Terra Cotta?

shepherd

Hello, I am a brand new egghead. I'm a food fanatic and use premium tools and ingredients inside my house, so I decided I needed to turn my outdoor cooking up a notch and replaced my grill with a large big green egg. Being short on funds I bought it used and it seems in fairly good shape, but I've got two issues.

1. As well as doing some great slow and low bbq, I was also excited to do "coal oven" pizzas, but the naked whiz method of turning the plate setter upside down on the grill and adding a stone doesn't reach the top of my grill. I looked at the fire ring and it looks like it's a replacement, even maybe something homebrew and I think it's shorter than the original. Can I replace this or raise it high in some way? The only bge shops around me don't carry any replacement parts, so my solution would have to be a hack also.

2. I just read today that old bge's are terra cotta and don't do temps over 350. I think mine is terra cotta because I saw some flaked off paint with that color on it. Is the 350 limit true? I know this doesn't hurt my ability to bbq but it definitely limits the bge's utility to me.

Bacchus

If it is not ceramic then it probably will crack under high heat. You could buy a small or medium new egg to do high heat cooks, and use the older one for lo/slow.

Old Salt

Check the Naked Whiz. He has a manual for the older Clay eggs. I have the older clay one and my fire ring is 6" high.

Celtic Wolf

How about a picture. We can usually tell just by that.