Cooking jerky . . . and much to my surprise . . .

TRex

That's right--made more jerky tonight, not because I can eat 4 lbs in two days, but because I'm preparing a supply for a man trip this weekend. Anyway, about 1.5 hours into the cook, with temperatures holding solid at 200 F, I opened the Egg quickly, removed the two jerky trays, shut the Egg, and took the trays inside to flip the jerky. I was probably inside for all of 3 minutes, and upon returning outside to the Egg, I found that the temperature had jumped up to 450 F! Yikes! Not sure what happened, except that maybe the daisy wheel slid open a bit when I opened the Egg. Anyway, now I was in a bind--how to get the temperature back down to 200 F. With firebricks inside and an Egg that had been hot for 2 hrs, I knew this would be quite a challenge. Shutting the Egg down didn't seem to budge the temp gage after even 10 minutes. So, I put on my oven mitts, opened the Egg, and took everything out--4 firebricks, main grill rack and double grill rack. I threw some fresh charcoal in the Egg and shut it down. I put a fan on the firebricks for about 15 minutes, then poured water on them (cringing as I waited for them to crack). But no crack, the water just evaporated in seconds. 5 more minutes with the fan, then I put everything back in the Egg, which by this time had cooled to 300 F. Once the firebricks were in (still very hot to the touch, mind you), the temp dropped back down to 200, and I threw the jerky back on, barely opening the top and bottom vents. So, with a slight 30 minute disturbance, I was back online. 4.5 hours and some eventless flipping later, the jerky was done. It was a late night, but again well worth it.

Unknown

TRex,
Looking at your profile, I see that you are a combustion engineer. Nice work. see, all of that schoolin' paid off. Have a great trip with the boys.
Seth