3rd party seal

 
Use the topic search and type in 'gasket' without the quotes.

There are posts upon posts, regarding gaskets. Contact your dealer (or BGE) and have them replace the gasket for you, it shouldn't fail on the first cook unless you took the egg to extremely hot temperatures or experienced a flashback.

There is also a post yesterday saying another ceramic cooker company is offering free gasket replacements to egg owners. They claim the gasket should last for 1 to 2 years when cooking 2/3 times per week. Got two gaskets coming my way.

With that said, the BGE felt gasket will work fine as long as the egg doesn't get to the extreme cooking temperatures some folks take it to. In my experience the failure is with the adhesive, then if the heat continues the felt will also melt.

BGE has a high temperature gasket material called Nomex. If the gasket has to be replaced the Nomex may as well be installed.

Hopefully one day BGE will come up with a better solution.

Other options some of the folks are using is Cotornic, Rutland, Hi-temp Silicone, there is a post just a short ways away from your post about this and some folks don't use a gasket at all.

I still use the Felt material so far. I am interested in trying out the 'free' gasket material that was offered.

GG