Salmon

Bond

So my second day using the egg, did Salmon at 350 for 12 minutes...it melted in our mouths...okay..so afterwards I attempted to get the temp down to 250, shut the vents down to what I have seen on the forum, no luck, the lowest it got was 300. Does this mean that if I want to cook at 200 or lower, I must shut the vents once I reach that temp? If not what is the timeframe involved in lowering from 350 etc to 200 - 250?
Thanks
Dave

civil eggineer

Once the egg is up to 350 degrees there is a lot of heat stored in it. Think about when you shut everything down and how long it takes to cool back down. I suppose shutting it down and then opening the top periodically to release heat would be the quickest but still will probably take an hour or two. You could cook the lower temps first then raise the temp if that would work. Otherwise get it a brother.

Little Steven

Bond,

How long did you wait for the temp to drop. You have a medium don't you. I cooked an a medium exclusively for several months recently and it does take a while to come down.

Steve

Bond

its a large, pulled the fish off and closed the vent to 250, after 45 minutes it was at 300 only a 50 deg drop. Am I just impatient?

Little Steven

Bond,

No, it's not that but, IMHO, the large performs the best in most aspects. I think it has to do with the mass and internal area. How long did you have it at 350* before you put the fish on? What was the ambient temperature? How full was the firebox? I would think that 45 minutes would be enough to see a more substantial drop.

Steve

BobS

I really do not know, because I have never tried to do that.

Not trying to be difficult, but I cannot imagine a real cooking situation where you would stabilize the egg at 350 and then try to reduce it to 250, for a lo-n-slo.

The issue is that the entire mass of the Egg is hot and the fire is still going. I think it would take at least an hour to cool down if you were actually closing the vents and putting the fire out.

[Deleted User]

What you tried to do is extremely difficult to pull off.

You need to damp down the vents when the temp is on it's way UP for this very reason. When the Egg is heated to any temp, the ceramic continues to hold the heat for quite awhile.

When I overshoot a temp and try to lower it, I close both vents completely and wait till I see the temp start to drop. I let it drop for a little while Then, depending on how hot the fire was/how much I want to drop it/ etc. I will crack the vents. Sometimes just doing this sends the temp back up again.

Last night I was trying to cook at 350-400 and the egg was leaning more toward 450. I closed the draft door for awhile till it started to go down and then cracked it as little as I could, leaving the daisy off and the chimney wide open (for drippings smoke). I put the chicken on and cooked for about 45 minutes without getting it down to 400. Then I closed and capped it till it went below 400 to grill some shrimp.

Took the raincap off and put the shrimp in for 2 mins / side. It was over 400 when I finished and then when I went to shut it down, noticed the bottom draft door had been closed the whole time! I put the cap back on and made sure it was all closed up and an hour later it was still over 350!

Granted, I have noticed lately that my dome isn't sealing (dollar bill slides freely around parts even after being readjusted) but that gives you an idea of how these things retain heat and how hard it is to get the temps to go down at all, let alone hit a target temp on the way down.