First cook on the Christmas Present - LBGE

zapped82 · December 2014

Merry Christmas everyone! (I know, a day late)

Several of you saw my post about the table I built and welcomed me already, thank you! I finally got to fire up the egg yesterday morning to cook a ham and mac and cheese for Christmas. I was like a little 5 year old getting the best present ever!

I got a lot of eggcessories that were surprises to me (in laws got me a looftlighter!). Got some Dizzy Pig rubs and more stuff than I will bore you with.

Chose to do the maple bourbon ham and throw some crack and cheese in towards the end. Overall everything turned out great however I did learn a few lessons along the way. Got a little bit of bitter smoke so I either put one too many cherry chunks on or I didn't have the temp stabilized and everything burning clean before I put the ham on. Nobody complained, just me! Other thing was I didn't put anything under the tray of mac and cheese, just set it right on the placesetter and absolutely smoked the bottom of it. Most of it was still good, just missed out on the good crunchiness and got plenty of bad crunchiness. All in all a successful first cook, looking forward to firing it back up today and doing some ABT's to serve with leftover ham!

As they say, pics or it didn't happen so here it goes! The last one is a shirt that my step-mother gave to my dad, my sister and I for Christmas. I was drinking a homebrew that was a second run from a wee heavy that was heavily hopped up.

theyolksonyou · December 2014

Very nice first cook. Look at that beautiful white egg. That's the last time you'll see that, at least on this egg. Sounds like you learned the value of the air gap. That's what matters, you learned.

now you need a food snob shirt too because you just became one.

1move · December 2014

How did you like the food, compared to your old gas BBQ?

I highly recommend one of these, as it is much faster to light some prefer other starters. I love those because you can leave it in for a little bit of time and not worry about it burning itself out and you can build the fire to start from the bottom instead of the top of the charcoal which is what i prefer personally.

Welcome and enjoy.

http://www.biggreenegg.com/eggcessories/lump-charcoal-wood-chips-fire-starters-planks/electric-charcoal-lighter/

johnmitchell · December 2014

Excellent and Welcome..Look forward to seeing some more in the future..Have a great weekend.

DieselkW · December 2014

Thanks for the pic's and you'll be glad you took them because all that creamy white will be sooty black in no time.

A little smoking wood goes a long way - I use a single fist sized chunk for a rack of ribs. That size ham, maybe two.

You really hit the ground running on your first cook!! Usually people get thrown in the pool to see if they can swim, you jumped off a cliff to see if you could fly.

zapped82 · January 2015

Catching up on adding some pics from the rest of the holiday week. Cooked up some ABT's for a Christmas follow up (yes, forgot the drip pan and the foil wrap on the plate setter, another lesson learned). Then I made peach cobbler in my dutch oven, and rounded out the week with a NYE smoked sausage cook (don't have pics of that, sorry). Looking forward to cooking this weekend and learning more. Can't wait to get a couple nice steaks and try out the reverse sear!

jcaspary · January 2015

Food looks good and you learned a few items without ruining something. What could be better than that.

MJG · January 2015

Way to get after it! Nice shirt too.

logchief · January 2015

Good job, ain't they fun and tasty. My bride gave me a looft lighter too and I really like it.

pgprescott · January 2015

zapped82 said:

Catching up on adding some pics from the rest of the holiday week. Cooked up some ABT's for a Christmas follow up (yes, forgot the drip pan and the foil wrap on the plate setter, another lesson learned). Then I made peach cobbler in my dutch oven, and rounded out the week with a NYE smoked sausage cook (don't have pics of that, sorry). Looking forward to cooking this weekend and learning more. Can't wait to get a couple nice steaks and try out the reverse sear!

I used to worry about the PS getting "stuff" on it, but honestly, dealing with foil on the PS is a way bigger pita than just letting it ride. I scrape the gunk off with a putty knife if necessary. Welcome and enjoy.