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When to cleanout ur / my egg

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SmokinGuitarPlayer
SmokinGuitarPlayer Posts: 698
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
For the sake of Egg-science, I decided to do a little experiment and see how long I could go without cleaning out (by removal of the firebox et al) my Trusty-Crusty BGE Large. Sooooo.... I cleaned it out on July 3, 2009 and after uncounted cooking sessions .... including MANY MANY Pizza sessions where I preloaded the thing almost to the top rim ... and who-knows-how-many lo and slo ... well anyway ...it's aprox 16 months later and it still goes DIRECTLY to NUCLEAR temps in short order ...... so there you go .... it seems as long as you always clean out those 6 little holes in the firebox , you can get high heat ..at least I can.... that being said, today I'm baking pizza for a fellow egghead and I had a hell of a time with the dough and really don't want any more surprises so I decided to end the experiment ... yanked the guts and yes, there were 2 or 3 huge piles in the spots where I can't "reach" with the ash tool ... but again, still worked great ...here are the pics...

NOTE : the completely caved in cast iron charcoal grate complete with cracks , pieces pissing / etc. ..I guess that high heat pizza making really softens that metal ...

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Fred A. Bernardo , owner of Tasty Licks BBQ Supply in Shillington, Pa. 
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Comments

  • Shiff
    Shiff Posts: 1,835
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    Thanks for the testing. I used to clean mine out by taking out the old charcoal, empty the ashes and then put back the old and top off with new charcoal. I no longer do that. For the last few months I just use the ash tool to stir the old charcoal, then empty the ashes and top off with new charcoal. Fire comes up to 500-600 very quickly. I do use a wiggle rod if the fire seems sluggish.
    Large BGE
    Barry, Lancaster, PA
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  • FlaPoolman
    FlaPoolman Posts: 11,677
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    Fred, I've gone years without taking the eggs apart in fact the only time I do is if I have to move them. This works great,

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  • Buxwheat
    Buxwheat Posts: 727
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    I usually clean mine out when the ash level gets up over the fire ring. :laugh:
    Actually, I use the same gadget as Poolman (read his post a good while back about the BucketHead, at least I think it was Poolman). After buying one I quit taking the thing apart to get those ashes the ash tool can't reach. Really only use it before a Lo N Slo to make sure I have good airflow all around.
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