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Why WOK on the BGE???

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johnrezz
johnrezz Posts: 120
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
OK... I know alot of you are going to take offense to this question......

Why bother using a WOK on the BGE? you are not getting any influence from the fire since it will never touch the food. I dont see in anything that I have watched on WOK cooking where you let the food rest so shutting down the egg and letting it smoke does not seem to apply.
The reason I ask is that at 40 bucks a pop for a bag of BGE lump it seems like a total waist of resources when you get the same effect off of a stove with a WOK setup.

I have not tried this so I am simply making a observation..... but I know when I do PIZZA at high temp it uses up a lot of lump fast......

J
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Comments

  • Angela
    Angela Posts: 543
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    BGE gets to much high temps than I can get on my residential stove top. That is why I am planning on woking on it. Just waiting for my spider to show up. On my stove, I'm not really stir frying, it's more like just a basic sauté.
    Egging on two larges + 36" Blackstone griddle
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  • Celtic Wolf
    Celtic Wolf Posts: 9,773
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    Simple answer.. Because we can!!
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  • cookn biker
    cookn biker Posts: 13,407
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    Cause it's cool!!
    Molly
    Colorado Springs
    "Loney Queen"
    "Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it."
    Bill Bradley; American hall of fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, former U.S. Senator from New Jersey
    LBGE, MBGE, SBGE , MiniBGE and a Mini Mini BGE
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  • cookn biker
    cookn biker Posts: 13,407
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    You need to come to town and load up on some cheaper lump. ;)
    You are welcomed here anytime! :)
    Molly
    Colorado Springs
    "Loney Queen"
    "Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it."
    Bill Bradley; American hall of fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, former U.S. Senator from New Jersey
    LBGE, MBGE, SBGE , MiniBGE and a Mini Mini BGE
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  • FearlessGrill
    FearlessGrill Posts: 695
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    In my case, being able to cook a full meal outdoors in the summer is nice, and it provides an alternate option if my wife and I are both cooking for a party.

    BTW, why are you paying $40/bag for lump?

    -John
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  • Village Idiot
    Village Idiot Posts: 6,959
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    Arduinna is right. Stoves do not get hot enough to really do stir frying. My wok book states that.

    On the BGE, it definitely gets hot enough. Stir-frying is cooking fast over a very hot heat source.
    __________________________________________

    Dripping Springs, Texas.
    Just west of Austintatious


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  • Plumbr44
    Plumbr44 Posts: 212
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    I get my BGE lump for 18.95 a bag, even if I buy just one. I've had the best luck with that brand, given my options in the Rockford/Chicago area.
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  • cdnewman
    cdnewman Posts: 88
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    If you have a high btu gas burner and a commercial power ventilation system, there is no advantage to woking on the BGE. But most of us don't. Anything with fish sauce or black vinegar used to stink up the house for a week and the pathetic gas range in our rental barely boils water, let alone getting a wok hot enough to stir fry.
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  • JB
    JB Posts: 510
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    I suppose it's for the same reason the Egg is used to cook pizzas, lasagna, chili, breads, cookies, pies et al. I don't have a wok to fit the Egg (yet) but if/ when I do you can bet I'll be using it on the Egg, not stovetop. I've only had my BGE 6 months, but I can count on 1 hand the number of meals I've cooked inside since getting it. I suggest that anyone who spends up to $1000 bucks on a charcoal grill/ smoker does so because they LOVE cooking outdoors. There's good reason why we're known as "Eggheads".
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  • Dan in StL
    Dan in StL Posts: 254
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    Agreed - I pay just under $12 for a 20# bag of Fire King lump and it is VERY GOOD quality
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  • SmokinParrotHead
    SmokinParrotHead Posts: 532
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    oops
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  • SmokinParrotHead
    SmokinParrotHead Posts: 532
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    Damn? 40 bucks? I will sell you BGE all day for $35, and that would be me paying retail price and marking it up $12-15. Where in the H#*L are you shopping? Seriously, I thought I was overpaying at $23/bag. Do you not have a WalMart? Doesn't WalMart sale Royal Oak? It has to be a close enough second to BGE Lump to make the savings well worth it.
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  • Carolina Q
    Carolina Q Posts: 14,831
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    Arduinna, you don't need a spider. Just set the wok on the coals. Works great! Don't forget the gloves though - handles get REAL hot! So does stirring. :)

    I hate it when I go to the kitchen for food and all I find are ingredients!                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

    Michael 
    Central Connecticut 

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  • Serial Griller
    Serial Griller Posts: 1,186
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    John,
    I think you have higher temps, more consistant and thorough heating of the wok than if cooking on a stove.. It heats up faster & sears..RIGHT NOW!
    I have a flat bottom wok that I use inside. I don't get the same or as good results as I do on the egg.
    When I heat the wok to max inside and things start smoking the smoke detectors go off.
    Anyway it's more fun on the egg.Go to Walmart and get some Royale oak..About $6.62 / 10 lb bag.
    The food is incredible using a wok on the egg!You'll never order Chinese take out again.
    P1010033-1.jpg
    P1010036-1.jpg
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  • The Naked Whiz
    The Naked Whiz Posts: 7,777
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    Primarily because you can get a wok a lot hotter in a ceramic cooker than you can get it on your stove top. If you have seen the Good Eats episode where he woks outside on a turkey fryer, he explains it pretty well.
    The Naked Whiz
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  • Plumbr44
    Plumbr44 Posts: 212
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    TNW, you mean to tell me I missed an episode of Good Eats? Now I need to go thru my dvr and check!

    Matt C.
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  • Woody69
    Woody69 Posts: 360
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    If you are truly paying $40 for a bad of BGE lump, you are getting raped. As far as the reasons why, it has been explained pretty good in the posts above.
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  • Texas Eggie
    Texas Eggie Posts: 150
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    I pay $12.00 for Cowboy Lump at Home Depot.
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  • thebtls
    thebtls Posts: 2,300
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    I pay $3.88 for 8 pounds of lump at Menards and don't care how much it is because I refuse to cook indoors when I can cook on the egg. Also, I often do Multiple things when I wok, for instance I steam my rice and veggies first sometimes, etc... And my electric cooktop won't stay on with my wok, it turns on and off because it is not a solid flat surface.
    Visit my blog, dedicated to my Big Green Egg Recipies at http://www.bigtsbge.blogspot.com You can also follow my posts on FaceBook under the name Keep On Eggin' or the link http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Keep-On-Eggin/198049930216241
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  • CBBQ
    CBBQ Posts: 610
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    You can get 40lb bags of Fire King for $17 at the St Peters Farmer's Co-op.
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  • The Naked Whiz
    The Naked Whiz Posts: 7,777
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    Yes, it was some time ago. He did squid on the wok. The name of the episode was Squid Pro Quo.
    The Naked Whiz
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  • johnrezz
    johnrezz Posts: 120
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    Wow... lots of response to that question :) I knew I started somthing.... Well... As much as I love living in Beautiful Steamboat Springs Colorado it comes with a price. And you guest it a good example is a $40.00 bag of BGE lump. Steamboat is in the NW corner of Colorado and 3 hours from the nearest city so we get raped on just about everything accept the beautiful National forest that all of you pay for and I get to enjoy every day :)

    The only other lump I find in town is cowboy lump and I have really bad experiance with it, about every few months I buy a bag and get really bad results, it will not burn at high temps, plus they are charging $20.00 a bag for it as well.....

    So I get it, the temps are the main reason followed by keeping the odor outside... I expected everyone to tell me just because you can....... but these are valid reasons.......

    I guess the egg gods are paying me back for the blasfime of my question because I decided to make some ABT's today for when we got back from skiing and I burned the heck out of hte bottom of them. did 350deg for 45min on the stock setup, maybe nexttime I will raise the grate and place tinfoil under my vegtable pan. still good though...
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  • Garnerac
    Garnerac Posts: 134
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    RoyalOak.jpg
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  • EggTurner
    EggTurner Posts: 108
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    We usually think of cooking on the Egg in terms of the moisture retention or in terms of the flavor imparted by the charcoal or woods chips/chunks and so I understand your question. In this case (as with some baking such as pizza) it is the high temp that allows the utensil (wok - as per your question) to shine.
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  • johnrezz
    johnrezz Posts: 120
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    Garnerack that was just mean!!!!
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  • cookn biker
    cookn biker Posts: 13,407
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    hahaha ;)
    Molly
    Colorado Springs
    "Loney Queen"
    "Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it."
    Bill Bradley; American hall of fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, former U.S. Senator from New Jersey
    LBGE, MBGE, SBGE , MiniBGE and a Mini Mini BGE
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  • mnwalleye
    mnwalleye Posts: 226
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    I would buy it on the internet, they sell some stuff that has got good reviews on Amazon.
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  • Canugghead
    Canugghead Posts: 11,515
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    I'm posting this at risk of being 'unpopular' too :P We use the wok almost daily but seldom on the egg. In fair weather when we wok outside we use a high pressure turkey fryer which yields intense 'wok hei' (heat), never tried it in freezing cold though. IMHO it is kind of 'wasteful' to fire up the egg just for a wok cook, it makes more sense to wok on the egg when doing other cooks too, or prior to doing a self-clean burn.
    canuckland
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  • johnrezz
    johnrezz Posts: 120
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    Now dont get me wrong, I get it..... I love to use my Egg and use it all the time. I get at least 3-4 cooks a week even in the winter where we get 600"+ of snow and the temps go down to -30's. But I just dont see the egg as a reasonable WOK solution, but as stated earlier when it warms up and I can actually stand at the Egg and not have my buggers freeze up I will give it a try. The other solutions I have are a Gas stove (told it wont get hot enough) a gas side burner on my BGE accessory holder and a high powered propane burner for doing large clambakes......... Come on June!!!!!

    and I have looked into buying lump online in the past but the cost of shipping still made it high but not as high as local.... I will have to do some calling around next time I am near denver and see if I can find a good deal and stock up...
    J
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  • SmokeOrFire
    SmokeOrFire Posts: 49
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    I thought $1/lb for charcoal was ludicrous when you can get butt for $0.88/lb.

    There seems to be an ace near you where you might be able to get frontier. Search for your zip code at www.acehardware.com. It doesn't look like they have one that participates in the free ship to store (which would be $12/20lb), but you might be able to special order some.
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