have it on for another 60 seconds, so the amount of time that it's on the grill is very short. 

Also, as someone above alluded to, it's good habit to "burp" the Egg before just flinging the lid open - otherwise you can experience the not-so pleasant phenomena of "flashback."  

Anyway, so now that you understand to NOT cook w/ the lid (dome) up, the next issue is maintaining temp. 

Don't get into the BAD habit of "chasing" the temp (this is when you try to get it dialed in to EXACTLY the precise temp of say, 375, so you open the vents too much, and the temp overshoots, then you panic & you shut the vents down too much, and it drops to below 375, then you panic again and... you get the point). 

It's best to catch the temp on the way UP, rather than shoot past it & try to get that highly efficient ceramic to cool back down.  So, w/ that being said, if you wanna cook at say, 375, then when the temp starts climbing, and it's at about 300, start slowly closing the vents, then see how that effects the temp.  As it gets closer, say, 350, go a little more, till you finally reach your goal of 375 (I like to think of it sort of like "topping off" your tank when filling up - if you wanna put $40.00 - heck, w/ the price of gas nowadays it's more like $60.00 - anyway, when you get to about $55.00, slowly start releasing the handle, and as it gets closer to the $60.00 mark, release the handle even more and "EASE" into the goal of $60.00).

Also, in my EGG-sperience, if I'm wanting to cook at 375 & the Egg (for whatever reason) wants to "hover" at say, 360, or 380 - big deal, I let it hover there - it likes it there (and it's a HECKUVA lot easier to just let it sit at the temp it wants to be then to try to chase the temp up & down). 

Remember, tiny adjustments can cause large temp variations, so your adjustments should be minor, and you need to get in the habit of being PATIENT in order to allow the proper time for those adjustments to take hold & have their effect.  =;

For instance, if you put a plate setter in - well, that's a massive, cold, heat sink that you just placed into a hot environment - it's gonna take some time for that big hunk-a ceramic to get up to the same temp of the Egg, and while it's doing that, you'll notice the temp of the Egg will drop accordingly - DON'T PANIC & try to open the vents because you've noticed your temp went from 350 to 275 (hypothetical numbers, of course).  You might wanna make some SMALL adjustments, but my advice is to just leave it alone & it'll normalize itself & come back to the proper temp IN DUE TIME :-w

Anyway, write back & let us know what you meant by "flame ups" and give some more specific info as to what you mean by "can't maintain temp" & we'll get ya on the right track!! 

HTH,
Rob

tazcrash

@HH, If this forum had stickies, that should go up their with in the noob primer section. 

Would have saved me some time being the overly literal @$$ I can be.