New egger - first cook(s) photos

This group of folks has been supremely helpful with advice as I've made the leap into owning a BGE. (I bought a used Large BGE with some advice and help from this forum, and also had some help ordering a replacement screen assembly and other issues.)

Thought I'd share what I've been doing with this thing for your comments and enjoyment.

1st cook ever - calzones. My wife and I have made home-made calzones (store-bought dough) for years in the electric oven and I wanted to start off the BGE experience with something we could both enjoy (she's not a big eater of typical BBQ stuff). So we made ours up, fired up the egg, used our old trusty pizza stone that we've had for years, and voila, best calzones we've ever made. Cooked for about 25 minutes at ~400-425 dome. Mine (left) was pepperoni, red bell peppers, mozzarella cheese. Hers is pepperoni, mushrooms, feta, and mozzarella.




Second cook, more traditional BBQ - three racks of Baby Back Ribs. Had my father-in-law and next door neighbor over to help me eat them. I have two brothers-in-law who cook BBQ often and I used their "secret" rub. I had some trouble managing temperature so the egg got hotter than I wanted (up to 350 for a while) and the ribs were done more quickly than expected (~3 hours vs. 4.5 expected), but they were tender, with a nice smoke ring, good smoky flavor, and lots of compliments all round. Turned out great.

For technique, I was pretty much winging it but based on a few recipes I've seen here I did a few things:

- Used Wicked Good Weekend Warrior lump for the main lump source.
- Sprinkled in some Jack Daniels wood chips and one decent sized chunk of hickory.
- I noticed in my first cook that the WG was slow to light, so I filled up my chimney starter with Cowboy, got it good and roaring, and dumped it on top of the pile of WG.
- Then quickly put in the platesetter, grid, ribs, and set vents for what I thought was going to be 250 (this turned out to be my problem, now that I've found Grandpa's Grub great post with pictures of vent settings).
- "Sprayed" with apple juice (actually used a juice box from the stash we keep for the little ones) at about 2 hours
- Brushed on sauce about 30 minutes before I pulled them (grabbed a bottle of Sticky Fingers Tennessee Whiskey sauce out of the pantry.)



All in all, great ribs and good fun. Even had a half-rack of leftovers for work later in the week.

Steak tomorrow night, spatchcock chicken this weekend. Enjoying the egg immensely thus far.