Experienced first backdraft - escaped with singed hair!

TheToast · July 2018

I've had my BGE for 2.5yrs, cooked on it close to 100 times but today for the first time I experienced a huge flare up.

I always burp it (2secs). And was cooking a picanha (reverse sear) - during searing at 300c it was incredibly smoky. I burped the egg, then lifted the lid for a brief shock of flames - I was ok. Hair on right arm slightly singed and one eyebrow but nothing noticeable!

I then attempted to open again - held the burp for 5 seconds before flames licked up through the lid gap and I had to close it. I ended up reaching in with tongs through a small gap to rescue the beef (happy ending - the beef was safely rescued. Phew).

Not sure what caused it - I've done picanha exactly this way 10 times before. It wasn't particularly fattier than other times but perhaps the fat layer was dripping and fuelling the flames.

What's best to do in this situation?

BGE website says "If you have a flame flare-up – quickly close the lid and the air vents to control the flame" - but I would think this would starve the fire even more and cause more of a problem when you open it? Unless you plan to leave it shut down for 5mins (while your beef dries up. Sob).

Here's the beef anyway. Perfect medium rare and worth the arm-hair loss

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5017260/uploads/editor/01/disxnib47kfv.jpg

Sweet100s · July 2018

That truly is a prefect medium rare in my book! Glad to hear you are OK.

When I had a backdraft it spooked me enough that I shut it down completely for 4ish minutes than burped a lot. Seemed OK.

NorthPilot06 · July 2018

You’re 100% right, closing all vents is just a fail-safe, but you can forget about your meat at that point in time (on that note, nice cook!)

Burping is the way to go - when you open the lid, you introduce oxygen, thereby bring the fumes from too rich to within the flammable range (back in my firefighting days, we’d refer to this as between the UEL and the LEL - upper and lower explosive limits).

You just have to be sure to “thin” out the mixture enough before opening the lid all of the way. How open was the lid when you were “burping” it for 5 sec?

lousubcap · July 2018

For all the excitement you definitely nailed the cook. Congrats.
Here's what works for me when I have a full body of lump engaged in flame (paella cook) with some left-overs (fire generators) on the grid; shut the dome, shut the lower vent, install the ceramic cap and give it a couple of minutes. Then remove the ceramic cap, and install the DFMT with the total opening around 1/2 or a bit more (vent the BGE). Give this around a minute or so then open the lower vent (you should hear the flash-back "whoosh"). After that open the dome (fire retardant gloves or tongs for the extended arm) and you are good to go.
Given I cook paella around every 4-5 weeks and I believe in fire cleaning the grid, this is a frequent event for me. FWIW-
You have been alerted so just pay attention as you obviously did.

yumdinger · July 2018

Good way to not have to pluck nose hairs.....But them burnt nose hairs sure do smell!

blasting · July 2018

So you're saying you were almost toast....

Whoops, this isn't the crappy joke thread. Cow looks perfect @TheToast

TheToast · July 2018

@NorthPilot06 Was open maybe 3 inches at front when I burped it. I ended up holding it wide enough to get long tongs in to rescue the meat - luckily I have BBQ gloves that go well past my wrists but I lost the hair on my right hand and some arm, because I was only wearing one glove at first.