How to get high temps on Egg?

JLOCKHART29

Cooked a beer but chicken and baby back ribs tonight. Cooked bird to long but ribs were great. After I removed meat I had 2 ribeyes to cook. Was going to use the high heat method.(650 or so 2 min. side with vents wide open ect.) Opened top and bottom vent including screen and let her climb like vidio said. After 10 min. (started from 325 degrees) temp still only 450 and barely climbing almost leveled off. Only 1/4 ring of charcoal left from bird so pop top and add a little over 1/2 ring almost 3/4 to her and shut lid.( Royal Oak brand lump)Temp climbed quick (10 min.) to 510 then leveled off. Got up to 525 then fell back to about 520. By now the bird and ribs had been on counter for 30 min getting cold and dry. I had them in plastic bags but juice still draining out. Gave up trying to get the high temp. and tossed stakes on. 3 min. a side, closed vents and cooked another 3 min. Medium rare and great! However all the screwing around trying to get the higher temp. ruined the other meats especially the bird as I had cooked it to long to start with. (See "Charmglow meat thermometer" thread) Why didn't it tourch like it should? The worst thing was I was cooking for my parents the 1st time with it and had been telling them all about what it would do. lol

Gandolf

JLOCKHART29,
What do you mean by "1/2 and 3/4 ring?" If you had enough lump, perhaps the opening in the firebox is not alligned with the lower vent. It needs to be really alligned.

Unknown

JLOCKHART29,[p]Normally if it won't get above 500 to 525 it's because of one of two problems. Either you didn't have enough fuel (lump) or couldn't get enough air through to burn the potential fuel. More likely the first than the second. It doesn't suprise me that it took 20 to 30 minutes to get to that temp as the fire needs to build.

Mike in Abita

JLOCKHART29,
When I do cooks like that I normally take MS. Daisey off and put her under the egg. If you have any AC near the egg you might want to plug in a hair dryer and force feed some air to it. Charcoal the way you describe it should be adequate for these temps. My XL will bury the thermo. 750 deg plus. I've actually had it all the way around to slightly under 100. I would not recommend doing this though. I wouldn't dare open it at this temp. Welding gloves or not. Maybe I'm just too chicken. I have grown quite fond of my eye brows and would like to keep them. After I noticed what had happened I closed lower vent and waited for temps to lower to 650 before re-installing MS Daisy.[p]Godd Luck and Happy Eggin
Mike

JLOCKHART29

Gandolf, Now that you mentioned it as I was blowing into the intake trying to get more temp. I did notice that the firebox was off center maybe 1/4 of opening. I just grabbed my flashlight and it was. By 1/2 ring I mean the charcoal was 1/2 the way or more up the firebox ring. BTW This is a med. Egg. According to everything I read it should hit 600 pluse easy w/o forced induction. I do understand air intake as it pretains to bike engines. As long as you are using only 80% or so of its potential a stock intake will work fine but when you try to pull that top 10 to 20% out of her any abstruction even small ridges or casting marks on the manifold will dramatically affect the preformance. The same stands to reason with the Egg. Got her lined up now. Maybe that will do it. Any other suggestions?

Grandpas Grub

JLOCKHART29,[p]Along with the other thoughts below, you possibly had smaller lumps of lit & unlit lump at the bottom of the firebox and or side air holes were blocked.[p]A shaker stick to clear some air passage would most likely help. [p]If you had plenty of fuel, then lack of air is the problem, or, plenty of air and no fuel.[p]I have not used a medium but on the large as long as I have air it doesn't take very long to get to very high temps.[p]Kent

Gandolf

JLOCKHART29,[p]I have a Medium and a Large. My Medium easily exceeds those temps. Now that you've lined up the firebox, fire it up and see what happens. Have a couple of nice steaks ready to go. Good Luck[p]Dave

billt

JLOCKHART29,
go to bge main site>accessories>parts. look at the egg anatomy you will note that there is a space between the egg and the fire box all the way aorund. this supplies air to the air holes. over time ash falls thru the air holes and blocks the flow. . i had the same problem with my large and took it all apart and found this to be the problem. with the large i am able to push the small hose from my shop vac all the way around. this works and i do it regularly. other wise take it apart and make sure this space is clean. good luck

Gandolf

JLOCKHART29,[p]As someone else mentioned, make sure you have the daisy wheel top off the Egg to get to those temps. You can then put the daisy wheel top back on to control temps if you want.

JLOCKHART29

bill, The fuel was there I think lack of air was the problem. Lined up opening and after I cooked a pork loin 2nite I cleaned out my ask. Did this b4 I read todays post. As I was cleanig ash I stuck tool between fire box and Egg itself and was a lot of ash there. I thank it was a combo of both. Didn't try to tourch it tonight as was in hurry but will soon. Thanks for suggestions every one.

SmokinGuitarPlayer

JLOCKHART29,
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but you need to, every "so many" cooks, remove the firebox and clean out the entire bottom of the egg. There will be a lot of ash piled up in the "in between" space that falls through the vent holes in the firebox. This ash really stops the airflow. I make it a point to completely empty the egg every 10 cooks or so.