just got an egg

I agree with @FanofFanboys that a butt or spatchcock chicken is a good starting spot. This forum is great, but experience is your best teacher. Go for it! Welcome!

First off welcome. where are you from and what size egg did you get? 

Welcome aboard and +1 for Solson005's post.  As you know it is a game changer.  The one bit of info that bit me with my first indirect cook on a BGE (that was not mentioned anywhere) is the calibrated dome to cooking grid temp off-set.  The dome usually runs around 20-40*F hotter when starting out. (Gap closes the longer the dome is shut) My low&slow ribs took forever til I was enlightened.  Enjoy the journey!

Does your egg have a great gasket or black?

Good advice @solson005

I concur that spatch chicken is a great start. My first one blew my mind with it's simplicity and taste, very moist. I still do beer can chicken (Weber poultry cooker), but that's in the oven when I want the chicken/mashed potato/gravy thing.

Welcome all good advice , enjoy you can't go wrong whatever you choose to start with !

Welcome aboard.  From here on out your clothes will smell like smoke.

Welcome aboard.

Start looking for a small egg.

)

McQ... Welcome. I to am a fairly new BGE owner. I got a large egg for Christmas this last December. I see the other guy's are giving you great imput. Let add this... You must know how to build a fire for a long, long cook. It is not wise to take a bag of lump and just pour it in until you fill up your fire box. There is a very important reason for picking and choosing big piece's of lump for the bottom of the fire box. You are trying to block ash and small pieces of lump fron blocking you air flow. After you have the bottom covered with you big lump, build the next level in medium size lump pieces. This too is intended to protect your air flow. Once you have your large and medium lump in place there should 3 or 4" of fire box left to fill. That is where you use up all of you small pieces of lump and the dust. For a long cook if you do like that you can cook over 24 hours without adding new lump. I just got done cooking 2 Boston butts yesterday. Before the cook I cleaned out my Egg completely. I even took out the fire box to clean up the ash that falls out the air holes. You would be surprised how much ash ends up there. Buy a small shop vac by the way that is so much easier than that rake they sell with the BGE. Anyway my cook this week was a 16 hour cook that I started the fire at 10:30pm on Monday night. I put the 2 butts on at 11:00pm and sat by the Egg to stabilize the cooking temp, not the dome temp. I always have a temp thermometer in the meet and another one within an inch or 2 of the meat to know what temp it is actually cooking at. I stabilized the cooking temp at 225 degrees and went to bed at midnight. I woke up Tuesday morning at 8:00am, got my morning joe and went out to see my egg. The cooking temp had fallen from 225 to 211. I turn the daisy wheel a little and watch it work back to 225. Me and the dog go out to get the paper and I sit inside where it is warmer and read the paper. I'd go out every hour or so to check my temps and make little adjustments. I wad determind to make this a NO PEEK, no Texas Crutch cook. I did open that lid once from 11:00pm Monday night until my temp thermometer said my meat was at 203 degrees. I knew what I was going to see when I opened the lid... 2 beautiful meteor like looking objects that looked like they had fallen on my grid from heaven!!! I looked at the lump that was left after that cook this morning. I used that thing they give you to scrape ash out of the bottom vent to move all the loose ash down out of the fire box just to see how much usable lump was left. I still had about 25% of lump I started with to use for my next cook. I repeat... Learning to know how to fill you fire box for a long burn is CRITICAL. Had I just poured coal in out of the bag, it probably wouldn't have burned for 16 hours. I learned that in an article on the nakkid whiz. Go there and click on recipes, then click on pork. The first thing listed is an article by a man called Elder Ward. He is famous for knowing how to cook butts in ceramic cooker's. Anyway... Welcome to the Egging world.

HogHeaven said:

McQ... Welcome. I to am a fairly new BGE owner. I got a large egg for Christmas this last December. I see the other guy's are giving you great imput. Let add this... You must know how to build a fire for a long, long cook. It is not wise to take a bag of lump and just pour it in until you fill up your fire box. There is a very important reason for picking and choosing big piece's of lump for the bottom of the fire box. You are trying to block ash and small pieces of lump fron blocking you air flow. After you have the bottom covered with you big lump, build the next level in medium size lump pieces. This too is intended to protect your air flow. Once you have your large and medium lump in place there should 3 or 4" of fire box left to fill. That is where you use up all of you small pieces of lump and the dust. For a long cook if you do like that you can cook over 24 hours without adding new lump. I just got done cooking 2 Boston butts yesterday. Before the cook I cleaned out my Egg completely. I even took out the fire box to clean up the ash that falls out the air holes. You would be surprised how much ash ends up there. Buy a small shop vac by the way that is so much easier than that rake they sell with the BGE. Anyway my cook this week was a 16 hour cook that I started the fire at 10:30pm on Monday night. I put the 2 butts on at 11:00pm and sat by the Egg to stabilize the cooking temp, not the dome temp. I always have a temp thermometer in the meet and another one within an inch or 2 of the meat to know what temp it is actually cooking at. I stabilized the cooking temp at 225 degrees and went to bed at midnight. I woke up Tuesday morning at 8:00am, got my morning joe and went out to see my egg. The cooking temp had fallen from 225 to 211. I turn the daisy wheel a little and watch it work back to 225. Me and the dog go out to get the paper and I sit inside where it is warmer and read the paper. I'd go out every hour or so to check my temps and make little adjustments. I wad determind to make this a NO PEEK, no Texas Crutch cook. I did open that lid once from 11:00pm Monday night until my temp thermometer said my meat was at 203 degrees. I knew what I was going to see when I opened the lid... 2 beautiful meteor like looking objects that looked like they had fallen on my grid from heaven!!! I looked at the lump that was left after that cook this morning. I used that thing they give you to scrape ash out of the bottom vent to move all the loose ash down out of the fire box just to see how much usable lump was left. I still had about 25% of lump I started with to use for my next cook. I repeat... Learning to know how to fill you fire box for a long burn is CRITICAL. Had I just poured coal in out of the bag, it probably wouldn't have burned for 16 hours. I learned that in an article on the nakkid whiz. Go there and click on recipes, then click on pork. The first thing listed is an article by a man called Elder Ward. He is famous for knowing how to cook butts in ceramic cooker's. Anyway... Welcome to the Egging world.

I don't know.. I throw the lump in from the bag... and I've cooked brisket for 22 hours..  Little chunks and all.   I've smoked ribs and chickens until the ash built up to the fire grate... worked no problems...    The egg is pretty fool proof if you ask me...  no need to overthink things.   Even easier if you get one of them bbq gurus.