Tips on multi-temperature cooking

UTH

Still very new to this, so apologies for basic questions. 

What is my plan of action if I'm planning on cooking, for example, ribs and burgers and sausages, and maybe chicken wings? 
Ribs I've done many time on gas BBQs - indirect low heat for several hours, wrap in foil for a few more hours etc 
But, how does that work if at some point you'll need to ramp the heat up to do your wings, sausages and burgers (especially as those things might well need direct heat?)

I have the Eggspander system, half moon ceramic and plancha, so I've got a lot of kit.....

GrateEggspectations

I have taken your question to be about cooking indirect, low and slow while concurrently cooking direct, hot and fast. There are two aspects to consider: direct vs indirect heat, and temperature. 

The Egg is very versatile, but you’ll find that it’s pretty difficult to achieve your goal. The half moon stone will give you the ability to cook using both direct and indirect heat at the same time, which is what you need for the scenario you describe. However, it will do nothing to address the fact that you’ll no doubt want higher temps to sear the burgers, wings and sausages than you will for your ribs. 

If I were you, I’d probably just remove the foiled ribs and let them rest while cooking the remaining items hot and fast. The wings sausages and burgers will cook quickly, and the ribs will hold for a long time - especially if you FTC (“foil, towel, cooler”) them. 

In essence, planning and timing, including allowing foods to rest, is probably your best strategy. In taking out the hot plate setter to move from indirect to direct cooking, always identify a safe place to put it (non-combustible surface out of reach of folks) before you take it out, and use protective gear (gloves or removal tool) to do so. You likely know this already, but I’m mentioning it because you stated you were new to the game. 

The minor and not very effective workaround I sometimes use when wanting direct and indirect at the same time is to put the hot and fast items on the grill over the gaps on the plate setter. But again, intensity of the heat will often be insufficient in a hot and fast scenario if set up for low and slow. 

The only true sensible solution is to buy another Egg. 🙂

UTH

Thanks for the detailed post, much appreciated. And I'm glad that you confirmed what I had a feeling would be the case, so I'm happy that I'm on the right track. I'd never used a cooler before I did my pulled pork cook a couple of weeks ago, so I think this is a great idea to keep them warm, then go direct for the other food, good plan! And yes, always good to remind to be safe with getting the plate setter out, to be fair I've not actually needed to do that mid-cook yet, so happy to be reminded! 

GrateEggspectations

@UTH

No problemo. When you do end up removing a plate setter, watch it. If sufficiently hot, seconds make a difference in terms of potential burns - even through thick gloves.

The other advantage of a second Egg is that it makes a great resting spot for a hot plate setter. 

If you haven’t experienced it yet, also watch for flashback (described here: https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1144695/back-flash). Have lost eyebrows and eyelashes this way, the latter of which fused together. Burping the Egg has now become such a routine habit that I automatically do it on my gasser too, which is not even needed. 

zaphod

so while I obviously don't do ribs, I have done a few multi-course meals with different needs for temperature and direct/in-direct - exactly what @GrateEggspectations is about.

For meals like that you can lay out the timings of the cooks so get a road map for when food goes on, goes off and when you need to change something on the egg. you can then work backwards from eating time to find out the lighting time.  So you'll end up with a cheat sheet something like this for wedges and [veggie] burgers: 

3:35 light      

4:00 potato wedges go on at 400F indirect using the 12" perforated pizza pan directly on the plate setter 

4:20 flip potatoes              

4:35 take off the potatoes      

     remove plate setter put in plancha (grill up) and the half moon CI grate raise temp to 500F direct  

4:45 burgers on grill   

5:00 eat

I don't need to wrap things in foil like you, but we do have a warming drawer that keeps the first course happy while the second course happens. I once saw an egg table with a built-in warming drawer. very nice.

double reinforcement on hot plate setter moving.  If I am doing raised direct after indirect, i'll be using the basket for the direct cook so the plate setter is on the fire ring naked. Then when changing up, I have to move a hot plate setter with only gloves and that's not fun. If I am using the plate setter in the basket for raising the SS grid above the plate setter then I need to get the plate setter out of it's basket for the raised direct cook. still not fun.

I use ANSI 3 welding gloves and I can only hold a plate setter for 5 seconds or so. Then the gloves get so hot that I need to put down the plate setter NOW and take off the 400F gloves. Then I got a plate setter lifter for Christmas and I love it. It lets me take the plate setter out of the fire safely. I can even wrangle the hot plate setter in and out of it's basket without touching it.

Mark_B_Good

If you do plan on cooking ribs, then say something like burgers ... finish the low and slow, and take ribs off wrapped. Keep them wrapped ... then ramp up the egg ... if you keep the lid open, it won't be much time before you have an angry oven ... cook your burgers ... whatever, then open up the rib foil, and put them over that heat with some glaze to get a nice brown top in a few minutes ... and serve.

It's easy to get the egg temperature up ... that happens fast.  It's VERY hard to cool it down after that, so you have to do the low and slow first.  In any case, it makes sense to do that, so everything is finishing at around the same time.

Now ... you can also move stuff to the gas bbq, or even the oven ... like glazing the ribs at the end ... you don't really need to do that on the BGE. So there's different ways to navigate through this.

UTH

So, this ended up pretty successfully in the end, with ribs, wings and tuna steak for my wife (didn't manage photos of the tuna)
The ribs ended up resting in the cool bag longer than I'd have liked, and the end was rather chaotic as I tried to ramp up the temperature for the tuna cooking whilst also having the wings still going. Lessons learnt, I definitely need a better idea on what my configuration will be, as at one point I had all of my kit all over the floor as I tried to decide how to set it up. But, for my first effort of multi level/multi temp cooking, the end result was great.

shtgunal3

Well done

lousubcap

Way to deliver the goods with audibles along the way.  Great cook.  

Foghorn

Great job.  And great job taking mental notes about how to do it better next time.  It's a journey and can be a very enjoyable one - especially when the results keep getting better with more reps.

MrCookingNurse06

UTH said:

So, this ended up pretty successfully in the end, with ribs, wings and tuna steak for my wife (didn't manage photos of the tuna)
The ribs ended up resting in the cool bag longer than I'd have liked, and the end was rather chaotic as I tried to ramp up the temperature for the tuna cooking whilst also having the wings still going. Lessons learnt, I definitely need a better idea on what my configuration will be, as at one point I had all of my kit all over the floor as I tried to decide how to set it up. But, for my first effort of multi level/multi temp cooking, the end result was great.

We have a very similar set up indeed!!

I read your initial question, but am sure someone else already said this. You can use the oven for a lot of the rib time after they take up smoke, especially while foiled. 

You need to buy a Blackstone to put next to the egg 

fishlessman

agree with the blackstone, simplifies things.

UTH

This might be a dumb (UK) question.....what's a Blackstone? 

GrateEggspectations

UTH said:

This might be a dumb (UK) question.....what's a Blackstone? 

A griddle.

https://blackstoneproducts.com/collections/griddles?srsltid=AfmBOoo1Uhl7JDBbAx61Lll-qsjmc1F4Swnxs5Rdl2C6nTCG9aiN1ESU

UTH

Oh I see! Well, whilst not a griddle, I do have one of these as well: 

https://www.bbqworld.co.uk/weber-barbecues/gas/weber-spirit-classic-e310-gas-bbq.asp?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAneK8BhAVEiwAoy2HYTLagH8gtHxyS3l9Yhyvo3XKY3geVwK3xDiR6_NRX2FQAL3SCEKxAxoC_bYQAvD_BwE

fishlessman

UTH said:

Oh I see! Well, whilst not a griddle, I do have one of these as well: 

https://www.bbqworld.co.uk/weber-barbecues/gas/weber-spirit-classic-e310-gas-bbq.asp?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAneK8BhAVEiwAoy2HYTLagH8gtHxyS3l9Yhyvo3XKY3geVwK3xDiR6_NRX2FQAL3SCEKxAxoC_bYQAvD_BwE

i would be toasting the bunns on the weber while punching out smash burgers on the blackstone at searing temps. i bought the blackstone just for smash burgers as i dont like cooking lots of burgers in the egg with the grease and flareups. that and smash burgers punch out an a couple minutes with it fully loaded up.