My XL Egg is not cracked, BUT!!!

Sonny3

I posted the other day that I thought my XL might have a cracked base because there was smoke coming from under the egg and grease dripping off the bottom.  I took a bunch of pics and went to see my dealer.  He said he would get in touch with BGE and get back to me.

He suggested that I remove the all of the pieces from the egg and  heat some water to just short of boiling and pour it in the egg to see if it leaked out.  The hot water would dissolve any grease in the crack enough to see it leak.  Did that and nothing.

But while I had the fire box ring out I noticed in one area in the back of the ring that there was grease cooked pretty heavily on the side between the ring and the inside wall of the exterior of the egg.  None on the egg wall, just the fire box ring.

Because my egg is on a portion of my outdoor space that goes down to the pool there is a slight tilt to the floor to allow water run-off.  My guess is that the grease from lo-slo cooks has been settling back there.

He forwarded the pics to the area BGE rep and called me back today.  The rep suggested that a combination of Florida humidity and moisture combined with the grease puddling had soaked into the ceramics of the egg base.

Told me to load it up with charcoal, fire it up as high as it would go and burn out the egg and the corresponding moisture/grease build up.  It is sitting at 650 and going up.  Has been smoking like crazy out the bottom and I can see new grease drops forming and falling off.

I  plan to just let this keep going until the bottom appears to have quit the process.

Next step will be to build some sort of ramp for the back wheels of the table to take the 1to 1.5 inch tilt out of the table.

By the time this is done I should either have a super clean egg or the damn base will crack.  Either way I am covered because I doing just what the BGE rep told me to.

As an aside, I was lucky to choose a very customer supportive dealer.  Yesterday when I was there and talking with the owner I mentioned that I had been to another dealer location to do a little rub shopping.  That dealer is located in a meat market and carries a selection of rubs that fill up two walls of their store.  They are a very aggressive dealer with their pricing and I think I was told that they sell more eggs than any dealer in FL.  I saw that they had the Mini-Max priced at $499.   My dealer was at $599.  So we discussed that a bit and he said they were getting ready to have a 10% off sale on eggs.  Still higher than $499.

When we talked on the phone today he said to let him know if I wanted the MM and he would cut me a deal.  I think I may talk to him about that when I get this XL issue resolved.

It is nice to confirm that I am hooked up with a good dealer after reading some of the issues others have posted about theirs.

Begger

I think MY dealer is also one of the good ones.   
Glad you are down the road to a good outcome.   Titusville gets a LOT of tropical rain.   I'd suggest keeping the egg OUT of the rain.    Between the rain and BUGS and now various invasive SNAKES, I'm clear of Florida forever.   

PS:  I went to 4 years of school down there in 2 different parts of the state.

HoustonEgger

The rep told you to put water in the egg base? Seems like a direct no no according to the mothership:

Keep your EGG interior DRY
DO NOT allow rain or water to get inside your EGG when not in use. EGGs perform just fine in the rain, or snow, but do not allow water to get inside the EGG when it is not being used as it can penetrate into the ceramic and cause cracking if allowed to freeze. Never use water to clean the inside of an EGG

But I agree with the burn out idea. I recently acquired a used egg and on the first cook it started "sweating" profusely. So I just cranked it up and let it burn everything out. No more sweating and runs like a dream now. 

Sonny3

Begger said:

I think MY dealer is also one of the good ones.   
Glad you are down the road to a good outcome.   Titusville gets a LOT of tropical rain.   I'd suggest keeping the egg OUT of the rain.    Between the rain and BUGS and now various invasive SNAKES, I'm clear of Florida forever.   

PS:  I went to 4 years of school down there in 2 different parts of the state.

No problem keeping it our of the rain.  I roll it out a couple of feet for cooking to keep the smoke out and roll it back when I am done.  And my outdoor kitchen is part of the pool enclosure, so it is all screened in.  Thanks for the feedback.

Sonny3

HoustonEgger said:

The rep told you to put water in the egg base? Seems like a direct no no according to the mothership:

Keep your EGG interior DRY
DO NOT allow rain or water to get inside your EGG when not in use. EGGs perform just fine in the rain, or snow, but do not allow water to get inside the EGG when it is not being used as it can penetrate into the ceramic and cause cracking if allowed to freeze. Never use water to clean the inside of an EGG

But I agree with the burn out idea. I recently acquired a used egg and on the first cook it started "sweating" profusely. So I just cranked it up and let it burn everything out. No more sweating and runs like a dream now. 

I agree with you whole-heartily about the water.  But I figured I was safe if anything happens because I was told by the BGE rep to do it.  Still I didn't leave it in there very long and totally dried to out and left a fan running on it all night until I fired it up today.

But, just in case the base cracked and dumped the hot coals on my table, I am sitting on the back porch with it and have the fire extinguisher sitting on the table ready for use.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

ibanda

Grease can get pushed through the ceramic on high temp cooks. The egg isn't broken, just wipe off the grease. You might notice this after a number of low and slow cooks that build up some grease followed by a high temp cook. 

Sonny3

ibanda said:

Grease can get pushed through the ceramic on high temp cooks. The egg isn't broken, just wipe off the grease. You might notice this after a number of low and slow cooks that build up some grease followed by a high temp cook. 

That seems to be what has happened.  The apparently puddling of the grease towards the back of the egg only aggravated the situation.  Thanks

gmac

I'm very worried about it freezing. In Florida. In the summer. 
Also please send me 10 of the $499 mini-max. 

Sonny3

gmac said:

I'm very worried about it freezing. In Florida. In the summer. 
Also please send me 10 of the $499 mini-max. 

Do you live anywhere near Rochester, NY?  I will be driving up there in September.

Sonny3

Hey, GMAC, I just checked out the map and you are only 174 miles from where I am going to be.  Shoot me a pm if you really want a MM.

gmac

I will. I was being a smart ass but...

BREWnQ

So glad I found this thread! I was prepping for a pizza cook yesterday and had the egg at full throttle everything was fine then I looked outside and saw black smoke coming from the egg.  I went outside to investigate and saw that there was fire below the grate and a puddle of grease on the ground and grease dripping from the bottom of the egg.  I just came off two brisket cooks and knew there was some buildup, so I cleaned the egg, and there didn't appear to be any signs of pooled grease.  Guess it was all soaked in.  Tomorrow I'll try a high temp clean.  Should I be concerned about the ceramic below the grate being on fire?

yljkt

BREWnQ said:

So glad I found this thread! I was prepping for a pizza cook yesterday and had the egg at full throttle everything was fine then I looked outside and saw black smoke coming from the egg.  I went outside to investigate and saw that there was fire below the grate and a puddle of grease on the ground and grease dripping from the bottom of the egg.  I just came off two brisket cooks and knew there was some buildup, so I cleaned the egg, and there didn't appear to be any signs of pooled grease.  Guess it was all soaked in.  Tomorrow I'll try a high temp clean.  Should I be concerned about the ceramic below the grate being on fire?

No. 

Mattman3969

To the OP - are you using a drip pan on you low n slows?  

dougcrann

I had a miserable dealer. Switched to a much more "user friendly" shop. I went to a gathering the second dealer had. Ended up meeting the woman that does the warranty stuff at the distributor level, pretty sure it is for the western side of the US. Started talking to Heather about somethings the first dealer had told me...found out damn near everything the first place had told me was a complete lie...