Don't shoot me for asking........

Mr. T

I recently got a second large egg that was used in a very strange way, I think. The egg is overall in very good condition but it seems to have a heavy coat of gunk on the inside. Another egger friend of mine looked at it and we think the prior owner may have used charcoal in it and it is reside built up from that.

A couple of questions:

Would that residue be a problem going forward? Bad food taste, health issues?

How can I get this gunk off safely? I've tried to just cook it off at 450 but don't know if I am making progess.

Please let me know your thoughts and remember, I didn't do this!!!!!!

Thanks

Mr T

Pork Butt Mike

Load it up with your lump and crank the temp. up to atleast 600 degrees or better and let it burn off. Then you can take some aluminum foil and rub the inside down with that and should be good to go.

gdenby

I recall a few posts some time ago about Eggs that had only been used for low temperature cooks, and that the ceramic had become filled with grease. If memory serves, the cure was repeated 700 degree cooks.

Myself, the day after a high temp cook, I take balls of foil, and rub them over the remaining black char to get the inside a little cleaner.

fishlessman

you need to do what has been mentioned, high heat and foil rub down a couple times. if you dont you will get large chunks of what looks like tar paper eventually peeling off and landing in your food. i would bring it up to 800 for a few hours and change the gasket if needed afterwards. its going to smoke heavily, i need to do this about midway every summer with my egg at camp from cooking butts and chicken thighs all summer on it.

Smokin' Todd

Frank from Houma

Sorry. Couldn't help myself.

High heat should do it and then the wadded up A-Foil.

You may want to kind of watch the outside of the Egg in case you get tar dripping down the outside. It would be best to try to wipe this up as it happens to avoid a lot of elbow grease to remove it later.

Good luck with it.

Semolina Pilchard

I have seen pics of eggs with black gook all down the outside. I would probably scrape off as much as I can with foil balls before doing the hi temp burn to possibly avoid all that gook dripping down the outside.

ChuckGGa

wire brush maybe? to get off what you can (any lumps or large areas)- then light it, take the top off, open up the bottom vent - let her burn at a high temp til she's white again....

Daddyo

Put a load of lump in, open the vent all the way, take the Daisey wheel off and let 'er rip. It should peg the thermometer (over 750 degrees). It'll smoke like heck and clean itself. You will damage your gasket some, but it will likely still work fine, provided you have a well seated lid to begin with. If your lid isn't seated well, you'll really destroy the gasket in places.

I've never needed to bother with foil. The stuff just burns off.

Big'un

As long as it's ceramic egg, let it burn. If it's clay, then you cant go over 450F with it. Fire will kill all the funky stuff. Just stay upwind.

lowercasebill

that much gunk is hard to remove with foil i would use a flexible plastic spatula... take as much off as you can .. i did not clean my egg for 2 years and burned off at 900° for the whole load of lump. was like melted plastic/ creosote ran down dome over gasket and down outside of egg. hours of scraping to replace gasket and clean egg. ended up using goop-off and gasoline on a 3-m scrubby to get the most off the outside.. i would try a few lower temp burns shorter burns and scrap in between.. before i went nuke... words fail to descibe the giant pain in the ass that this was... but jet engine blue flames out the top for an hour at night was really cool. not worth it but cool

thebtls

How about some foaming oven cleaner for the lumps...I used it inside my lid and it is as slick as glass again.