Cooking on a Big Green Egg

[gdenby]

I would hesitate to pour water into a clay or ceramic cooker--it could easily crack from thermal shock, and also it will be wet from the inside out & unfit for heating until thoroughly dried out again.

While I to would be very cautious about getting the inside of a hot Egg really wet, I have spilled a drip pan that was about half water and half grease. It was the grease that caused the problem. Immediate fire, and then several hours of baking to reduce the stain.

I have spritzed a pizza stone several times before baking bread without any problem.

I forget to what "cone" the Egg is fired, but I vaguely recall it was something like 2400 F. So, that is some hard ceramic.

[Kerry Beal]

Toronto eggfest today. Anna and I started the day with 'Not Your Father's Cinnamon Buns' - cream cheese, bourbon bacon jam and cheddar cheese.

We followed this with some Artisan Rye - had some technical difficulties with the bannetons.

Slathering with cornstarch solution.

We grilled some asparagus in order to make asparagus shooters in the Thermomix.

Anna making her stuffed mushrooms. They were a big hit.

Thai red curry with lychee and pineapple.

We made a couple of different variations on stuffed figs - chocolate and walnut, bleu cheese and honey, Beemster cheese with Cluck and Squeal rub kneaded in and a drizzle of honey - sweet, salty and cheesy! Another hit.

[torakris]

Kerry, those cinnamon rolls look amazing! Do they get a smokey flavor to them?

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry, those cinnamon rolls look amazing! Do they get a smokey flavor to them?

Nope - no smoke wood added. Just like baking in a convection oven.

[Okanagancook]

Thanks to egullet we learned of the BBQ Guru. Holly! What fantastic thing. Currently

sitting inside with the BGE cooking ribs for 4 hours without any real deviation in temp.

[Beth Wilson]

all I can say is, I want some of it all! Nice looking spread you put on!

Why did you slather the bread with cornstarch solution? This is new to me.

[Kerry Beal]

all I can say is, I want some of it all! Nice looking spread you put on!

Why did you slather the bread with cornstarch solution? This is new to me.

Rye bread gets the slather - it gives it the classic rye bread crust - kinda chewy and shiny.

Forgot to put the ground caraway in the dough - so it tasted a bit flat. Didn't stop people from gobbling it up though.

[qrn]

Did some pulled pork today on my Japanese KAMADO(long before BGE and the US Kamado) (Date in the manual for it is 1975)Turned out great...

Its about the same as a smaller BGE. it was real expensive,$20,,,,at the thrift store....

Bud

[Kerry Beal]

Did some pulled pork today on my Japanese KAMADO(long before BGE and the US Kamado) (Date in the manual for it is 1975)Turned out great...

Its about the same as a smaller BGE. it was real expensive,$20,,,,at the thrift store....

Bud

Nice score! Did you have any trouble finding parts to do an indirect cook on it?

[Pierogi]

The various stuffed figs sounded amazing, but then there's nothing that can be done to a fig that makes it less than amazing IMHO.

Nice to see that "the pros" have similar problems as I do with turning out wet doughs from a banneton type rig !!

[Kerry Beal]

The various stuffed figs sounded amazing, but then there's nothing that can be done to a fig that makes it less than amazing IMHO.

Nice to see that "the pros" have similar problems as I do with turning out wet doughs from a banneton type rig !!

Yeah - looked back at the last time I did this for a banneton - I'd adjusted the dough to make it less wet!

[qrn]

Did some pulled pork today on my Japanese KAMADO(long before BGE and the US Kamado) (Date in the manual for it is 1975)Turned out great...

Its about the same as a smaller BGE. it was real expensive,$20,,,,at the thrift store....

Bud

Nice score! Did you have any trouble finding parts to do an indirect cook on it?

No it was just a mattter of using a couple of small paver stones under the inner liner edge to hold up a cast iron lid from an old pot that goes over the coals

its really easy to use,and control..I never use it for grill type stuff,just the indirect things..

Bud

[HungryC]

Did a spatchcocked chicken yesterday...briefly marinated in salt, sugar, fresh lime juice, fish sauce & cooked direct, 375 degrees, for 1 hr. Amazingly good for such a simple preparation.

[Msk]

Did the smoking portion of my MC Pastrami yesterdayon my BGE, using my Guru to keep temp around 180.

Now waiting for it to finish in the water bath.

BGE is truly an amazing thing.

Mike

[Borgstrom]

Did the smoking portion of my MC Pastrami yesterdayon my BGE, using my Guru to keep temp around 180.

I'm impressed that you were able to keep the temp so low. I've only been able to get it down to about 200F reliably, and this is with everything almost completely closed up and no Guru. When I attach the Guru there is enough airflow that, even with the fan off, temps go up to 250F. I tried closing the slider on the Guru attachment to about 3/4 closed, but it had no obvious affect. What's your secret?

[Msk]

My setup was Inverted platesetter, drip pan filled with water on top, then the grate with pastrami on it.

I had the Pit thermometer on by Guru on the grate itself, and had it set to 170, my lower vents were all the way closed except for the Guru Fan Door. I had a 180F dome temp most of the Cook, but it did reach 200+ by the end.

The inverted plate setter with a drip pan filled with water does restrict airflow quite a bit, and I do only light a concentrated area of my lump (with a torch).

Mike

[Kerry Beal]

Did a tri tip today - sous vide for 4 hours at 55º C, a little olive oil and a fairly thick rub with a sample of the new beef rub from the fellow who makes Cluck and Squeal.

Rubbed and ready to go.

About 1 1/2 minutes per side at about 1000º F.

Perfectly tender and delicious.

[eternal]

Our Super Bowl party was supposed to be about 10 people but it ended up at about 25. Seemed like smoking a shoulder would be a good way to feed everyone without a lot of work. I found a recipe on the BGE site (http://www.biggreenegg.com/features/pulled-pork-sandwiches/) and went to the store to find the meat. Couldn't find anything bigger then 4.5 pounds. Now that I think about it, this was probably unnecessary but I didn't want the meat to cook too quickly so I butterflied one should and wrapper it around the other and tied the whole thing up. Applied the rub to the shoulder and let it sit for 4 hours.

I then filled up the egg with charcoal and got the heat up to about 180 degrees and threw some smoking wood on the coals and then a "placesetter" I had devised useing leftover aluminum scrap wrapped in reynold's wrap. I watched the heat for about an hour and happened to wake up a couple times through the night just checked it out but it was sitting right around 180 degree all night long. When I woke up, the grill was closer to 250 but the meat temp was still around 160. I let it go a bit longer and then wrapped the whole thing up in tin foil with the apple juice and cooked it to 194 degrees.

It came out great and now I feel comfortable on how to heat low and slow on the egg. I'll probably end up buying the placesetter but my workaround did OK too.

I wanted to add that it really is amazing how little air you let into the egg to keep it down. I basically close the bottom vent and leave the top vent open by just a crack. Anymore and it gets too hot. My old egg probably doesn't seal as well as the new ones.

Edited February 6, 2012 by eternal (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Dinner tonight - Anticucho de res.

Started with one of these -

Reduced it to this -

Marinated in a bath of chilis (the wrong kind sadly), spices, red wine vinegar and olive oil. And lots of garlic.

Skewered

And cooked for a couple of minute per side on the egg.

[eternal]

Bought the placesetter and then bought a pizza stone (14" Oven Store off amazon) and have made pizza on the old kamado grill the last four weekends with great succes. I get the egg going really hot, loaded with charcoal and then let the whole thing "charge" for 20 or 30 minutes. We've been using pizza dough from Whole Foods and it works great. We make the pizzas on a peel and slide it onto a 450 degrees pizze stone. The whole thing cooks in about 7-8 minutes - I close up the top vent to try and cook the top of the pizza as much as possible and that also seems to work well. After I finish a pizza, I open it back up to reheat the stone.

I need to take a picture because the pizzas have just been coming out awesome. I think I might throw some ward on the fire to ass some smokiness as well.

I've also been pre-roasting potatoes and sliced tomatoes under the broiler in advance to use as toppings. pre-roasting the tomatoes helps on the water content - keeping it from getting too wet.

[Kerry Beal]

Gotta love stir frying outside on a stinking hot day!

[Kerry Beal]

Pulled a 'little' dry aged chunk of rib primal from the freezer today. Sous ved it for about 3 hours at 54.5ºC. It produced a very small amount of liquid in the bag which I suppose makes sense. Gave it a minute or so on each side nice and close to the lump - set up the spider with a cast iron grid just above the charcoal.

[Beth Wilson]

That looks delicious! I swear the picture makes me want an awesome bar-b-q steak right now. That is a nice piece of meat

[lancastermike]

These ribs are damn near ready.

Edited September 21, 2012 by lancastermike (log)

[HungryC]

Did three racks of St Louis spareribs, turbo style: two hours at 325-350. Here's how they looked one hour in. Finished product has a nice smoke ring, great texture...without too much advance planning.

Cooked indirect, over the plate setter, legs down, over a drip pan on the grid.

Oops...sorry bout the sideways pic!

Edited October 19, 2012 by HungryC (log)