last night's steaks

Steaks look great

Steak look good enough to eat 

Chris... As you found out getting the BGE down from 700 to 400 degrees gives time to mow the lawn, wash the car and bath the dog. You might want to try the reverse sear sometime. You cook it direct heat at normal grid level at 275 to 300 degrees until your Meat temp is 115 degrees. Take your meat off while you take your regular grid off and go down to your GX ( grill extender) which sits right on top of your fire box which puts you 2 to 3 inches from your hot lump. Don't close the lid and leave your bottom vent wide open. Sear the meat for about 3 minutes per side. You end up with a dark mahogany surface and the meat will be pink bumper to bumper... Like they do in the real expensive Steakhouse's. They never give you steaks with sear marks at those high end places. That's is dome at low end steak houses that sell you a lower grade of meat and try to make it look good. The GX is only $25 by the way. It takes much less time to heat the BGE up.... Than it does to cool it off.

Nice cook. Like @hogHeaven says, try a reverse, it is much easier on the egg. For a small reverse, one or two steaks, I set mine up with the CI grid on the fire ring, half moon/pizza stone cut in half on the CI grid and a raised grid for the low temp cook. 

HogHeaven said:

Chris... As you found out getting the BGE down from 700 to 400 degrees gives time to mow the lawn, wash the car and bath the dog. You might want to try the reverse sear sometime. You cook it direct heat at normal grid level at 275 to 300 degrees until your Meat temp is 115 degrees. Take your meat off while you take your regular grid off and go down to your GX ( grill extender) which sits right on top of your fire box which puts you 2 to 3 inches from your hot lump. Don't close the lid and leave your bottom vent wide open. Sear the meat for about 3 minutes per side. You end up with a dark mahogany surface and the meat will be pink bumper to bumper... Like they do in the real expensive Steakhouse's. They never give you steaks with sear marks at those high end places. That's is dome at low end steak houses that sell you a lower grade of meat and try to make it look good. The GX is only $25 by the way. It takes much less time to heat the BGE up.... Than it does to cool it off.

How long does it typically take to go from 300 to 600 with the bottome vent fully open ?

@jimfastcar - on my medium it is only about 5 minutes max

The steaks look really good.I too do the reverse sear .I love the new wood you used for the shevles too.Could you show us a picture of them too please

Great lookin steaks!

Jim... To answer your question about how long does it take to get from 300 to 600 degrees let me say this. When you open the lid to take out your regular grid so as to drop your meat down to the top of the fire box, with the bottom vent wide open, you are giving your lump all of the oxygen it can handle and the fire will temp will increase quickly. However... Once you drop your meat down to where it is 2" from the hot coal it will sear as soon as you get it down there. Especially if you put some beef love on it before you put it back on. For those of you that don't know what beef love is... It rendered fat from the trimmings of all of your various meats that you cook. Save it instead of throwing it away when you trim a pork butt or shoulder or when you trim a ribeye before putting it on the Egg. When my meat reaches that 115 degrees on the regular grid I take the meat off and set it on a plate next to my BGE. I take out my 18" grid and of course i didn't have the plate setter in at all and my GX grill extender was put in place right on top of the fire box before i started the cook. Before I put the meat back on I blot it with paper towels to get rid of any moisture it has rendered so far. You don't want to steam it, young ant to sear it. After I blot it I paint the side that I am going to sear first with beef love. I put it down on the small grid to sear and just before I turn the meat to do the other side, I paint it with beef love. Once I've turned the meat and the newly sear side is up... That's when I add my fresh ground pepper. Any pepper you had put on prior to that hot sear will have been burned off. I never pepper my steaks until that point in the cook. Just so you all know I didn't invent all of this technic. I learned it from Meathead. Meathead owns and operates the best BBQ website on the net in my humble opinion. He learned about "Beef Love" from a famous Steakhouse owner in Chicago and published for us all to use and enjoy. Here taught me about the reverse sear and stated the scientific facts as to why this is the superior way to cook meat. He himself is a great chef and has taught cooking at Cordon Bleu. He is a wine critic that publishes many articles about wine. He has facts about when to brine and when not to brine and how long to brine. He has facts about how to mix your brine and exactly how much salt is the proper amount. He teaches you how to make any kind of BBQ sauce, rub or marinade you want. After almost 50 years of grilling and smoking meat for fun and entertainment... I have become a much better backyard chef by far by carefully studying and reading his published information. Do yourself a favor and check his website out.

Amazingribs.com is an excellent site. Gives great "why" to bbq questions.