Dirty Egg...need advice!

egger66

My friend has had his medium egg for a few years and has never done a high temp clean. I told him about the high temp burn and he did one Sat. with a temp of 600* for 45 mins. As the pictures show, there is still quite a lot left that needs to come off. Any advice on how to get that stuff cleaned off the egg?
Thanks

"Sparky"

Use a ball of aluminum foil to scrub it clean after the burn

Hoss

Fill it up with lump all the way to the top of the fire RING,light it,leave top and bottom vents completely open and let it burn til it's out of fuel.

Mike in Abita

I don't think he went hot enough for long enough. Add a good three inch layer of lump to it and light it. Once it's going very well add enough lump to get to the top of the fire ring. Remove the top and open the bottom fully. Then just walk away and notify the fire dept. The will likely get a call from a concerned neighbor. Come back in about 6-8 hours, or until cool enough to open safely, and rub the inside with a crumbled ball of aluminum foil.

RRP

600° for only 45 minutes wouldn't touch the accumulation layers in those pictures. He may even want to see how much crud will pop off using a putty knife - not sure that a foil ball will cut that much creosote and fat! Fill her up and let it burn out!

egger66

You're right about the foil. He even tried a wire brush! Thanks for the advice....I'll pass it on to him and will let you know how it turned out.
Thanks again

RRP

5 years ago I got a wild hair one day to clean my large dome much better than what a burn off the day before had produced. A stiff paint scrapper soon progressed to a rotary wire brush and then a 3M paint remover wheel as pictured here in my 1/4" drill. It got the job done, but boy did it make a mess on the deck!

WessB

Try 600 degrees for 6 hours...45 minutes is just "preheating"

lowercasebill

based on personal experience a nuke burn [no top @ 900+°] with 2 years of crud will result in a creosote like material running down the dome over the gasket and down the outside of the egg. i does not peel or rub off and is barely soluble .. think 8 hours with a scrubby, acetone, gasoline, alcohol, goop off.. and there is still alot in the dimples.. the gasket was like baked on plastic.. you get the idea.. nuke is fine for a modest amount of crud but with that amount i would recommend 600-700max° followed with foil ball. it may need more than one burn
just my 2¢
bill

Crimsongator

Load it with lots of lump and let 'er burn. Here is a:

Before


After


Expect tons of smoke until all of the grease it rendered out and burned off. I guess about 600* for a few hours will do that egg a world of good!

1409egger

I am the friend and thanks for all the good advice. I have scrapped it with a paint scraper before but have never done the high temp clean. I will fire it up this week and let you know. Thanks

mikeb6109

I agree it needs to burn for a few hours at high temp to get a clean outcome!

icemncmth

I clean out the egg then add lump and let her burn wide open.

Now one time I did this ...the fire department showed up!