Cooking area for indirect on Medium - how big

TheManOnTheBus

Hi

I am considering buying a Medium but am worried about the cooking area. Whilst the grill for indirect is 38cm, and was worried that was a little smaller than the Weber kettle I presently have, the plate setter has a diameter of only around 25cm (except for the three corners).

Is it the case that you have to keep the whole of a piece of meat within the "shadow" of the plate setter, or does it matter if the edges of a larger joint overhands onto the "direct" sides. 

25cm is really rather small.  And hard to see how I could cook for friends on it (a larger joint of meat - pork shoulder - or even just racks of lamb).

Anyone else have experience of this?

thanks

TMOTB

DoubleEgger

The platesetter is fairly small. 10" if I remember correctly. I have a Woo2 from ceramic grill store and use a BGE 12" (medium) pizza stone as the heat shield for indirect cooking. I would highly recommend this setup over a platesetter for the medium. 

TheManOnTheBus

Thank you.  Yes 10" is approximately 25cm.

I hadn't heard of Woo2 - but just looked it up. 

Interesting idea to use the pizza stone as a wider heat shield.  But why use a Woo2 to hold it.  Won't it just fit on top of the plate setter?

And is there not a problem with restricting airflow for indirect cooking by having that extra 1" all the way round?  I guess not - since it works for you.

Thank you.

This forum is very helpful. 

DoubleEgger

The woo allows you to cook raised direct also.  It offers more flexibility than the platesetter. 

F3DAWG

I have a medium egg and you'd be surprised how much food you can cook. It's really good on charcoal consumption as well. Cooked a 13 pound butt and a 10 pound brisket flat with no problem. However if I had to do it over again, I would have purchase a large egg because it gives you more flexibility on the toys you can use when cooking on your egg.

blasting

I have the same setup as @doubleegger. 

The 12" stone is suspended on the cross bars.  Then I have a stainless drip pan approx 13 1/2" on the pizza stone (I use 3 copper caps to have an air gap).  I regularly cook a 9 lb pork butt with no direct exposure to heat.

Some may have a different opinion,  but any brisket worth cooking would be too big.

gdenby

The medium is a little cramped, that's true. I should know, I have 2. Sometimes a bit of creativity helps. My most spectacular cook was a whole hog head. Took me about a half hour swapping around various pieces of Egg furniture till I could find a fit. But it worked out very, very well.

In that case, it only took a grill to set the "indirect" blocker on to it. I had a 1/4 size  sheet pan that fit snugly onto the lower grill. I crossed that with some fire brick splits, and another grill. The only problem was that the hog's head released so much fat that I had to siphon from the pool of fat a few times to prevent the pan from overflowing, and starting a blaze. I think there was a benefit from the head resting near the simmering fat, because t turned out wonderfully tender.

For more common cooks, I've done 14 lbs of shoulder.  Also a 13 lb brisket. I had to drape that over a large pineapple juice can at first. As it cooked, the size reduced, and I could lay it flat after about 4 hous. 2 full racks of St. Louis style trimmed pork spare ribs are a bit of a problem, but I've manage 2 1/2.

ThrillSeeker

I bought a medium several years ago and I LOVE it.  My only regret is not getting a large.

minniemoh

I really love my M BGE and it gets called to duty more than the rest. If this will be your first egg, a L would likely be a better choice in my opinion so you have the cooking real estate for the larger gatherings. The M is a tremendous second egg though. For me, it gets to temp faster and truly is a lump miser.