Anybody Have a Big Green Egg?

[herbu]

He preached lots about cuts of meat (he uses only Prime brisket – try and find that in your local grocery store)

Our local Costco has it... but that's the ONLY place I've ever seen it.

Unfortunately for the home smoker, his methods are all adapted to very large off-set smokers that he built himself. It's difficult to guess how to scale things down to a size that most backyard smokers use.

That's exactly what I'll be attempting w/ the Egg. Should be interesting.

Regarding good & bad smoke, let me guess.
No softwoods, (like pine).
No bark on your wood. It makes a bitter smoke.
No black or dark smoke from your smoker chimney. It should be a thin white smoke. If your smoke is dark, your fire is too cool and/or your wood pieces are too big.
Heavy flavor woods like oak/hickory/mesquite are better on beef or pork primals, (big cuts of meat).
Lighter flavor woods like fruit tree wood are better for fowl and fish. The heavier flavor smoke can easily overpower the more delicate flavor of birds and fish.
??????

 

[panteragstk]

I need to get that Franklin book. I'm only about 45 min from the actual restaurant so I need to try it.

Most BBQ places are meh at best. For the prices they charge I expect better.

It's interesting that Franklin only uses salt and pepper as a rub. I do that with steaks, but my rub has quite a bit more in it than that and I'm hard pressed to find a BBQ joint that beats my brisket, pork loin, or ribs.

Turkey is something I've yet to get right. Or even close to right. I've done chicken, but haven't done a whole chicken in years.

I primarily use mesquite as it is everywhere in this part of TX. Tried hickory and pecan and wasn't impressed. Been a while so I might try again. I've never tried Oak, but have heard good things.

I actually hadn't heard about no bark on smoking wood. I guess I've never noticed the bitterness. I tend to use just wood in my offset smoker and it has always worked great.

One of the best investments I ever made was my remote thermometer. So much better than the one that came with my smoker.

 

[Swerd]

Regarding good & bad smoke, let me guess.
No softwoods, (like pine).
No bark on your wood. It makes a bitter smoke.
No black or dark smoke from your smoker chimney. It should be a thin white smoke. If your smoke is dark, your fire is too cool and/or your wood pieces are too big.
Heavy flavor woods like oak/hickory/mesquite are better on beef or pork primals, (big cuts of meat).
Lighter flavor woods like fruit tree wood are better for fowl and fish. The heavier flavor smoke can easily overpower the more delicate flavor of birds and fish.
??????

Very good . Franklin uses all or nearly all oak, and barely mentioned other hardwoods. If you use softwoods or pine, you should have your smoker confiscated, or turned into a gas grill!

In his good smoke/bad smoke chapter, franklin talked mainly about black or dark smoke vs. thin blue-white smoke and how to vary fire temperature and air flow until the smoke is good. Just how to do that depends on what smoker you use and how dry or wet your wood is. He says he only buys wood from trusted suppliers, and never uses kiln-dried wood. It can be hard to get a useful take-home lesson from that.

One of the best investments I ever made was my remote thermometer. So much better than the one that came with my smoker.

Yes, I also use a similar remote thermometer. It was essential when I was first learning.

Texas tastes in brisket seem to lean toward plain rubs and little or no BBQ sauce. Tastes vary. It takes all kinds to fill the freeway.

I found brining a turkey before smoking or roasting it made it easy to get a good result.

If you use all mesquite, does it burn too hot?

I find smoking with hickory or oak in a Weber smoker makes for a bitter creosote-like flavor. I've read (but never tried it) that hickory or oak should be first pre-burned (essentially turned into charcoal) before exposing uncooked meat to the smoke. In my Weber smoker, I use lump charcoal for heat and various woods (apple, cherry, or pecan) for flavor. All wood and no charcoal would make it too smoky. Apparently, in larger off-set smokers, all wood is favored.

 

[herbu]

He says he only buys wood from trusted suppliers, and never uses kiln-dried wood. It can be hard to get a useful take-home lesson from that.

"Trusted suppliers"? That's kinda funny to me. I use my firewood. Buy it by the cord, already split because I'm old and lazy, put it in the woodshed and dry it myself. My woodshed holds 4 cords. I use about 1.5 cords a year in the fireplace. So using a FILO method, and refilling the shed every year, I always have wood that's 2-4 years old. That means DRY.

For the smoker I just pick out the small pieces. Sometimes I'll remove the bark if it's loose. More often I leave it on. So it's plain ol' firewood. Not kiln dried, and I'm not even sure what a "trusted supplier" would be. I guess if you're in the city, your options would be limited.

 

[Swerd]

"Trusted suppliers"? That's kinda funny to me. I use my firewood. Buy it by the cord, already split because I'm old and lazy, put it in the woodshed and dry it myself. My woodshed holds 4 cords. I use about 1.5 cords a year in the fireplace. So using a FILO method, and refilling the shed every year, I always have wood that's 2-4 years old. That means DRY.

For the smoker I just pick out the small pieces. Sometimes I'll remove the bark if it's loose. More often I leave it on. So it's plain ol' firewood. Not kiln dried, and I'm not even sure what a "trusted supplier" would be.

Frankin may go through 1.5 cords a week! He says he wants large quantities of wood dry enough to use soon without ageing it long. He says kiln-dried is too dry for smoking.

I guess if you're in the city, your options would be limited.

I'm in the suburbs more than the city, but the real reason I don't have any firewood is that I have a gas fireplace, not a wood burning one. That was a choice I made in 1993 when the house was being built. Sometimes I miss the smell of a wood fire, but the convenience of a fire place that requires no wood or clean up, and starts or stops with a push of a button, easily beats that. Ever since then, I've not had a wood pile nor have I missed it. I almost sound like a propane gas griller .

But if I got a small stick burner, like that Lang off-set smoker, I would need to make a place for the wood. A smoker alone probably would not need as much wood as a fire place through the winter, certainly not 4 cords, but I'd sooner avoid it altogether.

I also don't have the kind of yard where I could drive a pickup truck around back, in fact, I don't have a pickup truck at all. The idea of manhandling a 665 lb smoker up a few stairs (from yard to deck) without getting help from a neighbor or two also made the Weber seem more attractive.

 

[herbu]

Frankin may go through 1.5 cords a week!

Holy Cow! That's a lot of smoking. He would have to keep ~75 cords of wood onhand to assure he had 1-year old wood to use. And 1 year is the minimum for wood dried naturally outside. Now I understand "trusted supplier".

 

[panteragstk]

Very good . Franklin uses all or nearly all oak, and barely mentioned other hardwoods. If you use softwoods or pine, you should have your smoker confiscated, or turned into a gas grill!

In his good smoke/bad smoke chapter, franklin talked mainly about black or dark smoke vs. thin blue-white smoke and how to vary fire temperature and air flow until the smoke is good. Just how to do that depends on what smoker you use and how dry or wet your wood is. He says he only buys wood from trusted suppliers, and never uses kiln-dried wood. It can be hard to get a useful take-home lesson from that.
Yes, I also use a similar remote thermometer. It was essential when I was first learning.

Texas tastes in brisket seem to lean toward plain rubs and little or no BBQ sauce. Tastes vary. It takes all kinds to fill the freeway.

I found brining a turkey before smoking or roasting it made it easy to get a good result.

If you use all mesquite, does it burn too hot?

I find smoking with hickory or oak in a Weber smoker makes for a bitter creosote-like flavor. I've read (but never tried it) that hickory or oak should be first pre-burned (essentially turned into charcoal) before exposing uncooked meat to the smoke. In my Weber smoker, I use lump charcoal for heat and various woods (apple, cherry, or pecan) for flavor. All wood and no charcoal would make it too smoky. Apparently, in larger off-set smokers, all wood is favored.

I tried brining the turkey, but I'm pretty sure the recipe I tried wasn't very good. Said to smoke on 350 which seemed high.

I do use mesquite and it does burn hot, but I've learned over the years that I can maintain a temp between 200-225 pretty easily as long as I don't put too much wood in the smoker. I also pretty much close the vents all the way. Works well considering I have a cheap smoker that isn't totally sealed. Vents totally closed means about 15% airflow. Fire burns nice and low and all I have to do is add another log when wood gets low. I sometimes keep a log or two in water just in case the fire gets too hot, but still needs more wood. I find that to work well. Nice blue-white smoke and isn't too think.

 

[Swerd]

Holy Cow! That's a lot of smoking. He would have to keep ~75 cords of wood onhand to assure he had 1-year old wood to use. And 1 year is the minimum for wood dried naturally outside. Now I understand "trusted supplier".

1.5 cords a week was just my guestimate. It's Saturday morning, and I just checked to book. Franklin never said how much wood he goes through. But he said he buys wood already cut and split, and partially seasoned. In Texas, because of a >5-year long drought there is lots of cheap firewood, much of it from dead trees. They would make terrible fuel for wood smokers. That was another aspect of 'trusted suppliers'.

Franklin runs a BBQ restaurant in Austin, TX and has 7 large to very large steel barrel smokers behind it, all made by him from large propane tanks. He does his own welding. They are in use most every night. None of them are the same size, but I can guess he goes through lots of wood. That's why I said scaling down what he does to what you or I might do in our backyards takes a lot of trial & error.

 

[Swerd]

I tried brining the turkey, but I'm pretty sure the recipe I tried wasn't very good. Said to smoke on 350 which seemed high.

I've seen and tasted smoked turkey done by the Apple Brine Turkey recipe from The Virtual Weber Bullet web page: http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/turkey6.html I thought it was excellent.

The directions are detailed and good enough to work well the first time it was tried. It was smoked (in a Weber smoker over a mixture of charcoal, apple, and cherry wood) at 325-350°F until 160-165°F in the breast, 170-175°F in the thigh, approximately 2-1/2 to 3 hours. You can vary that for your smoker, and go by the meat temperatures.

Other Turkey recipes are there as well:
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/holiday-barbecue-recipes-resources.html

 

[everettT]

I've owned one for about 5 years now. For smoking duty it's average, my biggest issue is keeping a slow smoke , and adding the pellets or chips easily. It will hold temp well once desired temp is achieved. I still prefer an offset smoker for my serious work . I do like the ability to do slow roasted meats wo smoke or heavier smoke. I do pizzas with great success as its easy to get to 800 degrees , which bodes well for prime steaks as well. The other issue I have is burnt smoke which imparts that bitter taste, which makes high temp smoking hard

 

[herbu]

Franklin runs a BBQ restaurant in Austin, TX and has 7 large to very large steel barrel smokers behind it

That's some serious smoking!!! Got the Big Green Egg. Played w/ it a little yesterday with no meat on it. Just experimenting w/ the vents and temp. Fired it back up this morning and will do 1 rack of baby backs today.

That's why I got the egg. For every time I do enough to feed 20 people, there are 100 times I just want to feed the 2 of us. The big smoker is too much of a chore for that. So far it looks like the BGE will fit the bill perfectly. Zero tending after you get it started, and supposedly the same smoke flavor. We'll see. I'm just using half a dozen wood chunks, about half the size of your fist. Though I'm using firewood, bags of chunks are available everywhere, and you could probably just get a branch here and there from a neighbor if you wanted to do your own. If it works as advertised, it may be a good choice for you.

 

[panteragstk]

I got a Weber classic (22" with ash catcher) to supplement the big offset smoker I have and I can say I'm happy with the purchase. Natural lump charcoal kept a temp of 400 degrees for about 3 hours. I'm impressed.

I used to use the firebox of my smoker to grill and it just wasn't up to the task. I could make great food, but it was difficult to be consistent. Plus, too small to make food for a lot of people. I would't use the smoke chamber as it's nice and seasoned so I'd hate to ruin that and have to clean out ash every time I wanted to smoke something.

Best of both worlds IMHO.

 

[herbu]

Did a rack of baby backs yesterday, and have to say the Big Green Egg has a new fanboy! The ribs had the same pink smoke ring and smokey flavor as the big smoker, but was sooo much easier.

After the initial lighting, I didn't have to add any coals or wood. I tweaked the air vents 3-4 times during the 4 1/2 hour cook, but suspect that is partly due to my inexperience with the initial loading and lighting of the coals.

I used a remote thermometer with a probe clamped to the grill grate so I could watch the temperature inside the grill at the meat from my LaZboy. I found there is about a 50deg difference between the temp at the meat and the temp at the top of the lid where the standard grill thermometer is positioned. But I could see exactly when the internal grill temp began drifting up or down, and fix it w/ a tweak of an air vent. I would strongly recommend this to anyone doing a low-and-slow cook on any kind of grill/smoker.

I got the XL size BGE. I got the XL instead of their most popular Large size because the XL will hold a rack or racks of ribs w/o trimming them. Its grid diameter is 24". The Large is 18.25". I measured a couple racks of baby backs I had in the freezer, and they were about 20" long. Beef ribs, whole brisket and whole ribeye roasts will fit on the XL. Guys on the BGE forum told me the XL does not use significantly more coal than the Large, so I got the bigun.

But the best part is that it will do a single rack of ribs, or a single turkey breast, or a single chicken or a single butt just for my wife and me, with very little preparation, cost or maintenance during the cook, and yield the same great smokey result as a big offset smoker.

Like I said, BGE has a new fanboy. Richard, if you still have the itch, I urge you to look at them. Easy to put on the deck, (with a couple strong lads), very little cleanup as lump charcoal burns much cleaner than briquettes, and you can store a bag of coal and a bag of wood chunks a lot easier than a wood pile. My total cost w/ a number of accessories, including the aforementioned thermometer and a new instant read thermometer, was about $2k.

 

[Swerd]

Did a rack of baby backs yesterday, and have to say the Big Green Egg has a new fanboy! The ribs had the same pink smoke ring and smokey flavor as the big smoker, but was sooo much easier.

After the initial lighting, I didn't have to add any coals or wood. I tweaked the air vents 3-4 times during the 4 1/2 hour cook, but suspect that is partly due to my inexperience with the initial loading and lighting of the coals.

Glad to hear you like it. Your experience with it is worth hearing.

I used a remote thermometer with a probe clamped to the grill grate…

I've also used something similar for years in my Weber Smoker. It has two probes, one is a meat thermometer and the other clamps to the grill grate. I think its essential.

Does the BGE come with a way to put the wire(s) through for the thermometer probe(s)?

I've also been using lump charcoal for years. It burns a little hotter than briquettes, but nothing I can't adjust for. Lump has no inert filler leaving little ash compared to briquettes, and most important lump has NO COAL DUST in it!

I guess $2k is too much for me. I'll probably get another Weber Smoker (18" for $300 or 22" for $400) to replace the one my wife crumpled with her car. I already know how to use them well. I already have a 22" Weber grill that I use regularly, just not for smoking below 275°F.

 

[herbu]

Does the BGE come with a way to put the wire(s) through for the thermometer probe(s)?

The top and bottom of a BGE close together on a felt-like gasket.

You just run the temperature probe wire out on the gasket and the top seals around it when you close the lid. These gaskets do need to be changed after a while. The picture above came from a YouTube video about replacing the gasket. The one shown is being replaced. I read that replacement is necessary every 1-5 years. I guess it depends how much you use it. We'll see. It looks like gaskets are ~$20.

 

[panteragstk]

Glad to hear you like it. Your experience with it is worth hearing.
I've also used something similar for years in my Weber Smoker. It has two probes, one is a meat thermometer and the other clamps to the grill grate. I think its essential.

Does the BGE come with a way to put the wire(s) through for the thermometer probe(s)?

I've also been using lump charcoal for years. It burns a little hotter than briquettes, but nothing I can't adjust for. Lump has no inert filler leaving little ash compared to briquettes, and most important lump has NO COAL DUST in it!

I guess $2k is too much for me. I'll probably get another Weber Smoker (18" for $300 or 22" for $400) to replace the one my wife crumpled with her car. I already know how to use them well. I already have a 22" Weber grill that I use regularly, just not for smoking below 275°F.

Have you looked at any of the off brand kamado grills? Significantly cheaper, but should be close to as good. I just got me a weber, but not to smoke, but I'm thinking one of these may be in my future. Only $300 for a 22" kamado. Not bad.