Getting beyond the limitations of the old XL platesetter

The Virginian

The old XL platesetter was always a problem for me. As designed it was too near the grate, and meat you put on would get too much reflective heat on the bottom. That was my experience anyway. The temporary fix for that was to elevate the grate on some pieces of firebrick. That works great, but if you want to add a second tier grate for quantity cooking your meat ended up too near the dome, where ironically you also ended up with too much reflective heat. [p]Nature Boy has a nice little setup on one of his large Eggs that is just a couple of bent pieces of band iron crisscrossed, that forms a platform several inches down for a pie plate that acts as a barrier to direct heat. Old Dave incorporates something along this line to his mult-level cooking setup also I think. Anyway, I did this for the XL, using a 1 inch deep, 18 inch across deep dish aluminum pizza pan. the pan sits about 2 and a half inches below the grate. I just put a butt on to cook overnight, we will see how it does. If it does a good job, I will try a full two-tier cook with a brisket and a butt and maybe some ribs all at the same time and see how that does. This setup should but me another 2-3 inches of space up top, so I am hopeful that will work also. [p]As NB will attest I am not by nature a very handy guy, so all this bending and cutting iron to produce this thing was quite a personal adventure. Just another great thing about cooking on the Egg. [p]I will report tomorrow on results. [p]Brett
P.S. If it works well I intend to cook a whole contest on just the XL in the fall. Its not as nifty a feat as doing one on a large, but I am really looking forward to it.

mad max beyond eggdome

The Virginian,
i think you did a great job on this thing. . .i'm betting it works really well for you ....

Unknown

The Virginian,[p]You are pretty close to my Contraption for the XL Egg. It is built just like the one I do for the large Egg and has a top grid that measures 22-1/2" in diameter which is adjustable in height between about 1" to 5" above the standard grid. It will also just lift off to service the lower grid of meat, again like the large Egg. The lower grid that holds the drip pan is 15" in diameter but I will change it to 18" and the drip pan used is a standard deep dish 16" in diameter pizza pan. I do use the standard grid from the cooker but I do put two handles on it to make it easier to get out for adding charcoal and also to just handle the big grid. One last feature and I do this with all my setups is that it can all be setup in the kitchen and then carried out all in one piece with the meat and dropped into the cooker when the temp is ready. [p]I have much testing to do with this unit to see what will work and will have results with pictures when I get it all done. [p]Dave

JDOTR

Brett,
On the suggestion of Bobby-Q... On our XL I put the plate sitter feet down between the firebox and the fire ring. This gives plenty of room for air circulation and the grid is still at the normal cooking level, and you still have room to add another level if you want. Drawback being you now have to take the firering out to refuel.
Good luck!!!
Chet[p]


[ul][li]Co-Bros-Que[/ul]