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Accessories.....Accessories........

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Comments

  • @jimfastcar - I like the use of the angel iron to put some space between the egg and the paving stone. What's with the extra slate? Do change out the top to provide a different "mood"?
    Assumed the slate I first got was 12 x 12, in fact 11 3/4 So I had this leftover, will use as trivets
  • I would suggest a thermapen, and instead of a pizza stone, look into getting a baking steel. I am kicking myself for getting a pizza stone as I had not yet heard of the baking steel. It makes better pizzas apparently, and can double as a griddle.
    Got a 13" cast iron flat with D handles. Will use for Pizza and a lot of other uses. Saw it when looking for ceramic stone, glad I did
  • jdgcrean
    jdgcrean Posts: 44
    HogHeaven said:
    Jim... I got a large BGE for Christmas last year. I use it at least 3 times a week. I've done 16 hour cooks with never lifting the lid until the meat thermometer told me I had reached my desired temp. For that you need the plate setter or something that will create an indirect cook. I also agree if you are going to cook pizza you have to be above the regular grid level. To do a steak really well you have to get the meat within 2 to 3 inches from the hot lump to sear it properly. I also think you need to increase the volume of meat and other items you can cook at the same time by adding another level. Here's the good news... You can buy 1 item from BGE that will make all of those needs doable and it only costs $25. It is called a GX or a grill extender. It is hinged in the middle and... The legs that are used to stand it on top of your regular 18" grid are hinged too. The GX is 13 1/2" across. Your fire box on your large BGE is 13" across. The fire ring that sits on top of your fire box is 13 1/2" across so... The GX sits on top of your fire box like a glove. The reason they hinged the legs is so when you drop it down on the fire box to do your reverse sear you can fold the legs up to get closer to the hot lump. Don't bother going to their website to look for it, it is not there. Call your BGE dealer and ask him/her about the GX grill extender for the large BGE. I bet they have no clue what you are talking about. He will look it up in that catalog they keep by the desk and he won't find it. Ask him/her to go online and check with the factory... They have it listed there. When I bought mine I saw it there and asked the clerk what it was. He said it would give me another cooking level so I could add more ribs or vegetable or whatever. I figured for $25 it made sense. Neither he nor I had a clue that this thing would fit on my fire box. I was chatting with a BBQ genius by the name of Meathead. He owns a BBQ website called Amazingribs.com. He told me that the BGE was a great oven and a really great smoker but it was a lousy grill. He said you can't get your meat close enough to the hot coal on a BGE to sear it properly. I had only had my BGE for about a month at that time and had cooked many steaks on it at the normal grid level and I agreed with him that I had to find a way to get my steaks closer to the coal to sear it at the end of the cook. That discuss with Meathead prompted me to go out to my BGE with a tape measure and see if I could get that odd looking GX down lower to the fire box. Surprisingly it fit like a glove... Just like their engineer got it and knew we egger's needed that. My problem was SOLVED! I went back to the BGE store I bought it from, BBQ Galore, and showed them what that funky highed grid was really for and their jaw's hit the ground. They had no clue. I now use that grid as much or more than my 18" grid. I don't know why BGE's marketing team have done such a poor job of marketing this product. Probably because it is so inexpensive. I closing let me say... Cooking indoors or outdoors without a temp thermometer to measure the done ness of the meat and the temperature that your meat is actually cooking at is like driving at night without your headlights. Under cooked meat is dangerous for your health and over cooked meat tastes bad and is a waste if money. The dome temp and the cooking temp where the meat is, is very different. If your dome temp gauge says it's at 350 degrees the heat you are actually cooking at will be about 310 or 320. The longer the cook goes on the dome temp and the cooking temp come closer together but that take a couple of hours. The Maverick has 2 probes to measure both your meat and your temp at cooking level. If you can afford it buy the thermopen too but if I had to chose one or the other, I would buy the maverick first. You can't cook right when you have no clue what temp your meat is actually cooking at.
    @HogHeaven
    how do you find grill marks/searing on the GX vs. using a cast iron grid?
  • HogHeaven
    HogHeaven Posts: 326
    edited April 2013
    That's an excellent question... Some of us Don't want only 1/3 of our meat to have those dark marks... We want the entire surface of the meat to have that deep brown mahogany seared finish all over, like they do at real expensive Steakhouse's. Most of the real expensive Steakhouses finish the cook under an 800 degree broiler to get the dark mahogany crust everyone likes. Morton's Steakhouse does not serve their steaks with sear marks. Outback serves you a lower grade of meat than the others I named and they serve their steaks with grill marks. Lone star steakhouse has a lower grade of meat and sear marks. It's really like putting lipstick on a pig. The pig looks better but she's still a pig. It really is a matter of preference. I aim to produce a steak that can be measured against any real high end Steakhouse. I have grill grates but if I were going to finish my steak on it I would put it on the flat side so as to sear the entire surface, not just 1/3 of the surface that sits on the raised grates. If you love grill marks... Keep doing what you're doing now.
  • ajj
    ajj Posts: 3
    @HogHeaven - quick question, based on the dimensions for the BGE-GX it looks like the GX might work nicely to have a raised grid on my BGE Medium off the firering and to the ring/edge of the base (where the felt-line is), is that correct? Or otherwise put, what max height does the BGE-GX have, and can you confirm it can stand with its hinges/leggs on top of the 15.75 stainless steel grid that comes with the BGE Medium? Thanks in advance for helping me out before I order...
  • gloves.  good ones.  especially if'n you plan to make pizza