open dome cooking

JQuinn · July 2006

I know that may be a four letter word but the other day i was cooking some burgers and thought about doing the old gas grill special watch the burgers cook. but i notice that the fire and flames started to inrcrease and there was no way of controling that. so my tought is how do you cook witht he doem open with out the flames I know there is problably no way since the fire has more oxygen. do you turn the vent close and do it that way?
thanks

mad max beyond eggdome · July 2006

JQuinn,
about the only reason i can think of for cooking dome open is to have the flames. ...three things you can do though if you want to go this route[p]1. get a good hot bed of coals, then close the bottom vent, at least that way, the oxygen is only getting there from above[p]2. use a raised grid to get your burgers further away from the fire[p]3. use a smaller amount of lump so the hot coals are, again, further away from the food. ...[p]HTH

fishlessman · July 2006

JQuinn,
sometimes i finish ribs up with the ribs on a raised grill, lower vent closed. i give them a quick basting with a watered down sauce, basting and flipping until i get the right looking char im after. you dont want a full fire box, and it will flair some, but it is doable

Haggis · July 2006

JQuinn,[p]I'd been using a Weber kettle for so many years where I start a hot fire, toss the meat on, and then put the lid on, that the transition to the Egg was totally natural to me. I can't recall the last time I did an "open" cook -- I'd have to guess it was back in the mid-1970s. [p]But you have picked up on one things with the Egg -- if you have the lower vent open and you lift the lid, you are creating a major air flow and the fire can quickly become uncontrolled. There are folks here that prefer using the daisy wheel to control the temps on a cook, leaving the lower vent wide open -- in that situation opening the lid without closing down the vent first can cause a bit of a blast even if not of flashback proportions.

RRP · July 2006

mad max beyond eggdome,
I'd add one thing to your list based on recent experience. If you prefer open dome then use at least 90/10 lean hamburger or higher. Monday I purposefully purchased 80/20 meat as I believe that makes a better burger, but since I was egging more burgers than normal due to having company I had the dome open often. The flames just got higher and higher due to the fat content plus air. I used my Thermompen to assure each one reached 160 degrees and by that point I had a real inferno going!

CT Grillguy · July 2006

You might also want to soak your gasket with some water so it's less likely to burn up.

open dome cooking

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