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How did you start Egging?

Unknown
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum

How did you find out about the Big Green Egg?
I found out about the BGE from an article in "This Old House"

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Comments

  • The Naked Whiz
    The Naked Whiz Posts: 7,777
    Tony,
    My wife saw them in a local store and dragged me in. I wanted that $700 SS gasser from Sams. Man, I was ready to single-handedly punch a hole in the ozone layer directly above Raleigh, NC. Scientists were going to scratch their heads. Then I got to thinking about, charcoal? Fire? I get to play with fire? Matches? Flames? I was sold....
    TNW

    The Naked Whiz
  • Wyldwood
    Wyldwood Posts: 84
    Tony,
    I am from CA. Had lunch at a friends in Detroit. He cooked chicken wings. After eating a dozen of them, I came home and bought a large egg the next day. Never had anything on the egg we didn't love. A great investment.
    Cooked them many times since the same way he did. Great every time.
    Wyldwood

  • Crab leg
    Crab leg Posts: 291
    Tony,
    My best friend told me to get one, and get a large. Nuff said. Now I have a large and a small. Great investment.
    Seth

  • Tony,
    My father-in-law just bought me one for Christmas. What a great in-law!! I think the Christmas before I got a pair of gloves. Go figure. Hopefully I will get some coal this year ... charcoal. [p]His neighbor had one. He liked the food I cooked on my Brinkmann and thought I could do even better on the Egg.[p]Now I'm a convert and preachin the faith of Eggn'.

  • SyraQ
    SyraQ Posts: 95
    Tony,
    Three years ago, I wanted to make real pulled pork and did an Internet search. Found the BGE forum and website in the results and then found a local dealer in the zip code finder. It was love at first sight. Never a regret.

  • Spring Chicken
    Spring Chicken Posts: 10,255
    Tony,
    Never heard of it until we moved to Houston. I kept seeing a small egg-shaped ad in the paper saying, "World's best smoker." I had no idea what it was or how it worked but I wanted one. That was about 5 or 6 years ago. Best thing I ever purchased.[p]Spring Chicken
    Spring Texas USA

  • Tony,
    found out about from my buddies mr. earl, nature boy, and woodoggies. . .stopped at mr. earl's on the way to our first competition at new holland pa two years ago (our team was all metal head at the time). . .he had one and i was intrigued. . .then met nature boy and woodoggies, and along with mr. earl, they were 'my kind of people'. . .i knew right then and there 'eggdome' was for me. .. never been sorry, and now some of my favorite people in the world are eggers. . .

  • Tony,I was planning to build a brick oven to do brick oven style pizza and was looking on Ebay at temperature guages. Most were in the $20 range, then up pops "BIG GREEN EGG", 16 bids, current bid $800. Curious, I followed the link..."reserve not met". Now really curious, I am wondering what kind of grill is this!! After reading about six months of the BGE Forum archive comments from BGE users, I realized I had an extaordinry brick oven with wheels and temperature control all available in the "EGG". Once I got an Egg and tried the food cooked on it, I was totally blown away....AWESOME

  • Angie2B
    Angie2B Posts: 543
    Tony,
    I went looking for plans to build a brick oven. I have a couple of brothers who are bricklayers, I was going to try and sweet talk them into building me a brick oven. Big green egg came up on the search engine and I've been a fan every since. I had never heard of pulled pork or been around any smoked foods except pig roasts. ( Yes I am a Yankee! ;-) ) I really got hooked on low and slow BBQ. It used to be at family reunions people would ask "What food did you bring?" Not because they wanted to try it, but they needed to know what to avoid! HEHE I'm serious! Now my stuff is usually the first to go.

  • haywyre
    haywyre Posts: 165
    Tony,
    I was looking for information on rebuilding my charbroil patio caddie. And ran across this bord then got addicted.

  • QBabe
    QBabe Posts: 2,275
    Tony,[p]We were at a patio store picking out fabric for my birthday present, some new patio furniture. Mr. Hyde was bored with that and began wandering around the store. He stumbled across a competitor's ceramic cooker which we ended up taking home. Began to learn about ceramic cooking and came across this site. Then I HAD to have a small egg for camping. A year later we bought our large egg and about 6 months later picked up a used medium (which has since gone to some new eggers following the 2004 Florida Fest). Our latest egg is Mr. Hyde's mini which I got for his birthday last year.[p]Egging is now an integral part of our lifestyle. Great investment, stellar customer service from the folks at BGE, and a wonderful group of new friends who are like family. One of the best things we've ever spent money on....[p]Tonia
    :~)

  • randomegger
    randomegger Posts: 194
    Tony,[p]Our neighbor a few houses up the street had a medium and the smoker I had finally rusted out. I had asked our friend about his and he praised it for smoking but said that he didn't use it all that much. My thought was that it would be a pretty durable smoker for the odd turkey and what not. Kind of pricey but would make up for it in longevity.[p]My wife then surprised me with a large for my b-day three years ago. It was only then that I realized that it was capable of so much more than just smoking a bird on Thanksgiving. It appealed to me in that it was actually fire in a purer form (than gas) and that you had to tinker with it. I actually like the fact that it takes time to heat up (would never consider buying an electric starter or, shudder, torch!)...[p]Anyhow, I finally got around to buying small to match and I may relegate the old gasser to the cabin.[p]RE
  • tach18k
    tach18k Posts: 1,607
    Tony,
    I remember my aunt had a potery clay type from Japan in the early 60's, she did a ham, thats someting I'll never forget, it was so good. anyway I went into a BBQ Galore when I was buying a gasser, the guy recomended the Egg and he had 4 of them at home, a collector himself. Well $200 seemed better $700 at the time. I got mine finally last summer, after 18mo's use of my last gasser.

  • Butch M
    Butch M Posts: 52
    Tony,
    I had looked at and admired the Egg for several years, but thought they were really expensive and could not image they were worth the cost. For Christmas four years ago, my wonderful wife surprised me with a Large Egg. We have learned that not only are they worth the price, the enjoyment we share as a couple around this “hobby” is immeasurable. There is rarely a week that goes by that we do not use it at least 5 times a week, if not more. We now own a large, mini and a chiminea and have our eyes on the XL when they come out.

  • Coleslaw
    Coleslaw Posts: 46
    Tony,
    The neighbor egged our apartment, and I found a small on sale at the Outdoor Cook here in MI.

  • JSlot
    JSlot Posts: 1,218
    I found the Egg on the internet while searching for the best grill/smoker. The forum, which consisted of about 5 people back then, convinced me that the Egg was the only way to go.[p]Frosty Ones!
    Jim

  • FlatEric
    FlatEric Posts: 56
    I was on Ork a while back and they were using egg haped devices for everything; including grills, transport vessels etc. So when I saw one back home, I decided to follow in my new freind Mork's footsteps and cook using an egg shaped device. Wouldn't go back to rectangular cooking devices for anything.
  • Walter
    Walter Posts: 67
    Tony,[p]Broke my old grill (Meco) doing a Turkey about 5 years ago... and found the BGE advertised in the "On The Grill" magazine, noticed it was holding a full sized Turkey and the wife gave me the green light (no pun intended) to get the Egg... been lovin' it ever since.[p]Walter
  • TRex
    TRex Posts: 2,714
    Tony,[p]First of all, great thread.[p]A college buddy of mine bought one after doing some research back when we were housemates living in Atlanta, almost 4 years ago. I think the first thing he cooked was either burgers or ribs, and we were both amazed at the results. From then on, we cooked on his Egg almost every night. When I moved out and got married, a Medium Egg was one of my first purchases (my wife was planning out furniture and curtains and stuff, but all I could think about was getting an Egg - severe withdrawal). I think the BGE headquarters was running a special on Mediums at the time.[p]Well, I added a Mini at the 2002 Eggtoberfest, and then my friends went in together and got me a Small for my birthday last year. An XL is next on my wishlist, provided that negotiations with the wife prove successful.[p]TRex
  • GrillMeister
    GrillMeister Posts: 1,608
    Tony,[p]I had actually convinced my better half it was time to replace the old Weber Genesis and I got the OK to buy the big $800 Stainless Virco Gas Grill from Costco about a year ago. I had it for three months and it was the worst grill I have ever used. It had one temperature setting…conflagration! The final straw was when I went to use it for the 4th time in 3 months, I found that all the lettering (temp settings, etc) had peeled off. That was it. I rented a U-Haul trailer and took it back to Costco who promptly refunded my $800 without any hassles. [p]Now, here I was with $800 in my pocket and no grill. We started looking at Weber Genesis again, but the local dealer had this funky looking thing called the Big Green Egg. One of our neighbors had one and he had nothing but glowing praise for it, so we started investigating by doing research on the web. This forum was and is a great resource. I then found out a colleague in Huntsville, AL had one. Now this guy is famous for his terse and short email responses, but I emailed him anyway asking what he thought of it. Within minutes I received a two page response listing all the great benefits of the egg. That’s when I was pushed over the edge and I took my $800 down to the local BGE dealer and gave it to him (grin).[p]I’ve been egging since August of last year and now have 2 large and 1 small BGEs. I’ve competed in two cook offs and took 2nd place in Brisket out of 110 entries last month. Two co-workers in my office now have eggs as well as 3 more neighbors. I’ve been to the Eggtoberfest in Atlanta and the Waldorf Eggfest as well as organizing two Texas Eggfests. It’s been a blast and I haven’t had my first egg even a year yet.[p]Egging is a way of life to some folk.[p]GrillMeister
    Austin, TX


    Cheers,

    GrillMeister
    Austin, Texas
  • jwitheld
    jwitheld Posts: 284
    Tony,
    Back in the way back in a land far away (mid 1970's)
    this new wed couple had found a place for thier weary heads.
    our new neighbor was a delight, a jewish girl who loved to cook and was good at it.
    apparently her father had purchased one of those ceramic grills in japan and brought it home after the occupation.
    its body was all cracked when last i saw it and it was feared to move it. she was moving and so left it to me and when i moved i left it to the new property owners. this was the dark time. My mother saw one at my uncles house and inquired about it. he had purchased it from pachinko house in atlanta(BGE), it was a grill my uncle wanted to use but would not leave outside (shrug) so he moved it from one end of the house to the other (shotgun on the gulf of mexico) till he became too old to do this.
    he sold it for 50 bucks and i was once again whole.
    now we have internet and the dark time will never desend upon us again (also have 3 ceramics now)

  • Pakak
    Pakak Posts: 523
    I knew mollyshark and another BGE owner (where are you, Jimmy?) from another forum. Both were nuts about their eggs. I can’t remember exactly what prompted me to check the egg out, in person, but once I saw one I knew I wanted one. I had been using gassers for several years, out of convenience, and had missed the flavor of charcoal. I was very skeptical about going back to charcoal, albeit lump, because I wasn’t sure I wanted the lighting hassles. Just looking at the egg, it seemed very logical and that it would perform as advertised. It has. I can get up to cooking heats as fast or faster than I ever did on a gasser.
  • Ed Earl
    Ed Earl Posts: 28
    Tony,
    I first saw one in use at the BGE store in Tampa Florida about eight years ago. Left that day with a large. Have added a small for camping and another large to cook for larger groups.[p]Ed Evans
    Key Largo, Florida

  • BeerMike
    BeerMike Posts: 317
    Tony, I asked a friend what he was doing this weekend. He indicated he was cooking on his big green egg. I said, "your what?" After listening to him rave about the quality of the food for six months, I purchased a large egg. I recently added a small egg to the family. My wife thinks the little egg is "so cute."[p]Best cash I ever spent. Well, almost. The engagement ring I purchased for my bride ranks a little higher. ;)[p]BeerMike
    I think it's time for another beer!
    BGEing since 2003
    2 Large BGEs 
    Sold small BGE, 3rd and 4th large BGEs and XL BGE (at wife's "request"....sad face)
    Living the dream in Wisconsin
  • Tony,[p]There's an old boy that comes in our work and got to talking about this magical cooker that could grille,smoke and bake on his egg.
    I got to looking into it and thats all she wrote--er two eggs later.
    I enjoy this forum almost as much as the egg.
    Mark

  • Mike in MN
    Mike in MN Posts: 546
    Tony,
    I had a "scab" of a gas grill....and it was time for a new one. After doing all the research on the gassers, I came across a "K" on a web search, and then a BBQ forum mentioned the BGE....What the heck is a BGE?? More searches and I found this forum, and instead of spending $500 on a new gasser that would take me all day to put together, I spent a little more $$ and hauled home an EZ to assemble large BGE. [p]That was about 2 years ago, and I've only used the old scab gasser a couple of times since. (not by choice, SHE insisted)[p]In Minnesota, it's generally windy, darn cold, raining, snowing, sleeting or any combination thereof. We get a few good months of reasonable BBQ'ing weather, and even then it can be miserable. The gas grills just can't stand up to the rigors of our weather. (you can't generate enough heat) The weather has no effect on the BGE, only the cook (;>) [p]The BGE heats up faster, has better temp control, I can use it all year, and things just turn out better. I had never done pulled pork or briskets...and now that is my favorite cook. I have a variety of internet ordered lump and smoking woods on hand, all with a particular purpose.[p]It's been a great purchase, and I don't have anything negative to say...except maybe a slight mumbling about the junk thermometer BGE includes with their top notch piece of equipment. But, for under $40, I corrected that problem with a model from Tel Tru.[p]Next purchase?? Maybe a Guru.[p]Thanks for letting me vent.[p]Mike in MN

  • I had heard of and seen the egg but had never been around one until my daughter got my son-in-law,DrEGG,one.I owned several different cookers including an offset on a trailer,but no EGG.After a few cooks by DrEGG,and my getting to sample the end product,all I could do was rave about how good it was.I amazed at what the EGG could do and how little lump it took to do it.Last year for Father's Day,my wife,three daughters,and son-in-law set me up for Egg cooking.I am a lucky and blessed man.Now I'm an EGGHEAD and a member of another GREAT FAMILY!!My plans are to add to the egg family and use them for competition.Good Eggin and Thanks to all the EGGHEADS here on the forum.
    POPPASAM

  • Painter
    Painter Posts: 464
    Tony,
    I found out about the egg by just happening across the Ugly Brothers website.
    That led me to the Big Green Egg website.
    After learning I could cook for the whole summer on one, maybe two 20lb bags of charcoal I was hooked. Lol.
    Honestly I beleived them when they said.
    If you own just one smoker it should be the BGE, or something to that effect. I don't think they lied.
    Here's a link to their website.
    Pretty good smoking recipes also.
    Bob either

    [ul][li]ugly bros[/ul]
  • WooDoggies
    WooDoggies Posts: 2,390
    Tony,[p]One Saturday afternoon, while I was living in the Blue Ridge mountains of NC, I visited the local hearth and home shop to get something for my wood stove and I saw this fella fiddling with a strange green object set in a wooden table just outside the entrance.[p]The aroma coming from this green domed and abnormally shaped thingee was distinctly chicken in nature. [p]When I took a closer look, I realized it was a charcoal cooker made from ceramic.
    Never having seen anything like it, I asked him to explain. He shoved a piece of chicken in my hand and said, "Eat".[p]I went back several Saturdays in a row to partake in this feller's food, until finally deciding I wanted a medium for my very own....... then deciding later, after much thoughtful reflection, that I wanted the large.[p]Two years later, I found this forum.[p]Fun thread....... thanks!
    John

  • Tony,
    I cooked quite happily for years on a Weber kettle, then moved into a house that had a natural gas grill. That seemed like heaven at the time and I gave away the kettle, which I quickly realized was a bonehead move.[p]Later a co-worker started talking constantly, obsessively, annoyingly about his BGE (thanks Joe). Now the gas line is capped and buried, a replacement kettle I bought is in the basement providing a nice home for spiders and other critters, and the EGG is king.[p]Dave