Cooking on a Big Green Egg

[Kerry Beal]

I'm now the proud owner of a large BGE as well as the mini that I bought in the summer. My large arrived at my home the day before I was to leave for 2 weeks working up north and it only made it as far as the garage. It still has to make it around to the back yard where it is going to live - but that is going to require some serious planning and slugging to get it there.

Meanwhile I have my mini to play with while I'm up here in Little Current. Somewhat limiting in terms of what you can cook on it given the size - but that just adds fun to the challenge.

Today I roasted a red pepper for a cooking project we have planned for later in the week and I cooked a smaller spatchcocked chicken (couldn't buy the nice big capons we saw in the store). I rubbed it with olive oil and Dizzy Pig Raging River rub (a sample I had acquired when I purchased my large BGE).

So anyone else want to show off what they are making on their BGE?

[Kerry Beal]

Cooked some 'fatties' today. Sausage meat in a roll, rubbed and smoked low and slow until it reaches 170 F (took a couple of hours).

Formed fatties, rubbed with what I found in the cupboard (it included a bit of Johnnybird's Toast Dope).

Mini BGE set up for indirect heat.

"drip pan"

Finished 'fatties' - center contains some roasted red pepper and mozzarella cheese.

[Beth Wilson]

They look good! How did they taste? Was there much smoke from the drippings?

[Kerry Beal]

Neat thing about the egg - the stuff that drips doesn't flare when the lid is down - so they really only had the smoke from the apple wood. When the lid came off the plate where there were sitting after they cooked you got a really nice whiff of smoke smell.

They tasted like moist little meaty nubbins! It tasted nothing like a sausage. A change from anything familiar really. I can picture them stuffed into a little biscuit as a snack sandwich for breakfast.

[CaliPoutine]

I dont know much about the BGE, how does it differ from a weber or other charcoal grill?

[OliverB]

Weber and other grills are the apprentice, the BGE is the master :-D

Just slow smoked/cooked two packs of Johnsonville brats last night, kept the egg at about 200 degree and cranked it up a bit towards the end. Came out great, very smoky, almost bacony. Left overs will go in a pot of beans.

I cook on the egg several times a week, the weber is still around for a quick grill (as the green egg coals are a bit pricy), but the egg is fantastic. 600+ degree for steaks? Sure, no problem. 200 degree for a low and slow smoke? Sure, got that. Plus anything in between. And nothing ever dries out! As 70es goofy as it looks, it's a mean green cooking machine :-)

[Pilori]

Weber and other grills are the apprentice, the BGE is the master :-D

Are you able to expand on what makes the BGE unique for those of us that know nothing about it?

[Kerry Beal]

I think it's the thermal mass that makes it unique - it holds on to heat and acts almost like a convection oven at lower temperatures. So you can bake breads etc in it and get a stone oven effect. But you can also get the sucker up to really high temps for doing things like steak or tandoori chicken. Great for pizza - again you can get that wood oven effect with the high heat on a pizza stone.

Here is our dinner tonight - done on the mini. Heated the Egg as high as I could get it - which was about 500 F tonight, seared the steak for 5 minutes on one side, 3 minutes on the other. Took it off for 20 minutes, cooled the egg down to about 350 F and then another 5 minutes per side.

Now that it's cooling down I've got a tiny little pork butt roast smoking on it that I rubbed earlier - it should cook in a few hours for pulled pork for tomorrow.

[Beth Wilson]

Don't have a car tomorrow....darn it! Will you be making the requisite squidgy white bread on the egg to go with the pulled pork?

How do you cook a pulled pork on the egg?

[Kerry Beal]

Don't have a car tomorrow....darn it! Will you be making the requisite squidgy white bread on the egg to go with the pulled pork?

How do you cook a pulled pork on the egg?

Haven't planned that far ahead!

To cook the pulled pork, you rub (or not), put on the Egg stabilized to about 250 F. Cook with some smoke for about 1 1/2 hours per pound, pull when it reaches 190 F and wrap well and put in a cooler for a couple of hours.

[OliverB]

what I love about the egg is the easy temp control, the wide range of temp it can hold, from 200 to over 600, how little coal it uses and that nothing seems to dry out. I've smoked bacon on a Weber, works fine too, but you can't just walk away, you have to watch the temp, add coals etc. The egg just stays around the temp you want for hours on end with one load of coal. And yes, it's an excellent wood fired oven too. Made fantastic pizza in it and while I have not done it yet, you can bake great bread in there too or bake a dessert while you're eating the main dish.

It's not cheap, but considering all the things you can do with it, it combines a smoker with a grill with a bbq with an oven all in one. And anything I've ever made on it came out just great, from the bacon to a high heat seared perfect steak. It's very easy to set and control the heat.

I looked at smokers for quite a while, almost got a Bradley, but am so glad I went with the egg. Bradleys and others like it only work with the wood pucks or similar things that they supply, so you can not use other woods. And of course, you can't do anything but smoke with them whereas the egg is a one in all solution. I use it several times every week.

[Kerry Beal]

Yup - my Bradley with cold smoking attachment is going on Kijiji when I get home from up north.

[OliverB]

just roasted a chicken last night on a beer can stand, came out great and juicy! Put some asparagus on shortly before it was done, great dinner and a nice carcass for stock :-)

As a side note, as far as I know you can't cold smoke on the egg. Maybe with a tray of ice or something in there, or with some careful fiddling with a little pile of coals, I've not tried that. But I don't really care that much for cold smoked things, so it's a non-issue for me.

[Kerry Beal]

just roasted a chicken last night on a beer can stand, came out great and juicy! Put some asparagus on shortly before it was done, great dinner and a nice carcass for stock :-)

As a side note, as far as I know you can't cold smoke on the egg. Maybe with a tray of ice or something in there, or with some careful fiddling with a little pile of coals, I've not tried that. But I don't really care that much for cold smoked things, so it's a non-issue for me.

You can apparently cold smoke on the egg. If you look at Naked Whiz's site it's discussed. But the folk on the egg head forum seem to be taking a standard soup size can, putting wood chips in it, tucking in a little soldering iron and it stays cool enough and produces enough smoke to smoke stuff like cheese.

Look over here for my first experiment in cold smoking cheese (not an udderly successful experiment). But my second try was much better.

This was using a small contained fire in a fruit cup sized can in the mini. I did put some ice under the cheese.

[OliverB]

hmm, never thought about smoked cheese, now I have to experiment! Interesting idea with the fire in a can, not so sure I'd be into the soldering iron thing, but also an interesting idea. I wonder if putting what ever one wants to cold smoke on a block of ice in a pan would work? Maybe with some foil in between. Turn it occasionally so all sides get exposed/cooled?

[Kerry Beal]

hmm, never thought about smoked cheese, now I have to experiment! Interesting idea with the fire in a can, not so sure I'd be into the soldering iron thing, but also an interesting idea. I wonder if putting what ever one wants to cold smoke on a block of ice in a pan would work? Maybe with some foil in between. Turn it occasionally so all sides get exposed/cooled?

Check out this thread, go down to about the 6th post and see what lowercase bill is doing with an ice pan and a rack.

[Kerry Beal]

Back home with my new large BGE - today spatchcocked chicken, baked potatoes and squash.

And for hubbies birthday tomorrow - chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream - not made in the EGG.

[OliverB]

those squash look amazing! How long and at what temp did you cook them? With plate setter or just the grill over the coals? I have one of those in the kitchen and once I showed it the picture it told me that that's what it wants to be when it grows up :-)

Is that butter in there?

Lately I always put almost boiled potatoes in there too, get nice marks/browning and they taste fanatastic!

[Kerry Beal]

those squash look amazing! How long and at what temp did you cook them? With plate setter or just the grill over the coals? I have one of those in the kitchen and once I showed it the picture it told me that that's what it wants to be when it grows up :-)

Is that butter in there?

Lately I always put almost boiled potatoes in there too, get nice marks/browning and they taste fanatastic!

Done direct - at about 350F. Then I put some butter and maple sugar on them. Think they cooked for about an hour.

Potatoes were done direct as well, but tucked around the side where there was some protection from the heat.

[Kerry Beal]

First attempt at ribs on the BGE - total of about 5 hours. Probably could have gone about another 30 minutes in the initial cook to make them a little more falling off the bone.

Recycled the squash from my last cook with a quick warmup in the egg in the last half hour of cooking.

[Anna N]

First attempt at ribs on the BGE - total of about 5 hours.

....

WOW! Those ribs look amazing. How did you season them - dry-rub? sauce? both?

[Kerry Beal]

First attempt at ribs on the BGE - total of about 5 hours.

....

WOW! Those ribs look amazing. How did you season them - dry-rub? sauce? both?

Both. Cluck and Squeal for the dry rub, one of the Kansas City BBQ sauces I brought back from the gathering last year to mop at the end. Spritzed hourly with apple juice and vinegar.

[Okanagancook]

Just got a large Big Green Egg and attempted pizza. 550 degrees with the pizza stone preheated for 30 minutes. Cooked for 13 minutes. Nice crispy crust. Now I am wondering about making naan. Thought is to remove the grate and try sticking the naan on the sides of the egg....if that fails, use the pizza stone. Get the egg as hot as we can and put in the naan. Anyone tried this?

[Kerry Beal]

I do the naan on the pizza stone - works beautifully!

[Anna N]

I do the naan on the pizza stone - works beautifully!

I can attest to the truth of this! When Kerry and I attended Nieggerfest it was the naan bread she made that disappeared the fastest! Amazingly it was a group of young teen or pre-teen girls who kept returning again and again for the naan.