New grill?

The BGE only has to be cleaned every 5 - 6 cooking cycles. The ash from natural lump charcoal is a fraction of Kingsford briquettes and as noted above, you almost never use a full fire bowl of charcoal in a single cooking session.

Snuffing the fire by closing the damper and putting on the ceramic cap saves the unburnt charcoal for the next time. I cleaned the BGE today and I only removed about half a foil pan's worth of ash. I did buy the little L shaped ash scraper at the dealer when I bought the plate setter (i.e., a heat diffuser) because it is that much easier to pull out the ash through the little door

interesting to find a BGE discussion on the shaving board. i am a BGE owner going on 2 years and just yesterday was making the analogy of grilling to shaving. imo, the BGE is wet shaving with a str8 and a weber gas grill is an electric shaver.

my wife and i believe that food on the BGE tastes just a bit better than food from a gas grill. however, we have not done a side to side comparison thus this is a not very scientific analysis. plus, since i got the BGE i also got a thermapen to check for doneness and getting the meat temp right probably makes the biggest difference in flavor. some people argue that heat is heat regardless of the fuel, and point out that 99% of gourmet steakhouses use gas.

the BGE is not plug and play. just last night it took me 90 minutes to get the temp to 400 degrees. if there is restricted airflow from ash buildup, small pieces of charcoal sifting to the bottom and blocking the air holes, etc. there can be significant temp issues. BGE owners develop a number of coping skills, such as cleaning out the BGE after every use, carefully sorting charcoal before putting it in the egg, carefully hand laying charcoal for every fire, using a special "wiggle rod" to poke out the holes from the bottom, etc. this is a PITA when all you want to do is toss on a couple of burgers and have a quick meal. i'm willing to stir to try to get the ash and little pieces out at every use, and shop vac every 4 uses or so, but that is about it. and i continue to have "issues" from time to time.

the cooking area on a large BGE is also significantly smaller than a weber, about 250 sq in versus almost 500 sq in. this comes into play when trying to prepare multiple different foods for the same meal, as they have to be done sequentially rather than in parallel.

so, to me the bottom line is on a weekend with plenty of time to fiddle around, take my time, drink a brew or two, the BGE is fine and turns out really good food -- perhaps the Nth degree better than gas. after work during the week with other things to do, i can't rely on it. which is a shame because in the hot weather i would like to do just about all cooking outside.

so for all of you with BGE envy, rethink. knowing what i know now, i would have bought a weber gas grill.

I've never had a problem with the Egg for quickies - burgers & such, just fire up a chimney & go. Even if all the grate holes on the bottom were sealed, it still equals an old fashioned BBQ I think .. if you want a long slow cook yep, need to clean it. Not sure how long or well I'd sleep with a gas grill anywhere near my house though on an 18 hour cook. The size of the grill is less, as pointed out, so if you need more than say 20 burgers at a time, you need a bigger egg or the gasser from Chiamart



But, there is some maintenance, I 've found it less than the gasser it replaced.

tm3 said:

the BGE is not plug and play. just last night it took me 90 minutes to get the temp to 400 degrees. if there is restricted airflow from ash buildup, small pieces of charcoal sifting to the bottom and blocking the air holes, etc. there can be significant temp issues. BGE owners develop a number of coping skills, such as cleaning out the BGE after every use, carefully sorting charcoal before putting it in the egg, carefully hand laying charcoal for every fire, using a special "wiggle rod" to poke out the holes from the bottom, etc. this is a PITA when all you want to do is toss on a couple of burgers and have a quick meal. i'm willing to stir to try to get the ash and little pieces out at every use, and shop vac every 4 uses or so, but that is about it. and i continue to have "issues" from time to time.

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Wow, I'm surprised to read this. I can literally have my large BGE to almost 900º in 15 minutes. It gets so hot that the needle on the thermometer is off the scale. I can have my egg up and running for most grilling tasks in about 12 minutes. The only time it takes longer is if I'm setting up for smoking low and slow because I have to let the egg settle. If you're taking 90 minutes to get to temp, you are definitely doing something wrong. I use the wax impregnated starters - two of them of opposite sides. dig a little pit, put them in, light them, then carefully stack coals on top so they still get air. take off the top damper completely and open the bottom damper all the way. Leave the lid up for 5-7 minutes until the coals aren't flaming or smoking, then put the grate in, close the lid, and watch the temp rise FAST. If I'm grilling steaks, I go full bore, no dampers, 2 minutes sear each side, then close down the dampers completely and let the food soak for 3 minutes more. Done. For burgers and other things, I'll close down the dampers and get the grill temp to around 450º. earlier this week I baked a pizza on the egg. 15 minutes to get it to 500º, another 12 minutes to cook it, and this is what I ended up with:

that is a great looking pizza! do you have any tips for easy, good dough?

here is my number one BGE cooking tip -- lasagna. recipe does not matter. just use the same cooking time as the oven, make sure it is not covered and that it has cheese on top. it is really surprising how the lasagna picks up the smoke flavor.

if you are saying that your BGE is at stable cooking temp 12 minutes after lighting the fire, i am impressed. if you are saying that it takes you 12 minutes to stir out the ash, add new charcoal, unplug all holes, light, and come up to stable cooking temp, then you are a wizard!

no question, i have put operator error (mine) at the top of the list from day 1. after several dealer consults, and a lot of time researching on the BGE forums, i rank it as still possible but not as likely.

if i do no prep other than light the leftover charcoal (as advertised), i am virtually guaranteed to have slow ignition and difficulty getting up to stable cooking temp. if i completely clean out all of the old charcoal and ash, sort out the fresh charcoal after pouring it out of the bag onto my driveway, and carefully arrange the new charcoal in the BGE to ensure optimum air flow, then i am virtually guaranteed to have no problem with ignition and reaching desired temp. anything in between is variable.

i've also considered that my BGE is defective in some way, but i really don't see how that is possible as it is a pretty simple machine.

yesterday i picked up the components for a "wiggle stick" and we'll see if adding that to my quiver makes any difference.

I use the wiggle stick every time, and rake the ash out every second or third when all I am cooking are the quickies. I've found that using a charcoal chimney to start the leftover lump is more reliable and faster than the firestarters. My take is that the chimney with its faster, hotter start gets the air moving faster than the starters do - but there's no evidence other than my experience. I just set the grill aside, fire up the chimney on top of the old coals, and dump it in 10 minutes or so.

I do use the starters (or a torch sometimes) to get it going for a low & slow session, which does take time to set up & get temperature stabilized. For burgers, brats, dogs, steaks, chicken pieces on leftover charcoal the chimney has me cooking in 15 minutes, 20 to get to inferno for searing a steak.

Oh, and that is a nice looking pizza, I get great results on the egg using a locally produced frozen pizza dough from Tiseo's ..

gary what do you start your chimney with? the instructions that came with it say a piece of newspaper but that has not worked for me.

tm3 said:

gary what do you start your chimney with? the instructions that came with it say a piece of newspaper but that has not worked for me.

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I usually use 1 & 1/2 or 2 full sheets of newsprint - e.g., the amount that would hold 6-8 pages of news - and wad it up in the bottom of the chimney. I have on occasion used one of the firestarters but that seemed slower, and wasteful as I always have newspapers around waiting for the recycler. Gonna touch mine off shortly - boys are coming over later & some ATBs will be the leadoff ..

I read through this thread this morning and decided to go to Lowes. Going to be breaking her in later today!

The only thing I don't like about Webers is their lids- I wish they were hinged.

garyg said:

I usually use 1 & 1/2 or 2 full sheets of newsprint - e.g., the amount that would hold 6-8 pages of news - and wad it up in the bottom of the chimney. I have on occasion used one of the firestarters but that seemed slower, and wasteful as I always have newspapers around waiting for the recycler. Gonna touch mine off shortly - boys are coming over later & some ATBs will be the leadoff ..

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ATBs have been one of my biggest hits with guests, although along side them i also make some NATBs using banana peppers (much milder). pepper, cream cheese, low fat chicken sausage, maple bacon.

jmallen5 said:

I read through this thread this morning and decided to go to Lowes. Going to be breaking her in later today!

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Good for you, I love my Weber kettle!

I still have the big Weber chimney, but I havent used it for the egg. I have been using a single foil fire starter nestled in the center of the lump, drop the lid with the vents full open and I am at 400 within 5 - 10 minutes.

I will say that the High Que stainless steel grate that I added during my gasket replacement has improved breath-ability; as the end-of-bag chaff drops through to the bottom without plugging. It certainly isnt a required modification, but since I was ordering the Nomex gasket from them already AND by adding the stainless steel grate I rec'd free shipping - how could I not?

i was discussing my issues with BGE customer service and they said that the wire grate replacement at the bottom of the fire box voids the warranty

jmallen5 said:

I read through this thread this morning and decided to go to Lowes. Going to be breaking her in later today!

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very nice. the 22-1/2 weber silver was my intro to Charcoal. it has since moved on to another local B&B member who is enjoying it, after i snuck Vision Kamado Ceramic on to the deck one day last year when my wife was working

enjoy it and have fun. it's a great BBQ. buy some LUMP charcoal and NEVER EVER EVER used lighter fluid or matchstart coals etc.

My all-stainless Magma kettle in action. A couple of filets for me, and a sausage for a neighbor who asked me to cook it for him, since I was burning gas, anyway. (trying to impress me with his poverty and shame me into giving up one of my filets, maybe. I didn't fall for it.) It is mounted on the pushpit rail of my boat. I can remove the center part of the diffuser plate and leave just a ring that I can set a pot or skillet on, and use it as a conventional gas burner.