Starting your fires

bhedges1987 · December 2015

Hi All,
I am still relatively new to this. I have had my egg for a little over a year, however I watched no videos or anything until recently. I am curious if any of you have videos of you starting your grills for low and slow or hot and fast cooks? Or even of you cooking meat? I know there are plenty of videos out there, but most I have seen I feel like the person making the video doesn't exactly know what they are doing.

I have been doing a lot of low and slow lately. Most videos I see, they get their fire going for about 10 min, and shut the lid. Keep the vents wide open until it hits about 250, then slightly open both dampers.

That brings me to question 1. With the bottom damper only open an inch or so, that shouldn't be enough air flow to get a good clean fire to burn your coal and wood. Wood should smolder and this temperature and give a nasty smoke? Perhaps I am doing something wrong? By the time my smoke turns almost clear, if I look at my wood, it is all black and basically gone.

Should I get the fire going only for a few minutes to keep a small flame the entire cook? That would entail me barley starting the fire, and letting the temperature slowly rise with my plate setter in there.
I have been getting a pretty good fire to start so I have some nice hot coals. But this results in me smoldering my wood chunks I put on.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

SmokingPiney · December 2015

With the bottom vent open an inch or so, there's more than enough air flow to cleanly burn the lump and smoke woods. At 275 degrees, the bottom vent on my XL is only open about 1/2", and I get clean smoke.

The Egg's cook temperature depends on how much lump is lit. For a low and slow, you don't want a bed of hot coals. I add my smoke wood with the lump and light one spot towards the back center of the lump. When I get a good light, I put in the hardware (plate setter, Woo ring, etc), close the dome and let it come up to temperature with the bottom vent fully open and the daisy wheel off. I lead the temperature with the vent and daisy wheel to get to my target. The fluffy white lump smoke is usually burned off by this point.

Don't confuse the smoke wood smoke with the freshly lit lump smoke. Smell the smoke coming off the Egg. Smoke woods don't have the acrid burnt paper smell of freshly lit lump.

Hope this helps!

lousubcap · December 2015

Welcome to the forum and continue to enjoy the journey. And +1 with @SmokingPiney- the key to a L&S cook is the small volume of lump burning at any one time. That's how the BGE can run for extended cook times on one load of lump. The volume of lump burning is controlled by the amount of air-flow thru the BGE.
If going L&S I will light in one spot and wait for around a softball sized amount of lump to get going then load platesetter etc, shut the dome, ball-park the lower vent and DFMT and let things come up to temp. FWIW-

mimauler · December 2015

I take one BGE fire starter and cut it into three pieces I place one to the back middle and then the other two several inches out in an inverted V. Light and wait about 15 minutes with everything open. Then shut lid with vents still open and check temp. If I'm at around 270-300 or so I put the PS in and wait a little bit that should drop the temp to around 250 which is my preferred cook temp. I then take out the PS put my wood chunks on PS back in and then the meat. I would think usually 20-30 minutes hardly ever do I go over 30 minutes before the meat goes on. I have an XL bottom vent 1/4 inch or little more and top daisy wheel tooth pick open.

bhedges1987 · December 2015

lousubcap said:

Welcome to the forum and continue to enjoy the journey. And +1 with @SmokingPiney- the key to a L&S cook is the small volume of lump burning at any one time. That's how the BGE can run for extended cook times on one load of lump. The volume of lump burning is controlled by the amount of air-flow thru the BGE.
If going L&S I will light in one spot and wait for around a softball sized amount of lump to get going then load platesetter etc, shut the dome, ball-park the lower vent and DFMT and let things come up to temp. FWIW-

Thanks, so sounds like you and the post above look relatively the same however, when you close yours up, you go ahead and put the daisy wheel and bottom vent in place and ball park where you think the temp will be and let it slowly rise? THANKS!

lousubcap · December 2015

You've got it. I mix the smoke wood (chunks or chips, I roughly equate one handful of chips to a chunk) in with the lump load throughout. I am in no hurry with a L&S cook (maximize SWMBO eggscape time;) ) so once I get it stable (generally 250*F+/-20*F) for around an hour on goes the protein and away we go.

xiphoid007 · December 2015

I don't find that mixing smoke and wood throughout is necessary. I just get my fire started and the temp stabilized, then add the wood. Once the heavy white smoke is gone and the "thin blue smoke" has started, I begin cooking.

There are a lot of way to regulate temp. I start with the daisy wheel and use the bottom damper if I need to go below 350 or so.

There will be enough oxygen to avoid a dirty fire if you adjust the airflow gradually. If you quickly choke off the fire, you get dirty smoke. As long as the restriction is gradual, you're good. Just watch the color of the smoke and let that be your guide.

I use the looftlighter to start and love it. If I'm going low and slow, using just light a small amount of lump in the middle, rather than lighting a massive amount.

I hope this helps! The bottom line is practice. You'll learn with time and there is plenty of good advice here. I've found Aaron Franklin videos to be very helpful as well.

Starting your fires

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