Newbe BGE Questions

I've had my large BGE for 3 weeks and have already blown my gasket.

Admittedly, I had a runaway fire, but still, it fried my gasket.

We sell 8-10 Eggs a month here and we don't see gasket problems anymore.

Keep the temps under 450 for your first 4-5 cooks and you will be fine.

High heat on a new gasket can still a problem.

I can't speak for BGE but I can guess that there are quite a few eggs out there with the older gaskets. I'm sure they wouldn't buy gasket material in lots of 100. If your dealer said the gasket issue has been resolved, give him the benefit of the doubt. Just make sure he understands he will be replacing the gasket on a failure.

The alignment issue you refer to can happen any time. If the upper and lower bands are not tight enough, then they can slip in use and cause an alignment issue. It would be a good idea to check the alignment after every cook and adjust as necessary. Eventually you will get them tight enough that this won't be as much of an issue. When I first got my EGG I paid attention to the alignment and did everything I was supposed to do, with all that I still suffered a series of gasket failures. The whole time this was going on, I was producing some of the best BBQ & Grilled foods I have ever eaten. Finally I just realized that the gasket was (in my opinion) a nice little feature, but in no way affected the outcome of my meals. I have since went with an aftermarket gasket on one of my eggs and have the Nomex on the other two. even cooked for a few months without a gasket. While nice I don't see them being totally necessary. I am not trying to change your or anyone's opinion on the gasket. Heck you will pay a lot of money for the egg. My XL cost me a little over $1300.00 with the eggsessories I purchased at the time. I'm just saying, for me, the gasket is not as important as it use to be.

 
There are a lot of folks who have and have had great results with the felt. I still have it on all my eggs.

I went through a period where I ended up doing 9 replacements of the felt gasket (before the bad batch of adhesive). All failures were to dome/base alignment.

High heat will of course burn out a felt gasket.

This is a felt burn


This is mostly a bad adhesive, in this case too much heat for the adhesive. Parts of the gasket were just fine. This is the result of very poor dome/base alignment, that is a significant air gap between the base and dome.



IMO what many people have experienced in the resent past is adhesive failure and possible gasket movement thus allowing a burn out of the felt itself.

Felt gaskets have worked fine in the egg. Flashbacks and improper alignments have indeed taken their bounty.

Nomex, Rutland, Cotornic have a higher burning point and are less prone to gasket failure. But you will see a lot of people talking about using Permatex or some other high temperature adhesive.

The gasket material is one issue and the adhesive is another issue which has to be dealt with.

GG

 
"What to cook next" is the good problems. :laugh:

GG

Hmm. In your pic 2...



it looks like (on the left side) the adhesive failed. And on the right, the gasket simply melted. Mine didn't look as gooey as the right side of yours. Here's a (not very good) pic, though it doesn't show the whole circumference. This was taken less than one month after I bought the egg. It looked like this all the way around...and got considerably worse before I finally replaced it.



So what was the cause of this? Not trying to be argumentative - just trying to understand. Though my new Rutland and Permatex doesn't seem to care!

I didn't read all the posts below your original questions, I appologize if this is redundant. My dealer will not sell an egg he or one of his staff doesn't assemble. He doesn't charge for assembly, but tells me he wants to limit episodes of dissatisfaction. It is true, the most common cause of gasket failure is poor allignment of the lid. Someone who really knows what they are doing, and has assembled several hundred or more is worth paying if they charge you. Just my two cents.

I didn't read all the posts below your original questions, I appologize if this is redundant. My dealer will not sell an egg he or one of his staff doesn't assemble. He doesn't charge for assembly, but tells me he wants to limit episodes of dissatisfaction. It is true, the most common cause of gasket failure is poor allignment of the lid. Someone who really knows what they are doing, and has assembled several hundred or more is worth paying if they charge you. Just my two cents.

 
The picture is a bit light but that is good gasket on the far right then the dome would be offset, not that caused the problem.

The "V's" in the gasket look different and pretty deep.

I might venture a guess of your gasket would be some pretty high heat searing or a miss aligned dome, however, there doesn't seem to be any burn on the outer side of the felt (from looking at what I can see in the picture).

I have no doubt the Rutland/Permatex would be a good solution for a long lasting gasket. There have been a few adhesive failures with Rutland but not very many.

I have, too many, times stated my feelings about Rutland and won't go into it here.

BGE and Rutland both say not to use around food. With that said there are a huge number of forum members that love the Rutland solution.

When I was having problems I bought 5 or 6 extra felt gasket kits. Other than some problems with the medium and my improper use the felt gaskets are holding up very good for me. Once my felt is gone I will probably go with Nomex and Permatex.

GG

Ask for the Nomex or high heat gasket instead of the felt. It can handle a bit more abuse.