New to the Egg, having issues getting charcoal lit compared to my Weber experience

ryanp · September 2016

Hi everyone,

New to the egg. I recently bought a used one time Large BGE. I have been cooking on a 22.5 in Weber for 10 years. I have ALOT of charcoal experience on the Weber. I used a chimney starter and would have my Weber ready in about 15 min repeatedly. Since I have switched to the BGE, it takes 30-40 min to get the charcoal to temp. Just wondering what I am doing wrong. I have watched the videos, and read the directions. I am using starter cubes in the lump charcoal. So far my only con the the BGE is that it has been taking much longer to get up to temp compared to the Weber. Other wise has turned out great food including some two long smokes, some roasting, and regular grilling.

Thanks,

Ryan

yljkt · September 2016

Top and bottom vents open? Ash cleaned out? Firebox opening lined up?

Hotch · September 2016

Two words
Weed Burner

Gulfcoastguy · September 2016

One more word, Looftlighter.

theyolksonyou · September 2016

Five more. Leave the dome open longer

theyolksonyou · September 2016

And two more. High que

J-dubya · September 2016

I use a MAPP torch, fill it right up with lump, light a couple spots -bottom open, lid open, it's at 600+ in 15min

Jupiter Jim · September 2016

Mapp torch and Kick Ash Basket enough said...............

SemolinaPilchard · September 2016

Sounds like not enough air flow. One other thing, are you using a small amount of lump?

RedSkip · September 2016

Takes me about 30-40 minutes, this time allows the egg to stabilize and to burn off any VOCs... I enjoy the wait, part of the experience. If in a hurry, you use Propane.

yljkt · September 2016

Probably gonna get beat up for this, but amazed at how many folks cant get egg up to temp. My early experiences were "how do I get it down"! Lol.....

s_austin_egger · September 2016

I just takes practice. 3 lighter squares, bottom wide open, lid up until the cubes are burnt out. Close lid with daisy wheel off. Should be ready to go in 15 minutes as long as you have good air flow with not too much ash in the bottom blocking it.

ryanp · September 2016

Ok sounds good. Yeah I have the lid up, bottom vent wide open. Made sure the bottome grate was not clogged by small pieces of charcoal. Been using small amounts of lump for the short cooks.

Thanks for the quick responses!

Slabotnick · September 2016

Jupiter Jim said:

Mapp torch and Kick Ash Basket enough said...............

I agree the kick ash basket was a big game changer for great air flow and getting up to temp quicker. Very easy to keep clean too.

cheeaa · September 2016

Keep using your chimney. Quick and easy. It works for me

SloppyJoe · September 2016

Man up!!

SemolinaPilchard · September 2016

ryanp said:

Ok sounds good. Yeah I have the lid up, bottom vent wide open. Made sure the bottome grate was not clogged by small pieces of charcoal. Been using small amounts of lump for the short cooks.

Thanks for the quick responses!

I think the small amount of lump is the problem. With many cookers that cant control airflow well you need to start out with a certain amount of lump. With the egg you have total control of how hot the fire will be, so you can load up as much lump as you wish.

ryanp · September 2016

It's possible. I had read, smaller high temp cooks, you should use less charcoal. More airflow, etc. Maybe I just need to use more lighter cubes...?

SemolinaPilchard · September 2016

The only reason to use less lump is if you want more distance between your fire and your food. Load that puppy up.

ryanp · September 2016

SemolinaPilchard said:

The only reason to use less lump is if you want more distance between your fire and your food. Load that puppy up.

Thank you as that is against what I have read previously!

ryanp · September 2016

I felt like I was an expert with my Weber. It has been much more of a learning curve than I was expecting!

Mattman3969 · September 2016

Are you trying for a low n slow or grilling? Two different beast. For a low and slow your temp needs to stabilize for a good bit of time. Stabilized is not important when grilling or searing. If grilling you should leave the dome open longer to get a hot fire but LnS you need the egg to stabilize. This will be a longer wait then on the Kettle because of the ceramic mass.

Theophan · September 2016

SemolinaPilchard said:
I think the small amount of lump is the problem. With many cookers that cant control airflow well you need to start out with a certain amount of lump. With the egg you have total control of how hot the fire will be, so you can load up as much lump as you wish.

Strongly agree! With the BGE, when you're done the fire will go out very quickly when you close both vents, so you're not wasting charcoal to load it up.

For a low-and-slow cook, I usually load the lump up to the top of the fire ring, and when I used starter cubes I think it took 15-20 minutes or so to get to temp, and depending on how much "bad" white smoke I had, it might be half an hour from lighting the cube to ready to cook.
For fast cooking like grilling a steak, I load the lump at least to the top of the firebox, usually, and light it in 4 places. Again, with starter cubes I think it took 20 min to half an hour.

These days I've been using a MAP torch, and I'm not completely happy about the clouds of sparks that sometimes fly around, but gosh that thing gets the fire going fast. I've never timed it, but I'm guessing maybe 10 minutes or so, 15 max, to get a hot fire. I used starter cubes for many years, though, and had no problem at all with them. I'd just light the cube(s), set my phone timer to ring at 15 minutes or so to remind me to check on the fire, and go in and prep stuff for the cook.

westernbbq · September 2016

Make sure firebox vents are clear amd that lower vent amd screen are pulled all the way to th e right

SemolinaPilchard · September 2016

Welcome to the world of egging. These are a few tips I have compiled for using the egg for newbies.
After opening the egg you may need to readjust the daisy wheel. To avoid that, put the screw of the daisy wheel at the 6:30 position.
My egg sits on the patio, and when cooking I can see the thermometer from inside the house. Whatever temp I want the egg to be, I twist the dome thermo so the desired temp is straight up. To do that you either have to loosen the clip on the back or take the clip off completely. I glance out the window and if the needle is straight up I am good to go. I go out and check it once in a while because straight up can still be off about 5 degrees, although that is not a big deal.
You will notice that the fire often likes to move to the back and slightly to the right. That is because the air comes in at the bottom a little to the left and when it makes the turn it does not go straight up, but rather curves as it goes, so ends up a little off center towards the back right. To protect your meat from the hot spot, put your plate setter in with a leg over that spot. Let your fire get established and locked in on the desired temp for a while before putting the food on the grill, otherwise you will be chasing temps throughout the cook. For low and slows most use a wireless probe thermometer that stays in the meat. When you run the wire from the probe, on the way out of the egg run the wire over a leg of the plate setter to protect it from direct heat. I finally bought a Thermapen for instant reads. It is great. Don't be fooled by imitations, they claim to be instant reads but are not. BGE makes one that looks like a Thermapen for 1/2 the price, but it is not worth it for 1/4 the price. There is a member of the forum named MollyShark. She buys Thermapens in bulk, and resells them at a reduced price.
Make sure to send in your BGE warranty card, it says send it in 10 days or less, don't worry about that, if you send it in later they will still honor the warranty. You may want a raised grid set-up for doing some things direct that are usually done indirect. One example of this would be chicken. If you do chicken indirect, the skin can be a little rubbery. Chicken done direct without a raised grid is too close to the fire. You can buy a pre-made raised grid setup from BGE. It sits on top of your existing food grid. It is great for having 2 different levels of space for cooking, but when you only need to use the raised grid, when done you have 2 grids to clean. To avoid confusion when using the egg forum, a grid is for the food and a grate is for the charcoal. Before I started egging, a grid was what I put the charcoal on, and a grill was where I put the food. The Big Green Egg world has it's own language. A forum member, TJV, makes top notch accessories for the egg. One is an adjustable raised grid that everyone raves about. His website is ceramicgrillstore.com. I made a simple raised grid setup out of two pieces of flatbar from one of the big box stores. It was easy to make. It sits on the fire ring and the food grid sits on it. One giant word of caution to doing anything out of the ordinary with a ceramic cooker, remember that everything, grids, raised grid holders, the ceramic of the cooker, everything expands with heat. Many like to lower their cooking surface to get closer the coals for searing steaks. Someone took the fire ring out of his XL to lower the grid. It fit on the firebox and he did steaks. The problem, the egg is slightly narrower as you go lower. After the grid and egg got hot the egg cracked. When I made my raised grid setup I made it so it sits on the firering, but did not go all the way to the wall inside the egg. I also have a Weber replacement grill from Lowe's or HomeDepot and some from Academy. The trick was figuring out where to drill the holes in the raised grid setup, I set each grill on top and found a spot where I could drill and put bolts through pointing up to hold the grids in place, and the screws would be in the right place for all the different grids.
The only grid I have that fits on top of the plate setter is the bge original. I made a rig that sits on the plate setter and I can use any of the replacement grids on the plate setter. If you would like I can email you a pic and directions on how to make the raised grid setup and the setup for using replacement grids on the plate setter. With most charcoal pits the amount of charcoal you load in the cooker determines how hot the fire will be. That is not the case with the egg. The temp is completely controlled by how much air you allow into the egg (assuming you have enough charcoal inside). You can have the egg loaded all the way to the top of the fire ring and roll along all day at 250 degrees. Some newbies have the temp drop during a cook because of too little charcoal (lump) in the egg. Load it up.
The grid that comes with the egg (or at least did when I bought mine) has a porcelain coating. It makes it easy to clean, but sooner or later the porcelain is going to peel off, and high temps (over 400) will speed up the peeling. Whenever I do high temp cooks I use a replacement grid.
It is good to do a 500 degree burn every month or so to clean out all the crud inside. One time it had been several months since a high temp burn. I fired the egg up and halfway through it I remembered the pics of black gook all down the outside of eggs from doing a hi-temp burn with too much gook in the egg. I slightly panicked, shut both vents and called it a day. The next day I opened the egg. As I opened it I could feel the gaskets stick together slightly, and then noticed that the inside edge of the gaskets had burned a little. I fired the egg up to about 350 and then opened it and wiped the inside of the dome well with some rags. I probably could have simply used a crumpled up piece of foil with the egg cold. After removing much goo I fired it up to 500-600 for an hour. Since then I do this about every month or two. This is important because if you go a long time at 400 or less and then fire it up high for steaks or pizza, etc. you will get that nasty smelling (and tasting) black smoke, or worse, the goo drips down on the gasket and your eggs sticks shut, or you get black goo on the exterior of the egg.
It is good to test the dome thermometer, as well as any other probe thermometers you cook with to make sure they read correctly. Get a pot of water boiling, put the tip in the water and your thermometer should read 212. Well 212 at sea level. If you are not close to sea level go to the forum, click on cookbook, then on boiling point, it will tell you the B.P. at your elevation. It gets hot holding your hand over a boiling pot, so I took a strip of metal, drilled some holes in it slightly larger than my probes and set the strip across the top of the pot. If the dome thermometer needs calibrating, turn the nut on the backside. Check all your probes regularly. . Speaking of heat and your hands, you will eventually take a hot plate setter out of the egg. Thick leather gloves will work, but they get greasy and wet, and that will make the heat transfer through quickly. I recommend a silicone glove, you can get by with only one. Orka makes a good one. The only drawback is the plate setter is about all it is good for. It works like a lobster claw. For hot pans. etc, I use a small pair of leather gloves inside a thick pair of electric lineman's gloves. Leather welders glove would work as well. Make sure they are dry, I came in the house one day carrying a hot tray with greasy gloves and I barely made it to the trivet and then ran straight to the freezer for ice. When handling a hot plate setter, if you hold it long enough, no matter what type of gloves you use, the heat will transfer through and burn you. The key is to plan ahead and know exactly where you are going with it. You may have heard of flashback. Burping the egg does not work well. Do like the NakedWhiz says, open both vents wide open for 10 seconds before opening the egg and you most likely will never get a flashback. (The reason this works at stopping flashback is because flashback happens when a fire is starving for oxygen. Upon opening the egg a fresh supply of oxygen goes in and feeds it.) Just make sure that just before you open the egg to set the vents back where they were, because if you are like me you will forget the vents open and your egg will go to extremely high temps. I only find the need to do this above 400, although I have read of flashbacks below 400. Speaking of the Whiz, if you have not yet been to his site, I highly suggest you do so. I have read it from top to bottom twice now. You may not want to read it at work though. My brother emailed me asking me to send him an article he had seen here one day. So I did. The next day he called to tell me he viewed it at work, and then he received a visit from the "porn police." Also on his site is ratings of most brands of lump charcoal. It has often saved me from buying inferior charcoal. The tip on preventing flashback is just one of many I have learned from his site. I know many of the other tips I have listed here also comes from him, but as time went by I can not keep straight what I learned from him, other forum members, and the few I figured out on my own.
If you are going to use the leave in the meat kind of probe thermometers always have a backup. They don't last forever, especially the probes. If you have not heard yet, you can cook really great pizzas on the egg. Some use the plate setter as a pizza stone, and that will work, but a pizza stone works better. Many put the plate setter in the egg legs down, and set the pizza stone on top of the setter. The problem with that is the fire comes up, hits the plate setter, and then goes straight at the gaskets. Many never have a problem, but others have toasted their gaskets this way. I put the setter in legs up, and then put in my food grid and set the pizza stone on top of the food grid. For pizza you really need a peel. You may find that locally at a restaurant supply store, I bought mine through amazon.com. If you’re going to cook pizza at temps over 400 I recommend a BGE pizza stone. Other brands are not made for high temps and they will crack.
Some people say when you light your egg to open the bottom vent fully and take the daisy wheel off. That is fine if you're not going to walk away. But many on the forum have said that they have done that, and then go in the house and get sidetracked with a phone call, or talking to someone, etc. and when they go back outside the thermometer needle is pegged and the gaskets are melted. If I am in a hurry the most I will do is open the daisy wheel most of the way and open the bottom a little more than half way. Worse case scenario the egg wont get over 500 (unless it is left like that for a very long time). Usually, I just light the egg and set the vents where they need to be and let it roll.
About the only problem newbies have is getting a handle on temps. Use the bottom vent for large adjustments and the daisy wheel for fine adjustments. Light up the egg, get it to about 30 to 50 degrees below your target temp, then set the vents where they need to be. For 250 degrees I usually have the bottom vent open about the thickness of a credit card, and the daisy wheel holes open about one third. For 350 the bottom vent is anywhere from 1/2 inch to 2 inches and the daisy wheel holes are100% open. That is the holes, not the slide. Usually there is not nearly as big of range as I mentioned with the bottom vent for 350 degrees, but I have seen that big of a range. Different brands of lump, some lump exposed to high humidity, etc. One thing I did that helped me out greatly was one morning I fired up the egg and simply played with the temps all day, I learned a lot. Get to your target temp from the bottom. If your egg is hotter than you want, all you can do is shut the vents and wait, and wait, and wait. Opening the lid simply allows more oxygen in, and the fire gets hotter. After opening the lid you will see a drop in temp, but that is only temporary. The ceramic is great at holding heat, that is what makes it such a great cooker.
I have tried every method there is to light the egg and my favorite is a Mapp torch. Mapp gas is different from propane. A propane torch does not work well when you hold it upside down. If you use a torch I would advise you to use eye protection because of the sparks. Also, you notice how for about 30 minutes after you light the lump charcoal you get that white smoke? Let that burn off because it gives the meat a bitter taste. That is the VOC's (volatile organic compounds). Don't use lighter fluid in the egg, aside from the bad taste it gives to the food, the porous ceramic takes in the lighter fluid and the smell is in the egg for a very long time.
If your egg is in the weather your daisy wheel will rust fairly quickly, and after some time I hear the bands will rust too. Most just put a little cooking oil on the bands, some use Pam. Most people store their daisy wheel in the egg, and put the green cap on top when not using the egg. The green cap is more airtight and your fire will go out sooner.
If you have your egg in a nest, the little metal cart the egg sits on, ALWAYS pull the egg, NEVER push it. If pulling it and a wheel hits a rock and the egg goes to flip you can stop it. If you're pushing it and it goes to flip you can't stop it unless you're 7 feet tall and 350 pounds. I have seen 5 or 6 pictures on the forum of broken eggs. It is a horrific site. If your egg is on a wooden table put a paver stone underneath it, and use the 3 green feet between the stone and the egg for airflow. The Naked Whiz posted a picture of a burned wooden table that had no stone. Others have posted pictures of a table that was scorched that had a paver stone, but did not use the three feet to allow air flow between the stone and the egg.
When I use the plate setter I like to catch the drippings. If the drippings fall into the fire it can give the meat a bad taste, and you’re left with a greasy plate setter. Usually I take a piece of foil and make a drip pan and when I am done just throw it all away. If the foils sits directly on the plate setter the drippings can burn. I put a few pieces of balled up foil under the drip pan.
When cooking big pieces of meat low and slow it is especially important to remember the 40 to 140 rule. With meat you have 4 hours to get the meat from under 40 degrees to over 140 to avoid bacteria growth. And this time is cumulative. If you put the meat in your shopping cart and it takes 30 minutes to get it into your fridge, and then tomorrow you take it out and spend 15 minutes applying the rub, that’s 45 minutes. So now you take it out and put it in the egg. You only have 3 hours and 15 minutes to get it to over 140. With some big chunks of meat that can be a small window. Truth be told, I have done a cook or 2 where it was more than 4 hours and no one became ill, but you never know. Many have said the rule applies only to the exterior of the meat, because it is not like ground meat where the bacteria on the exterior is now all over, and the exterior of the meat will hit 140 rather quickly. That is most likely correct. It is a good idea to do your fist few cooks under 400 degrees to let the gasket seal. High temp cooks early on seem to mess up the gaskets. Think of a gasket like a bumper sticker. If you put a sticker on your car today and take it off tomorrow, it will come right off. But if you leave it on a long time, every day the sun heats it up, the adhesive melts a little, then cools down. This happens enough days, and the sticker is on for good. If you ever need to put on a new gasket, go with the new Nomex gaskets, they handle the high temps much better. As of now they are having problems with the adhesive. Ask for a Nomex gasket with no adhesive and get a can of 3M Super 77 Adhesive from a hardware store.
Every so often, especially after a high temp cook or burnoff, you need to check to make sure the bolts that hold the dome on are tight. The bands loosen up after a while and a few people have had their dome fall off and break when opening the egg. Make sure you do this when the egg is cold or you can crack the egg.
When cooking a big chunk of meat such as a brisket you will likely experience the plateau phase. The temperature will stop climbing for a while, and may even drop a few degrees. This is because the connective tissue is breaking down. This will make the brisket tender. Some people are tempted to bump up the temp of the egg at this point, but it is best to just let it roll.
I can imagine that much of what I told you is not news to you, so please forgive me. I just remember when I first started egging and all the help I received and I am just trying to give a little of it back.
Happy Egging,
S.P.

cheeaa · September 2016

Holy hell. Can u bullet point that? Lol

Dude ditch the cubes. If you're just grilling fill up a whole chimney, let it get hot and dump it in. It's that easy.

For low n slow fill up the egg and then maybe a 1/4 chimney on top of that once the chimneys hot. Open ur vents a bit and let the nasty smoke clear and adjust the vents while it comes up to temp. Then Throw ur meat on and go drink some beers.

This is bbq. Not rocket science.

SemolinaPilchard · September 2016

As for the comment about forum member MollyShark selling thermapens, Nd saying she is a forum member, she is, or was, on the other egg forum. Plus, I am not sure if she is still selling them. I was going to send this as a private message, but apparently I am lousy at multitasking. i was having a conversation while sending it.

stlcharcoal · September 2016

Firebox needs to be at least half full with unrestricted airflow to get up to temp in a decent amount of time. That 100+ lbs of cold ceramic sucks up the heat like crazy.

I'll blast with s weed burner from above for 30 seconds or so, leave it lid open for a few minutes, then close the lid with both vents wide open. Take about 10 minutes tops. If I'm in a hurry, a BBQ Dragon aimed in the lower vent will cut that time in half.

westernbbq · September 2016

Also get your hair dryer or leaf blower at inlet for 1 minute after dumping in a chimney full of lit coals. Youll be all set

Darby_Crenshaw · September 2016

Chimney starter still works, FWIW

ibanda · September 2016

If the chimney starter works for, it will work just fine on the egg also.

The cubes would fail to get going sometimes for me.

I am now a fan of the weed burner method, it takes 1 minute to light, open vents, close dome walk away, come back 10 minutes later and set vents for the temp I want.

New to the Egg, having issues getting charcoal lit compared to my Weber experience

Comments

Categories