Best way to drop the temp a bit?

CJATE

Been playing with this thing quite a bit. Been doing a lot of baking and smoking. One question I’ve had:

What is the quickest way lower the temp? After I reduce the airflow, I've tried to open the lid quick or held it open for a while, is there a trick? Seem the fire catches ever time I try to lower the temp.

WessB

By opening the dome you are actually adding more oxygen..which will theoretically raise the temp..but I do understand trying to let some of the heat out....I'm not sure what you consider "lower the temp" are you talking about shutting the egg down or reducing temps to cook something else...once all that ceramic mass is hot it's going to take a while for it to cool down.

Cpt'n Cook

You could maybe shut vents and put a couple of fire bricks in and pull them out when it cools a bit. You couldn't do that, of course, if you had a turkey or a few butts in there already.

I have never tried it though. :unsure:

FearlessGrill

Patience. As Wess said, opening the lid generally just gives the fire more air. Unlike a metal grill, where that technique will work pretty well, one of the things that makes ceramic cookers so efficient is the heat retaining property of the ceramic. Once your Egg has been cooking for a while, the ceramic heats up, and opening the lid isn't going to cool them off quickly, even if your fire is completely out. Generally with the Egg, you want to creep up on your target temperature, slowing down the air supply as you get closer. This way, you're working up to your desired temp, which is much easier and quicker than trying to cool off hot ceramic if you overshoot when heating up.

When I light, I start with the top cap off, and the bottom wide open. I light in 3-4 spots, close the lid, and wait for the fire to catch. If I'm going for 350+, I'll put the daisy on at the appropriate setting once the dome temp hits 350. If I'm going lower, I'll let it get to 300 or so, then put the daisy on and close the bottom vent appropriately. In this case, the ceramic hasn't had time to heat up much so it cools quickly, and I find this works for me to keep the fire lit. In either case, let the temp stabilize at the setting you started with, which may take some time, then make small adjustments to the airflow. I usually adjust using the daisy only. You could use either the daisy or the bottom draft door, but if you start adjusting both at once, you'll have a harder
time controlling. Once your temp is stable and the acrid initial smoke has cleared, you can put in your food. If you're putting in a large cold piece of meat, like a butt, roast, turkey, etc, your tmp will drop pretty significantly at first. Don't panic and start adjusting, or you'll end up too hot. Just let the Egg do it's thing, and it will eventually come back to the stable temp you started with. Generally over the course of a long cook, I'll make a few minor adjustments, but this works pretty well. I recently did a back to back cook of baby back ribs and a 10 lb butt, ran the Egg for 27 hours at 250, and only adjusted the temp once at the beginning of the cook.

The other reason you might want to cool things down is if you're cooking multiple things, and need to go from a direct sear at high temp to a lower temp for indirect cooking. In this case, menu planning is helpful. Thing about whether you can cook things in temp order from low to high, so you don't have to try and cool down in the middle of a cook. If you do need to do this, close the bottom door nearly all the way, put the daisy on almost closed, and go have a beer or two The temp will gradually fall as the fire dies down. Once it falls to the level you want, set the vents appropriately, let it stabilize, and start cooking. Or you could just get a 2nd Egg so you can cook at two temps at once...

Hope this helps,

-John

Grilling Away in ?

About the only thing you can do is close off the bottom and top vents to a very minimum and be patient. Less oxygen means less fire/combustion but it will take a while especially if you were at high temp.