Cleaning the big green egg

Donwon9999

I bought my big green egg used from the dealer .. it was the demo.

I have kept the grilled clean and empty the ashes from time to time.

How do you clean up the egg? I look at some of the pics on the postings and peoples eggs are quite clean. Should one take it fully apart and wash down?

Any thoughts?

Frank from Houma

Don't take it apart.

Load it up and cook something. When your cook is finished, crank up the egg to around 600 for an hour. Put grids, platesetter, pizza stone, DFMT, etc in the Egg for cleaning. After the Egg cools, take some HDAF and make a wad to rub down the parts and inside of the Egg.

If you put the DFMT in during the cleaning burn to clean the gunk off, you may want to spray it with Pam afterward.

Grand Oeuf Vert

Further to Frank's comments, the next day, after the egg has cooled down, use a ball of tin foil on the inside and you will scrap away alot of the now burned up gunk. You can also remove your fire ring and box then shop vac it.

Crimsongator

That is where most people talk about "burning off" their egg. It gets rid of the grease build up in the dome and other places.

Here is a before:


And here is the after:

Always Smokin

looks great. how do i easily put pics on here like you did?
thanks

thebtls

Open a free photobucket account. Load your pictures onto your computer or directly from camera to Photobucket, then when they have loaded you get FOUR file naming conventions to pick from for various types of use...this forum requires the "img" convention, you copy and past that into the message section of the posting section, preview and submit. The Naked Whiz has a tutorial on his site.

Dimple's Mom

Is there any real reason to clean the egg like this? I always scoop out the ashes but other than that, I've never cleaned my egg.

BBQMaven

Doing a clean burn will remove the "smoke/grease" from the interior. If your only a meat cooker there is really no reason.
If you cook breads and pizza, you may find that these absorb too much of past cook flavors.

amywitz

if you get it up to that high temperature for cleaning don't you run the risk of burning out the felt seal thingy? 

Also what do you use to clean the outside parts of the egg (you know the green part that looks like an umpalumpa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and the black parts? 

Duganboy

if you get it up to that high temperature for cleaning don't you run the risk of burning out the felt seal thingy? 

Also what do you use to clean the outside parts of the egg (you know the green part that looks like an umpalumpa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and the black parts? 

I've never cleaned the outside of mine, other than to wipe it down with a cloth.  15 years and it looks great.

Buckdodger

That is where most people talk about "burning off" their egg. It gets rid of the grease build up in the dome and other places.



Here is a before:





And here is the after:

Have done the clean burn at 600* for more than an hr and scraped the inside of the dome and everything In the LBGE that I could get my hand on and never ended up with my egg looking this cln. Used balled up HDAF to scrape/rub. Not worried about it at all...still cooks better than any gasser.

War Eagle

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Ragtop99

Doing a clean burn will remove the "smoke/grease" from the interior. If your only a meat cooker there is really no reason.

If you cook breads and pizza, you may find that these absorb too much of past cook flavors.

That's the way I look at it, since I'm basically a meat & veggies guy.  Until things stick together or dried grease starts to flake off, I see no reason to worry about doing a clean burn.  I empty the bottom when it gets too full, typically after I've burned through a bag, and keep on cooking.  

michigan_jason

looks great. how do i easily put pics on here like you did?

thanks

Upload to photobucket, click the "URL" on photobucket (it will auto copy it for you) Then click the picture button on the message window 3rd button from the right. Delete all content inside it (http://) then paste your copied link from the photobucket page.

joe@bge

Is there any real reason to clean the egg like this? I always scoop out the ashes but other than that, I've never cleaned my egg.

x2...seems like a waste of perfectly good lump to me.