set my egg on fire..twice.

just keep the vents choked down more until you get the hang of it. Very small adjustments can have dramatic effects.. even 10-15 minutes later. keep the adjustments small and be patient to see the outcome of your adjustments. don't let the fire get out of control on the hot side.  

Find the nearest person with a GA Tech themed table to help. :bz

If you need someone to explain the mechanics of how the egg was built, how it works, and the chemical compounds of how lump turns to ash, then a Tech grad is what you need.

If you want someone to tell you how to cook, call an LSU grad!

)   No argument here...  Love me some etoufee 

you said it "flamed up" - what do you mean? 

The ONLY time I've seen that happen is when the dome is open (though, I guess to be fair, if the dome is closed, ya can't really see if it flames up or not anyway) hehehe :P

Anyway, the point is that for 99.9% of the foods you'll cook, the dome SHOULD be closed.  Personally, the ONLY time that I keep the dome open is when I'm searing a steak, and that's only because I have the steak on the grill for 60 seconds, then I flip & have it on for another 60 seconds, so the amount of time that it's on the grill is very short. 

Also, as someone above alluded to, it's good habit to "burp" the Egg before just flinging the lid open - otherwise you can experience the not-so pleasant phenomena of "flashback."  

Anyway, so now that you understand to NOT cook w/ the lid (dome) up, the next issue is maintaining temp. 

Don't get into the BAD habit of "chasing" the temp (this is when you try to get it dialed in to EXACTLY the precise temp of say, 375, so you open the vents too much, and the temp overshoots, then you panic & you shut the vents down too much, and it drops to below 375, then you panic again and... you get the point). 

It's best to catch the temp on the way UP, rather than shoot past it & try to get that highly efficient ceramic to cool back down.  So, w/ that being said, if you wanna cook at say, 375, then when the temp starts climbing, and it's at about 300, start slowly closing the vents, then see how that effects the temp.  As it gets closer, say, 350, go a little more, till you finally reach your goal of 375 (I like to think of it sort of like "topping off" your tank when filling up - if you wanna put $40.00 - heck, w/ the price of gas nowadays it's more like $60.00 - anyway, when you get to about $55.00, slowly start releasing the handle, and as it gets closer to the $60.00 mark, release the handle even more and "EASE" into the goal of $60.00).

Also, in my EGG-sperience, if I'm wanting to cook at 375 & the Egg (for whatever reason) wants to "hover" at say, 360, or 380 - big deal, I let it hover there - it likes it there (and it's a HECKUVA lot easier to just let it sit at the temp it wants to be then to try to chase the temp up & down). 

Remember, tiny adjustments can cause large temp variations, so your adjustments should be minor, and you need to get in the habit of being PATIENT in order to allow the proper time for those adjustments to take hold & have their effect.  =;

For instance, if you put a plate setter in - well, that's a massive, cold, heat sink that you just placed into a hot environment - it's gonna take some time for that big hunk-a ceramic to get up to the same temp of the Egg, and while it's doing that, you'll notice the temp of the Egg will drop accordingly - DON'T PANIC & try to open the vents because you've noticed your temp went from 350 to 275 (hypothetical numbers, of course).  You might wanna make some SMALL adjustments, but my advice is to just leave it alone & it'll normalize itself & come back to the proper temp IN DUE TIME :-w

Anyway, write back & let us know what you meant by "flame ups" and give some more specific info as to what you mean by "can't maintain temp" & we'll get ya on the right track!! 

HTH,
Rob