Big Green Egg ought to be ashamed of these gaskets!

RichardBronosky · April 2012

I got one of the new packages when I bought my large egg last week. What's different? They left out the feet. What didn't change? They still include this poor quality gasket that they know good and well every owner will have to replace before the first bag of charcoal is finished. I want owners to start speaking out against this and hopefully the next time they "revamp" the egg they can do something that actually benefits the customer and use a decent gasket.

RichardBronosky · April 2012

I'll get it started. I've had my egg for 1 week and cooked on it 3 times, never over 600 degrees. I've never used a chemical in my egg. I only light it with an electric heat gun. Now I'm expected to use acetone to remove this cheap gasket they put on? That's disgusting. I would rather have bought it without one. Then I could have chosen one of quality.

JEC23 · April 2012

Mine went on the 3rd cook, waiting on BGE UK to reply to my email.

Shawn · April 2012

Thats why lots of folks are getting mad at BGE because they don't care about customer service! They knew about this issue for years and never did anything about it! Bge is a very good grill but I smell coroporate greed!!!

JEC23 · April 2012

Just had a reply from BGE UK even though it's a Bank holiday here in the UK, now that's what I call good service

Mickey · April 2012

They are fine (IMO) w/o gaskets. 3 without any and no problems.
On the feet issue you might ck the deler just didn't give you your feet.

cortguitarman · April 2012

Yes, they should put the high temp gasket at the factory. With that said, I called them when mine fried and they sent me a nomex gasket at no charge. Gasket isn't under warranty, but they covered it anyway. That is good customer service. However, when you pay $1000+ for a product, the components should last more than a month.

chad408 · April 2012

I emailed green egg and they sent me a new heat gasket for free.

Ottawa_Eggman · April 2012

Bought my egg on Saturday feet were in the box ( did not have it assembled ) as for the gasket well we'll wait and see I only got one cook in and I only let it get to 450 dome temp for the first cook

chrisnjenn · April 2012

I have been 100% pleased with BGE's customer service. Second to none in my experience. Heck, I have a neighbor that has a Kamado Joe and another with a Primo. Both have had horrible experiences with them and both companies were a pain in the butt to deal with according to them. Kamado Joe did not fix my neighbors Joe even though it was an obvious manufacturers defect (a crack and numerous paint chips).

That being said, BGE could do a much better job with the gaskets, but that certainly isn't a make or break deal if you are considering one.

bigguy136 · April 2012

I have over 30 cooks at 300-350°. Several 20+ hour cooks and several 700° steak sears. If you look thru my cook posts, you will see my gasket is still looking good. I know the day is coming that my gasket will need to be removed or replaced but the gasket lived up to what was expected. I wonder if doing several 300° cooks first helped season the gasket?

BGElovr · April 2012

I have a medium and a small both well over a year now with many, many cooks and both gaskets are just fine. Never cooked a pizza but have done several high temp burns to clean the inside and platesetter. No issues here guys.

stike · April 2012

acetone isn
t going to do anything to the egg. it's highly volatile. there won't be any residue or fumes

pezking7p · April 2012

My gasket is also looking brand new after 3 weeks. I think lid alignment has a lot to so with it.

RichardBronosky · April 2012

I'm glad to hear that it is slightly less than a 100% failure rate. I still feel that since BGE sells 2 gaskets and one is clearly inferior to the other, they need to drop the inferior product. We consistently demonstrate our passion for them. They should demonstrate some passion for us. They should show us that they recognize, "This is not good enough for our customers. They deserve the best. We have it available. We're going to ship it standard."

Thanks everyone for encouraging me to call BGE. My wife saw my disappointment and tried to get me to call, but I didn't think it would matter. "This is a known issue. They sell a great grill with a gasket that everyone knows is going to fail prematurely. They don't care." I'll call today.

fishlessman · April 2012

i dont think the nomex is any better, but.....

Mighty_Quinn · April 2012

i dont think the nomex is any better, but.....

Exactly.

Griffin · April 2012

Going on strong with hardly a trace of a gasket. I knew it would fry before I got it, but read that lots cook without one. I have no problems with what little keeps holding on. I've got a replacement, but no plans to put it on.

As for the feet, your dealer probably forgot to give them to you.

Cowdogs · April 2012

i dont think the nomex is any better, but.....

I have observed the exact opposite. Perhaps the Nomex is not perfect, but I'm pretty happy to say after 200+ cooks that I don't see mine failing anytime soon. Compare this to the OEM gasket where I would bet anyone even-up that an OEM gasket will fail during single 6 pizza (1.5 - 2 hours) cook at 750+ degrees.

I think the worst thing that I see done on this forum is advising new egg owners that their OEM gaskets will survive if they "cure" them by following some sort of break in procedure. The OEM gasket is so easy to replace if it is brand new, however this "curing" process just makes the replacement a hard and dirty job.

Now there are some people here will regale us with stories of OEM gaskets that have survived forever. I don't doubt these people's stories, but I truly believe if I was cooking "my way" on their egg, their amazing long-lived felt gasket would be gone in a few cooks.

jay75 · April 2012

I'm with cowdogs on this one, I went through the "break in procedure" only for it to be toast just one pizza later, now I don't have 200+ cooks on my egg full stop, but the nomex is standing up to everything I have thrown at it including at least one burn off and one where it got away from me when I turned around for a second, and it still looks like it should, going gasketless for me wasn't an option, too likely I would drop the dome and break it, and it wouldn't seal anyway as the rims aren't even close to being flat enough, I know some of you don't use gaskets at all and I know some of you swear by Rutlands but so far my experience of the BGE high temp gasket is all good, it's already stood up better than the OEM, therefore my question is why aren't they sold on eggs as standard?

Doc_Eggerton · April 2012

"Now there are some people here will regale us with stories of OEM gaskets that have survived forever. I don't doubt these people's stories, but I truly believe if I was cooking "my way" on their egg, their amazing long-lived felt gasket would be gone in a few cooks."

:-) I had a similar thought about folks that had done 30 or 40 cooks and the gasket was going strong!

Inbetween my two Eggs I total 60 + cooks a month (going on about 5 months now). Both mine failed within a week, and while it irritates me, it does not seem to have affected the cooks. I have a new nomex for the XL which I intended to finally install last weekend, but I cooked instead.

fishlessman · April 2012

i dont think the nomex is any better, but.....

I have observed the exact opposite. Perhaps the Nomex is not perfect, but I'm pretty happy to say after 200+ cooks that I don't see mine failing anytime soon. Compare this to the OEM gasket where I would bet anyone even-up that an OEM gasket will fail during single 6 pizza (1.5 - 2 hours) cook at 750+ degrees.

I think the worst thing that I see done on this forum is advising new egg owners that their OEM gaskets will survive if they "cure" them by following some sort of break in procedure. The OEM gasket is so easy to replace if it is brand new, however this "curing" process just makes the replacement a hard and dirty job.

Now there are some people here will regale us with stories of OEM gaskets that have survived forever. I don't doubt these people's stories, but I truly believe if I was cooking "my way" on their egg, their amazing long-lived felt gasket would be gone in a few cooks.

all the gaskets ive used with the contact glue, either 3m or sticky back has failed for me in the last 6 or 7 years, before that the felt gaskets they supplied just blackened and charred but were still usuable. something changed and they started falling off may it be a new manufacturing method with the felt gaskets, they glue they used, or someonelse was making them, but before 2004/5 they seemed to have stood up way better than anything newer. rutland makes a better gasket but the sticky back rutlands also fail, the cemented on rutlands with the proper rutland cement was like tree bark, it never came off if the cement was fresh and the install done correctly. and yes, take the new gasket off while new, much less of a hassle. this gasket breakin came around 2005 when the problems started, i dont buy it, the old gaskets you just cooked with. right now i have 3 eggs with no gasket, the base broke on my old rutland egg and i tried the stickyback rutland at that time, it failed just below 900 dome, i never replaced it

Little Steven · April 2012

True,

My mini lost it's gasket first time out and I had some of the old felt replacement kits. Been on for years now.

joe@bge · April 2012

Stock gaskets work just fine. 3+ years and two eggs and only one replacement and it wasn't in that bad of shape. I didn't do anything fancy with the replacement either...scraped it off with a putty knife and replace with a stock BGE gasket, did a low and slow butt cook to break it in and its been on well over a year and looks brand new. One thing I did on the replacement was I made sure that the gasket was positioned more to the outside edge of the egg that the inside edge where it could come in direct contact with the extreme heat and flames - this seems to be working very well for me. Two to three cooks a week and I don't shy away from high temps. Another thing I stopped doing is feet down platesetter pizza cooks - works just as good feet up with a stone on the top and it doesn't deflect the heat directly at the gasket level.

travisstrick · April 2012

I dont use a gasket at all. Mine fried off on my second cook and I have just let it go.

The one thing that really chaps my ass is that I paid $999 for an XL. I paid that high amount for a grill because I thought I was buying the best grill available. Once my gasket fried and fell off, I nearly cried. My wife shamed me for spending so much money on something with such a huge failing. I was devastated.

If BGE is going to continue to sell their eggs with what everyone at BGE KNOWS is the worst possible product (the gasket), then they should let everyone know up front. Doing so would avoid the once a week post about "why does my gasket suck and is my egg ruined" posts we get on here.

The easy answer is to just be up front about it rather than pretending that its not an issue.

BGE, WE WANT A RESPONSE TO THIS

ISSUE.

tazcrash · April 2012

The one thing that really chaps my ass is that I paid $999 for an XL. I paid that high amount for a grill because I thought I was buying the best grill available. Once my gasket fried and fell off, I nearly cried. My wife shamed me for spending so much money on something with such a huge failing. I was devastated.

If BGE is going to continue to sell their eggs with what everyone at BGE KNOWS is the worst possible product (the gasket), then they should let everyone know up front. Doing so would avoid the once a week post about "why does my gasket suck and is my egg ruined" posts we get on here.

The easy answer is to just be up front about it rather than pretending that its not an issue.

X2, Because I did a lot of reading\searching before buying, I almost didn't want to spend that much on a large. When I decided the good outweighed the bad, I warned my wife about this fail point.

As a result, when I saw the crisped bit of gasket on a pizza stone for my first pizza, I didn't panic. But I was looking for the worst case scenario.

travisstrick · April 2012

I didnt know the gasket was a non issue until a long time after. I got my egg on R&R leave from Iraq. I had to suffer through about 6 months thinking my egg was messed up. I hold BGE responsible.

RichardBronosky · April 2012

I just got off of the phone with BGE and they are sending me a Nomex replacement for free. He says that only new egg users run into this problem. He said if you break it in with 5 good long low heat cooks, it should last for years. But, he also agreed that he'd like to see the "high heat gasket" as he calls it come on the egg standard so that customer support can get fewer calls on the issue. I asked him to record my vote.

I was told that these new "high heat" gaskets have better adhesive and they don't get the failure calls on them.

As for the feet, they stopped making the feet when they came out with the table nest. So, if you got feet, they're a collector's item.

xraypat23 · April 2012

I got feet with my new egg, that was purchased with the table nest. Gasket was well broken in, 2-3 very long cooks, 1 pizza night had it falling to pieces. BGE did send out a high temp one for free, but I feel like they know this is a problem, and it should be solved at the factory. BTW, the BGE high temp gasket does not come with adhesive, you need to buy super 77 spray on

Doc_Eggerton · April 2012

I wonder why they don't have a joint/over lap/tongue in grove sort design for the dome and bottom. It would not have to be all that precise, and the two parts would wear into a tight fit. No need for a gasket at all.

joe@bge · April 2012

I wonder why they don't have a joint/over lap/tongue in grove sort design for the dome and bottom. It would not have to be all that precise, and the two parts would wear into a tight fit. No need for a gasket at all.

True...sounds like an engineering "opportunity". While I don't have major issues with the gaskets, I do agree with what a lot of folks are frustrated with. It is a issue when you pay what we pay for these grills and it doesn't come with a high quality gasket. Does anyone know if BGE monitors these forums? If not, they should.

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Big Green Egg ought to be ashamed of these gaskets!

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