Regulating Heat - I did it!

ALTI2DE

Thanks everyone for all your help this week!! I was finally able to regulate the heat on my LBGE to close enough to 275° that I feel confident in the process now.  I learned to stop f***ing with it and just let it settle.

This morning I got the egg set up and put just ONE fire starter in the middle of the charcoal, lit it and let the coals get going so I had a softball sized glow.  I put the plate setter in, legs up, the grid in, and clipped my Cyber Q pit probe to the grid & closed the dome.  Bottom vent was wide open as was the cast iron top.



As as the pit temp hot about 176° I slid the bottom vent closed to about 1/2" and the top closed with the daisy wheel open.  Passing 225° I closed the bottom vent to about 1/8" open and the top daisy wheel just barely open.  I had my Cyber Q texting me every 15 minutes and I plotted the temps in Excel.  The temp flared up to 301-302° a couple of times, then would settle back in.  I assume it was the charcoal settling or something.  I started at 12:10 this afternoon and at 3:00 my wife and I left for the Seahawks game.  The temp held like a champ up to about 5PM when it started to drop off.  By the time we got home at 10:15 it was down to 220°.  Had I been home, I probably would have opened up the bottom vent after I saw it fall below 260° or so just to try and stoke it a bit.  Of course when I finally hook up the Cyber Q fan, it would have done that for me.  But for darn near 5 hours I held a temp!  I'm actually going to try cooking on it tomorrow!

Thanks again everyone for the tips & tricks! I REALLY appreciate it!

SGH

See, nothing to it is it.

SGH

Glad to hear that you figured it out my friend. Now enjoy that egg. 

ALTI2DE

Thanks @SGH Maybe someday the brisket gods will smile down upon me as well!  Tomorrow we start with beer can chicken!

SGH

ALTI2DE said:

Thanks @SGH Maybe someday the brisket gods will smile down upon me as well!  Tomorrow we start with beer can chicken!

My pleasure brother. I'm always glad to offer anything that I can to try and help someone out. As far as the Brisket Gods, they are real selective in who they help. They have been ignoring me forever. Good luck on the beer can chicken tomorrow, can't wait to see it my friend. 

TrailRunner

Good job, like I said in your other post I was chasing at the beginning to. Well it still is kind of the beginning for me compared to some of the guys here. I just read and read and read and finally got it right. I was expecting to ruin a lot more food but everything so far has been great except my burgers. Still trying to dial those in. 

THEBuckeye

Welcome. You've passed the test. 

Egg On

lousubcap

Great way to get after it and get it sorted out.  Enjoy the chix cook.

gdenby

Congratulations! I still remember the 1st time I felt confident enough to leave the Egg running by itself for 3 hours. I was a poster child for temp chasing, and thank goodness I finally got too tired to do it.

FWIW, a slight creep up in temp is more common than down. Usually, as the food cooks, water evaporates, the food shrinks, and more dry hot air circulates. Sometimes ash build up will clog the air flow, or, worse case scenario, the fire concentrates in the center, and burns a hole down to the grate, leaving lots of lump around the sides that never kindled. From what I've read, having a blower does not prevent the fire from going out if it burns down the center.

DaveRichardson

Step 1 complete on being a Jedi Master.....  Welcome to the madness!

DaveRichardson

those firestarter cubes are a quick way to get nuclear!  I like the simple paper towel soaked in a mason jar with some cooking oil.  I rip them to half sheets, wad them up, and stick them in a mason jar (moonshine jar....) and pour in enough cooking oil to get them to saturate.  I'll fish one out, light a edge,  and put in in the middle of the lump and let it get going about 10 minutes.  Close the dome after 10 minutes and start burning off VOC's and get to temp doing the vent dance.

swordsmn

OK,  Man card punched  for manual temp control.   It is always good to have that skill,  like making fire in the woods  without a waterproofed Bic  etc.

In fact, merely owning a cyberQ diminishes you manliness to a certain % of purists  here.  But when you feel  like you are now  "Mr  Regulation",  do try a non food iteration or two  integrating the darn blower  prior to hitting setpoint.    In fact you could set cyberQ  to 50  below your ultimate  and let it grow it to there & stabilize before a gradual build to 275.

IMHO  there's no shame in using that tool  especially for a long  low & slow.  You'll watch a lot more uninterrupted football  or  sleep better  knowing u can  look in on your tablet  & watch the ye ol temp stay  usually  + or -  2-5 degrees.     #noshameintech  :-)      There has to be a piece of preferred tech in aviation that you can/SHOULD know how to do without but that you DO use when available because it makes mgmt. easier,  yes/no?  But I admit  you LEARN to be able to do without out   and I do not diminish that skill.

ALTI2DE

swordsmn said:

OK,  Man card punched  for manual temp control.   It is always good to have that skill,  like making fire in the woods  without a waterproofed Bic  etc.

In fact, merely owning a cyberQ diminishes you manliness to a certain % of purists  here.  But when you feel  like you are now  "Mr  Regulation",  do try a non food iteration or two  integrating the darn blower  prior to hitting setpoint.    In fact you could set cyberQ  to 50  below your ultimate  and let it grow it to there & stabilize before a gradual build to 275.

IMHO  there's no shame in using that tool  especially for a long  low & slow.  You'll watch a lot more uninterrupted football  or  sleep better  knowing u can  look in on your tablet  & watch the ye ol temp stay  usually  + or -  2-5 degrees.     #noshameintech  :-)      There has to be a piece of preferred tech in aviation that you can/SHOULD know how to do without but that you DO use when available because it makes mgmt. easier,  yes/no?  But I admit  you LEARN to be able to do without out   and I do not diminish that skill.

Yes, I fly with my iPad and an app called Foreflight, but if that died if still have to be able to find myself through the aid of old school navigational aids such as VORs, NDBs and the like.  And before I was a Realtor I was a Network engineer for a little software company called Adobe.  So tech is in my blood.  It's why I went with the Cyber Q and not the DX2.  Because walking the 20 feet out to the BGE is not nearly as cool as having your egg text you its current temp!

DaveRichardson

Ohhh, I love Foreflight!

Do you use a yoke mount for the ipad?  I use RAM Mounts in all vehicles, on the road and sky.

Jeepster47

ALTI2DE said:

...  Because walking the 20 feet out to the BGE is not nearly as cool as having your egg text you its current temp!

Okay, that one gave me a belly laugh.  Those folks without pocket protectors just don't know what they're missing. 

ALTI2DE

DaveRichardson said:

Ohhh, I love Foreflight!

Do you use a yoke mount for the ipad?  I use RAM Mounts in all vehicles, on the road and sky.

I mount my iPad and Stratus 2 and Garmin VIRB to the windscreen using RAM mounts.  I love tech... 

Heres a flight that shows some of the beauty of the northwest... Last February a flight into Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands in North West WA

https://youtu.be/V9NZsvfLdQ8

DaveRichardson

Most excellent!!!!!  Now If I can figure out a ram mount for the egg table......

DaveRichardson

Nice gently bleeding off of airspeed and altitude at the start.....  Love seeing the instrumentation indicators on the video!  Very cool!