my mini just died

lowercasebill

i am saving all the parts and keeping them out of the rain.. i had other plans for today .. like baking bread on the mini .. by the way warren makes a mean donut as well ..

Beli

bill.....................I'm in mourning now.......

lowercasebill

thank you for sharing my pain.. i am now in the medication stage..
so much for todays plans
hope all is well and you are warming up..

Grandpas Grub

 
Your break really amazed me. I have no idea about the material used or the firing techniques BGE uses but the lump even burning directly on the egg surface really shouldn't hurt the egg or cause something like this.

I wonder if there might have been an air pocket in the slip of your particular mini. Possibly that mini didn't get fired properly.

Glad there was no collateral damage other than the egg itself.

Interesting situation indeed.

GG

Grandpas Grub

 
Never did like the stand from the beginning. Until I get a table built I am sure going to pay attention to the high heats.

GG

lowercasebill

amazed you ?? wish there was a picture of the look on my face :laugh: :laugh:
i will check out the ceramic in daylight tuesday and look for clues
got to fire up the large or dinner will be late
bill

Grandpas Grub

 
If that seepage is at the ring level of the stand I wonder if being in the stand wore the glaze thin. The ceramics are porous but the glaze isn't.

GG

lowercasebill

i will look carefully but the mini has been in the stand less than a month..

Fidel

A little moisture in a small crack in the glaze plus freezing temperatures equals bigger crack.

Clay Q

Holy smokes, what a shock it must have been for you when the bottom dropped out! :ohmy: :(
I never used my ring stand, never liked it. I'm building a table for the mini that will have three 'finger' contact points with room on the sides for expansion.
Hope you get back to mini cookin soon!
Clay

lowercasebill

i got all of that.. seriously you do deserve the award i was so dismayed i never noticed ...

lowercasebill

yep .. it hit the concrete.. i looked at it and it really took a minute for me to grasp .. mine will be on granite by spring

WokOnMedium

Oh my. I just sucked all the air out of the room. I expected something bad, but that was stunning.

Little Steven

SmokinParrotHead,

We had a house fire in 1997. We are still not complete with the restorations. The fire started because I used a side burner of a gasser with lump stored underneath. It is not fun! I am always warning people to check their set ups and try and think about every possibility of a fire. I refaced the house with cement board and stucco and installed a concrete deck to minimise the possibility of fire. My mini is sitting on a wooden table on a wooden deck. If what happened to bill were to happen to me, I would have had another one.

Steve

Hungry in Lilburn

OMIGOD! I went outside and hugged my LBGE I felt so bad about your pics. I am sure the guys over in Tucker will make it good. I visit them often and they are a great group of folks! They often recommend stuff to me that is cheaper than buying their wares. I buy theirs though because I am a sucker for the BGE logo! LOL! Good luck!

Jeffersonian

I haven't read the entire thread yet, but I can see the weakness of this setup right off. Over the course of a lot of cooks, I can see the ring expanding while the Egg is hot, letting the Egg slip down slightly with each cook, then tightening around the Egg when it cools. I bet the Egg gradually slides down until the ring crushes the ceramic, causing it to fail just this way.

Anyone else getting this with the mini's ring stand?

Fidel

They way we crank down those bands around the base and dome?

With the sloped sides I would think if there was any squeeze as the egg cooled it would simply slip back up. There isn't much weight holding it down to allow much force to be applied from the stand.

Jeffersonian

You might be right, Rod, but if it didn't pop back up when it cooled, this is what you'd get. It'd probably crack the glaze first, too, letting it get discolored from the rust on the ring first.

Fidel

You think the exterior of the egg gets hot enough to transfer that much heat to the stand to cause significant thermal expansion?

Jeffersonian

Possibly, yes, particularly around the firebox. It doesn't have to be much, either, given that with the ceramic the Egg is made of, it doesn't have to be much.

Just look at the mischief caused by aluminum wiring years ago for the same reason: Over time, the tiny forces created by slight warming and cooling worked connections loose and wound up starting plenty of fires.

Grandpas Grub

 
I can touch that area, it is hot but burn when touched.

GG

TheDirtyBurger

Bill
Obviously this sucks, but the good news is that you will now have one of the best avatars on the board. Your current one is cool too, but the one with the lump still burning is freaking priceless.

My condolensces
tim

Sundazes

Jeffersonian wrote:

Possibly, yes, particularly around the firebox. It doesn't have to be much, either, given that with the ceramic the Egg is made of, it doesn't have to be much.

Just look at the mischief caused by aluminum wiring years ago for the same reason: Over time, the tiny forces created by slight warming and cooling worked connections loose and wound up starting plenty of fires.

I can attest to the aluminum wiring. When I bought this house, we spent $6K repairing aluminum wiring.

Let us know how you make out with the dealer/mothership

rhoke398

Sorry to see your problem. I wasn't pleased with the fit of my stand for my mini as it wasn't round. To fix it I took 3 pcs. of teflon tube about 1" long with 1/2" ID, split them and snapped them on the ring of the stand. I think it would have kept your mini from sticking in the ring and breaking. The 3 contact points lets you level the egg within reason. They have been on for several months and don't show any signs of wear or melting (good to 500).
McMaster-Carr sells this material per foot PN#854714,
@$9.96 per ft. Everybody should bookmark this site, they have everything.