Flare Up So Bad I Couldn't Cook on BGE Tonight

BBQ Lady

I was looking forward to cooking a meatloaf on the egg tonight but I ended up having to use my oven. I have used our egg 20-30 times and have never had such a bad flare up before.

Before I lit the fire I stirred the left over lump and then scraped all the ashes out of the bottom area .Next I put in some BGE lump and lit it. After 15 minutes I lowered the lid., both bottom and top vent were wide open. Another 15 minutes went by and I noticed the temperature had stopped climbing at the 200 degree mark. Fire was still emitting black smoke. At that point I put my plate setter in (legs up) and set the grill on top of it. The grill was cleaned before our last cook of marinated chicken breasts. I didn't clean it this time because it was not all that dirty. 10 more minutes went by and temp was still at 200. I opened the grill and got a medium sized flare up. I closed the lid and at the point the temperature started to climb. I shut the lid and closed the vents half way. I thought I was ready to cook but when I opened up the lid there was a huge flare up. I closed both vents and decided to cook indoors.

Anyone have any guesses as to what I did wrong? The only thing that I am wondering about is that I used the last of our BGE lump and the pieces were on the small side.

Thanks for any help!

TXTriker

BBQ Lady,

You have an answer down below.

civil eggineer

I never leave my lid up after lighting. Everything needs to warm up together and having the lid open prevents that and allows to much oxygen.

PhotoPro

My guess is that your fire grate holes got pretty plugged up or that you had such a clump of small chips and dust that your air flow was restricted. My egg lives outside, so some moisture can collect from our humid air, and dampen the lump that stays behind, confounding the problem. Best practice is to disassemble and completely clean after 3 or 4 cooks, and hand-pick the new lump going in the firebox. I am working my way through a bunch of Cowboy lump and won't use anything smaller than a golf ball, so I only use about half of each bag. The rest goes to the landfill.