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In Praise of the BGE

SciAggie
SciAggie Posts: 6,481
in EggHead Forum
The Big Green Egg is a wonderful tool. Yeah, I have an offset that I love - but It needs tending constantly- and maintenance is a pain. I have a wood oven that I love - but it takes time to saturate it with heat. 
The egg? It just makes life easy. I had a pork butt that I needed to cook today. I didn’t want to tend the offset every 20 minutes. 

So I fired up the egg. It has idled along at 275 degrees ALL DAY. No need to fiddle with it or worry about it. I just go check on it when I think about it - it’s doing what it does - purring along at 275 degrees. I got in a nap. I did some other things around the house. It just kept cooking. 

That’s it. That’s all I got. I still love my eggs. Here’s the butt in question:


Coleman, Texas
Large BGE & Mini Max for the wok. A few old camp Dutch ovens and a wood fired oven. LSG 24” cabinet offset smoker. There are a few paella pans and a Patagonia cross in the barn. A curing chamber for bacterial transformation of meats...
"Bourbon slushies. Sure you can cook on the BGE without them, but why would you?"
                                                                                                                      YukonRon
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Comments

  • gmanrva
    gmanrva Posts: 429
    You gotta love it!!
    LGE Mechanicsville Va, XLGE Wake Va., LGE Duck NC.
    Formely Gman2 before password debacle 
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  • loco_engr
    loco_engr Posts: 5,834
    I always love when there's time for a nap!  =)
    aka marysvilleksegghead
    Lrg 2008
    mini 2009

    Henny Youngman:
    I said to my wife, 'Where do you want to go for our anniversary?' She said, 'I want to go somewhere I've never been before.' I said, 'Try the kitchen.'
    Bob Hope: When I wake up in the morning, I don’t feel anything until noon, and then it’s time for my nap
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  • WeberWho
    WeberWho Posts: 11,571
    You'll get a new appreciation of how easy the egg really is after playing with a stick burner for awhile. Especially with maintenance and clean up. Each has their own value. The ease of the BGE is almost cheating after tending sticks though! 
    "The pig is an amazing animal. You feed a pig an apple and it makes bacon. Let's see Michael Phelps do that" - Jim Gaffigan

    Minnesota
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  • Botch
    Botch Posts: 17,528
    Back in my PizzaFreak days, I had planned on building a large pizza oven in the back yard.  Once I got the Large, I realized I didn't need to.
    The barbecuing, wokking and grilling were just icing on the cake.  

    “Remember this, Sometimes the only way up is to Crawl,

    You’re already down, you can’t fall, 

    Anymore”       - Seal

     

    Ogden, UT, USA


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  • northGAcock
    northGAcock Posts: 15,173
    edited November 2020
    Had me at 😴 nap
    Ellijay GA with a Medium & MiniMax

    Well, I married me a wife, she's been trouble all my life,
    Run me out in the cold rain and snow
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  • TechsasJim
    TechsasJim Posts: 2,252
    Yes sir, exactly why I'll be doing a 7.5# butt tomorrow.    Fire it up in the morning, dial in temp and you're off and running maintenance free.    It can handle things from there while I'm working all day.
    LBGE, 28” BS, Weber Kettle, HCI 7.8 SE Texas
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  • SonVolt
    SonVolt Posts: 3,318
    edited November 2020
    SciAggie said:
    The Big Green Egg is a wonderful tool. Yeah, I have an offset that I love - but It needs tending constantly- and maintenance is a pain. I have a wood oven that I love - but it takes time to saturate it with heat. 
    The egg? It just makes life easy. I had a pork butt that I needed to cook today. I didn’t want to tend the offset every 20 minutes. 

    So I fired up the egg. It has idled along at 275 degrees ALL DAY. No need to fiddle with it or worry about it. I just go check on it when I think about it - it’s doing what it does - purring along at 275 degrees. I got in a nap. I did some other things around the house. It just kept cooking. 

    That’s it. That’s all I got. I still love my eggs. Here’s the butt in question:



    Taste wise, do you prefer roasted meats like chicken, fish etc cooked in the wood fired oven or the egg? 

    I have an XL that I love and my fondness for it grows with time, but I day-dream about a dedicated WFO. 
    South of Nashville  -  BGE XL  -  Alfresco 42" ALXE  -  Alfresco Versa Burner  - Sunbeam Microwave 
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  • SonVolt
    SonVolt Posts: 3,318
    SciAggie said:

    Things I love to cook in the WFO (besides pizza) - spatchcock chicken (it's magical), any roasted vegetable is elevated to new status, oysters are the bomb. All baked pastas are really good from the wood oven.

    Those are all the things I dream about cooking, ha.  Having a heat source from the top is one area the BGE lacks.

    That's interesting about the mild smoke flavor of the WFO. So with so little smoke, what makes the spatchcock chicken cooked in a WFO so much better/different than your home oven?  


    South of Nashville  -  BGE XL  -  Alfresco 42" ALXE  -  Alfresco Versa Burner  - Sunbeam Microwave 
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  • SciAggie
    SciAggie Posts: 6,481
    @Sonvolt My opinion is that several things are going on with the chicken. 1)I place the legs toward the wall of the oven and the breast to the center - that puts more heat on the legs. Usually the legs come out around 190 degrees when the breast hits 155. 2)The WFO is like a convection oven when the door is open. It moves a lot of air and that helps crisp the skin. 3)You have temp ranges from 225 in the mouth of the oven to 500 in the hottest part when baking. I can move the chicken around and control the rate of browning and cooking. Having a "broiler" at your command when you want to get heat over the top is nice. All that comes together to make a lowly chicken really tasty.  
    Coleman, Texas
    Large BGE & Mini Max for the wok. A few old camp Dutch ovens and a wood fired oven. LSG 24” cabinet offset smoker. There are a few paella pans and a Patagonia cross in the barn. A curing chamber for bacterial transformation of meats...
    "Bourbon slushies. Sure you can cook on the BGE without them, but why would you?"
                                                                                                                          YukonRon
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  • blind99
    blind99 Posts: 4,974
    looks great!  i had a similar experience last weekend.  i had a big project to do all day.  fired up the egg at 8, threw a 10# butt on around 9 AM, and never looked at it again until 3 PM. man that was a convenient way to cook!
    Chicago, IL - Large and Small BGE - Weber Gasser and Kettle
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  • TechsasJim
    TechsasJim Posts: 2,252
    Did the same today.   Set and forget while I worked.  Pics out of order, sorry for that   
    LBGE, 28” BS, Weber Kettle, HCI 7.8 SE Texas
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  • SciAggie
    SciAggie Posts: 6,481
    @TechsasJim Yeah buddy! Looks great. 
    Coleman, Texas
    Large BGE & Mini Max for the wok. A few old camp Dutch ovens and a wood fired oven. LSG 24” cabinet offset smoker. There are a few paella pans and a Patagonia cross in the barn. A curing chamber for bacterial transformation of meats...
    "Bourbon slushies. Sure you can cook on the BGE without them, but why would you?"
                                                                                                                          YukonRon
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  • RyanStl
    RyanStl Posts: 1,050
    The egg really holds a stable temp for sure.  Sat. I put on a butt and then an hour later decided to take the boys to an arcade to use their birthday gifts cards before our County Executive was going to force the arcade to close in a couple days.  After two hours I texted my wife to look at the temp and it was dead on 300 like I left it. Got home 4 hrs total later and it was still right on 300.
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  • TechsasJim
    TechsasJim Posts: 2,252
    @SciAggie thanks man!

    LBGE, 28” BS, Weber Kettle, HCI 7.8 SE Texas
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  • flexfusion
    flexfusion Posts: 247
    Know what you mean but the offset is nice when you want to cook a lot of protein and the favor is out of this world.  
    Auburn, Alabama
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