Slow & Max Temp Problems - Continued

Grandpas Grub

I agree - folks going to bed hungry - interesting thought.

'3 or 4 pieces in there about 8 to 12 inches long, 4, 5 inches wide'.

I would think I have now gone through 4 or 5 hundred pounds of RO lump. I have never ever seen a piece that long. I think [ul]MAYBE[/ul] I have once seen a piece 6" long 3 or 4" wide.

Tonight I opened 3 bags of RO. I used the largest pieces out of each bag and still had to use some smaller pieces to get it up to the top of the fire box.

Most pieces were about 4" by 3 or 4" and not as thick.

Most of my pieces are about the lenght of my little finger to the second nuckle and maybe as wide as the little finger and ring finger. Seems fairly small to me.

I really wish I had taken temp reading on the outside of the egg at different levels to see if plugging the air gap would effect the outer ceramics and by how much. Too late now.

Anyway the test tonight gave some interesting results. I want to do another test tomorrow with Cowboy, gap plugged and hopefully I will be able to post the results tomorrow. I want to put this in a graph form. I didn't take consistant time readings so I will see if plotting the different tests will visually show the actual outcome.

I am now questioning if the high temp is limited to how high the lump is in the egg.

In all my tests now 700° (one time) is the highest temp I could achive (Cowboy test not done). That 700° only held for about 7 minutes then the temp began to drop to 660 - 640 within 8 or 9 minutes.

All the tests I have done the lump was filled to the top of the fire ring.

Another question that came to mind. In all these tests I used napkin/oil which I think is much like using starting cubes.

I am wondering if using napkin/oil (or starter cubes) takes more energy (lump usage) to get up to temp as apposed to MAPP gas or even a weed burner.

When recording tonights temps and getting ribbed from the wife, I go to thinking it is taking a good amount of time & lump burning to get past the 350° mark as the heat output grows.

I know with the weed burner I can have the large stable at 400° easily within 3 to 4 minutes. MAPP takes a little longer but still, I am guessing faster than oil/napkin.

With the oil/napkin the remainder 20 minutes or so is just using up the lump.

Seems like I just come up with more questions.

Again thanks, more on all this tomorrow.

Kent

Grandpas Grub

I did an actual test with RO on the medium. While that was going on I lit the large with existing lump from 1 hour cook at 450°.

I took the center closer to the bottom of the fire grate and left the outer edges a bit above the fire box. After 15 minutes I moved the outer used lump down into the center.

The temp stalled, as expected, then picked up. It did seem to light and get initial temp up a bit quicker. I didn't time or take any notes as I had no base to check it against.

I am now wondering the the GURU turbograte is something to look into. All this seems to be leaning more and more to airflow, which is what was the general idea in the first place.

The bottom of my fire ring is larger then the top of the fire box by quite a bit.

Also, if I move the fire ring all the way to the front of the egg I can put all 4 fingers up to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch into my palm. I am a big person and my hands are big (thick).

Kent

PhilsGrill

Whenever that has happened on my large, it has always been small lump at the bottom blocking the holes. Since then about every three cooks, I reach in and scoop out the small stuff. I load up with fresh lump and now use the small stuff on top to cook off. Works every time for me now.

Egg-on-Medford

Well, this is my first post. Hello to everyone. I'm awaiting delivery of a medium BGE this Saturday (along with a Solaire infrared-teehee). I'm actually a little more excited about the Egg, as it looks more challenging. I hope the enclosed video helps us figure out some of the basics, like making the lump, getting it going and controlling the temperature. I'm posting here because of the temperature issue related to the medium Egg. This has been interesting reading. Hopefully, I'll have some good results despite not having a strong background in thermodynamics and heatflow/fire maintenance. If anyone can provide some links to basic intro stuff, let me know. I'll be searching around, too, looking for hints and info.