Flame vs. hot coals

greeneggers

This is a newbie question about when to actually start cooking after lighting the grill.

Once I get the natural wood charcoal chunks thoroughly lit the egg gets up to whatever target temp I have very quickly. As advised by some YouTube videos I let the white smoke turn clear.

But at that point the flames are still licking pretty high and tend to blacken things quite a bit.

Now with traditional grills, which I am not very familiar with, isn't the technique to light the charcoal and wait until the flames basically go away and then cook over the glowing embers?

How does this relate to the egg? Am I cooking too early if the flames are high? If so, how do I make them go down without bringing the heat down?

Or do I have this all wrong?

I await the wisdom of the eggsperts!

Rascal

What temperature are you wanting to cook at?

DynaGreaseball

Let the flames go away altogether. Then look for the light blue wispy smoke. Should take about 1/2 hour or more at low n slow temps.

DynaGreaseball

I'll get a fairly quick rise on my thermometer reading while the fire is starting, but it's only from the flames licking the probe. Once they go away, the thermometer reading drops back to almost ambient temperatures and starts over again. Don't include this fire starting time in your wait time.

Cookinegger

The lump charcoal works differently on the egg. I recommend visting www.nakedwhiz.com for more information. Also, the BGE website is good. View the videos.

With the egg you do not want all of the charcoal to be lit. In fact, one of the great advantages of the egg is that only a small portion of the charcoal gets used, unless you are doing a long cooking session.

If you are cooking direct, i.e. no platesetter, you will often see flames. Keep in mind this is generally because you have the top open. When you close the lid the flames die down. Most cooking, even direct, is done with the lid down. So minimize the time the lid is open. If you have concerns about flames, try peaking through the cap. Even for direct cooking, I usually choke the vents down somewhat. The cooking style for the BGE is different than using a gas grill or even traditional charcoal grill. I cook things like burgers and steaks with the lid closed on the egg. If you cook with high heat with the top open, you lose much of the control over the heat. You also lose the advantage of the reflected and radiant heat from the lid.

stike

sounds like your lid is open the whole time.

shut the lid, and the flames go out, even with vents wide open.

flames look good, but they don't cook the food. so you are right, you want no flames after start-up before putting food on. at start-up, though, the flames are usually just from the starter cubes or paper or whatever you start with. the dome temp is sorta false, because it's reading the flames.

let the fire die down from your starters, with the lid shut, and when the fire is burning clean, you are good to go. usually, by the time i'm at my desired temp, the fire is fairly clean anyway

lowercasebill

cookinegger is right, unless you are nukin a rib eye as soon as you close the dome and put the metal top on the flames will disappear. if you leave the top off and the damper open you will have flames and get upwards of 900° be CAREFUL [emphasis intended] about looking thru the top [remember the 900°?] . also go the the naked whiz and read about flash back and watch the video... we all know about flashback, but every couple of weeks someone posts about missing some arm hair or an eyebrow.
bill

Darnoc

From light up time to cooking time will be about one and a half beers.

stike

if you are good, you can stretch it to four beers easily.

i have no idea why people want to rush thru things
hahaha

Darnoc

Hey man. I was only trying to be polite!