Well, it isn't as exciting or naughty as you probably were hoping. When we first started hanging out at the original Big Green Egg online bulletin board (now defunct), we needed to choose a handle. We saw some fellow named "Spin" posting, and we thought it was a great name. Why? We don't know. Why do we like vanilla ice cream with Magic Shell on it? We chose "Whiz". After a couple of weeks we decided to change the name to "Naked Whiz" in the fashion of English celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, "The Naked Chef". Thus was born The Naked Whiz. ↺#whywhiz

No, we are not a dealer, distributor, advocate or influencer for Big Green Egg products, nor are we an employee of Big Green Egg or affiliated with them in any way. We have never received anything from Big Green Egg, either merchandise or money, except for some charcoal submitted to the Lump Charcoal Database for review. We do not endorse their products. While we do own four Big Green Egg cookers at the moment (and we love them!), this website is about all kamado-style ceramic charcoal cookers, not just Big Green Egg cookers. While our experience is obviously mostly with Big Green Egg cookers, we work hard to try to make our content as brand-neutral as possible. Incidentally, we also own a Komodo Kamado cooker and a Kamado Joe cooker, but we are not affiliated with them in any way, either. ↺#whizbge

No, we are not a dealer or distributor for any brand of charcoal, nor are we an employee of any brand of charcoal. We often receive samples of charcoal for doing our reviews, but in general, other than one over-zealous manufacturer who sent us T-shirts, a sweatshirt, and a hat, we have never received anything from any manufacturers of charcoal except for charcoal samples. If you are looking to buy charcoal, you need to contact the company that makes or sells the charcoal, not us. ↺#whizlump

Where did the word "kamado" really come from? Well, considering the word is thousands of years old, we're pretty sure it wasn't invented in the sixties by a certain importer of clay cookers. Here are the results of our research into the origins of this word. ↺#kamadoorigin

Almost everyone pronounces the word "kamado" incorrectly. Since it is a Japanese word, we feel it should be pronounced as such. Here is an explanation of how to correctly pronounce "kamado". ↺#kamadopronounce

Ceramic cookers are made of various materials and the use of the term "ceramic" is quite loose in the industry. Materials include "space age" ceramics, terra cotta, refractory materials and portland cement mixed with lava rock. The walls of ceramic cookers walls are heavy and thick with the thickness varying depending on the maker. The temperature tolerated by these materials varies, but most makes can easily withstand cooking temperatures up to 1000 degrees. However, you should follow the instructions that come with your particular cooker. But this allows you to sear your steaks at 700° or more, smoke your barbecue at 200° or less, and roast and bake at all temperatures in between. Ceramic cookers will maintain the temperature you set due to their good insulating characteristics, and perform well at high and low temperatures! If you are curious, click here for an animation showing how the Big Green Egg is constructed. ↺#ceramicbuilt

You control temperature by controlling the amount of air that enters and exits the cooker. Kamado-style cookers have a vent at the bottom of the cooker and a vent at the top of the cooker. Both vents are adjustable in some way so that you can precisely control the airflow. By controlling the airflow, you can control the temperature to within a few degrees. More details about temperature control can be found by reading our web page on Temperature Control. ↺#tempcontrol

You can sear meats at very high temperatures on ceramic cookers due to the fact that you will be using lump charcoal, which burns hotter than briquettes, and due to the fact that ceramic cookers can be closed up except for vents at the bottom and the top. This creates a chimney effect which fans the fire and gets it much hotter than charcoal sitting in a typical open type of charcoal grill with no draft. More details with specific temperature information can be found by reading our web page on Searing Temperatures. ↺#howhot

The range of temperatures you can use on a ceramic charcoal cooker is truly amazing. You can cold smoke cheese at 85 degrees, sear steaks at over 1200 degrees and do lots more at every temperature in between. A graphic representation along with recipes that demonstrate the range can be found by viewing our Ceramic Thermometer web page. ↺#whatrange

Yes. Ceramic cookers work great in the rain. Cold rain pouring down on hot ceramic will not in any way damage your cooker. In a real downpour, you may need to fashion some sort of protection over the top vent to prevent water from entering the cooker, but rain shouldn't stop you from using a ceramic cooker. Below are a couple of photos of two owners' solution. Of course umbrellas, stove pipe caps, and any number of other methods could be used.

↺#rain

Most definitely. While those metal cooker owners are busy rigging up insulation, wind blocks and who knows what else, you can use a ceramic cooker in the coldest of weather. The ceramic insulates the fire from the cold and allows you to cook without having to resort to other fixes. Charcoal consumption will be greater, but you will still be able to cook for long periods of time on a single load of charcoal. ↺#cold

Most definitely. Cold temperatures will not hurt your cooker. It is probably a good idea to keep it covered, but there is no reason why you would need to take it indoors during the winter. ↺#cold2

Of course you can! But you need to take appropriate precautions. You probably don't want to use a ceramic cooker on a wooden deck with the just three ceramic feet that come, for example, with a Big Green Egg. While this does provide an air gap between the bottom of the cooker and the wood of the deck, you still need to be concerned with the odd ember or two that might come out of the lower vent. Also, the bottom of ceramic cookers can get reasonably hot under some conditions and it is better to add a layer of protection between them and the deck. You can use a grill mat, but be sure that the one you choose is suitable for use under a charcoal grill. Many mats are really designed for use under gas grills (ptui!) and are only intended to catch grease drips and keep your deck clean. Another option is to place bricks or cement stepping stones on your deck as the base surface to place your cooker on. The ideal material to use for this, however, is firebrick. Make sure that this surface extends to the front enough to catch any embers which might drop from the lower vent. ↺#woodendeck

This one's easy! Lump charcoal is really the only choice. Lump charcoal is pure charcoal with no additives, no lighter fluid, just charcoal. It produces much much less ash than briquettes and this is important. If you look at how ceramic cookers are constructed, you'll see that the charcoal sits in a bowl called the fire box. The ash from the fire will fall down into the bottom of this bowl, and there isn't a lot of room for the mountains of ash that you get from burning briquettes. More information about lump charcoal can be found at our Lump Charcoal Database. ↺#typecharcoal

Yes, you can, but briquettes are not ideal. The only reason to avoid briquettes is that they make so much ash. As the ash collects in the bottom of the cooker, you may find that it is blocking airflow. But other than that, briquettes are just fine. No, they don't contain chemicals that will ruin your cooker. In fact, except for Kingsford briquettes, every other brand consists only of wood or coconut shell char and a vegetable starch binder. Big Green Egg tries to scare you away from briquettes and then conveniently suggests that you buy Big Green Egg lump charcoal. Hmmmmm. ↺#usebriquettes

This is another one of those decades-old pieces of wisdom that just falls apart if you only try it. As we explained in the previous question/answer briquettes are not ideal, but there is no reason to avoid them if you want to use them. But what about instant-light briquettes like Kingsford Match Light? The "wisdom" says that since they contain lighter fluid, they will permanently contaminate your cooker. Somehow, the "wisdom" goes, the lighter fluid will soak into your ceramic.

Well first of all, piling a bunch of Match Light briquettes into your cooker will not cause lighter fluid to soak into your ceramic. The lighter fluid will stay in the briquettes. Second, if some lighter fluid does come in contact with your ceramic and leave a smell, you can easily remedy the situation with a couple of 500°F burns. And finally, if you actually dump some Match Light briquettes into your cooker, light them and then let them burn, you will find that no smell of lighter fluid is left behind. We did exactly that and again, NO smell of lighter fluid was left behind.

So to sum it all up, instant light briquettes are not the best choice of fuel for your ceramic cooker, but they will not damage your cooker. ↺#useilbriquettes

If, for example, you load up a large Big Green Egg so that the charcoal comes halfway up the fire ring, and if you use ordinary hardwood lump charcoal, you will find that you can cook at low temperatures for 30-40 hours. Yes, we said HOURS! We personally have cooked pork butts for 20 hours and still had at least half the charcoal that we started with left in the cooker. You will never have to add more charcoal during a cook with a ceramic cooker as long as you start with enough charcoal. ↺#howlong

This is a very good question, and one that gets many wrong answers. Unfortunately some dealers and owners state that the outside of ceramic cookers remain "cool to the touch". This, of course, is absolute rubbish. Here's a link to our webpage on How Hot Does The Surface of a Ceramic Charcoal Cooker Get? ↺#howhotoutside

We love FAQs filled with manufactured questions in order to provide the answers that the author of the FAQ wants to give you, rather than the ones you want to ask. Sort of like when your company takes away your pension and then gives you an FAQ filled with questions about how wonderful it is that you no longer have a pension, rather than the questions that their employees are actually asking. So here's our entry, LOL! YES!! We have a downloadable copy of the 1976 owner's manual right here!! ↺#oldmanuals

This is too easy! Click here for what we have. ↺#oldermanuals

Ceramic charcoal cookers are indeed expensive, so which brand should you buy? There are a large number of brands out there and we can only speak to the more popular brands, but for what it's worth, you can read about our thoughts on this question in our web page Which Brand Of Ceramic Cooker Should I Buy? ↺#whichbrand

Unless you have some specific use in mind which would require a specific size, for use the standard advice is this: Buy the largest size you feel you can afford. Even if "it's only the two of us", get the largest size you think you can afford. Every time this question pops up on online forums, there are a number of posts from folks who bought a smaller cooker and now wish they had bought a larger size. Make no mistake, the smaller cookers can cook anything that the larger cookers can and there are plenty of happy owners who only have one of the smaller cookers. But the larger sizes give you the greatest flexibility unless you have some specific purpose in mind, like taking a cooker on camping trips. Here are some examples of when you might want a large cooker, even though "it's only the two of us":

• Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Maybe you will be cooking a large turkey for family? Even if dinner is at their house, you might be asked to bring the bird once they find out what you can do on a ceramic cooker.
• Party, party, party! Will you ever have a cookout and want to cook for a large number of people?
• Cooking burgers or chicken parts? If you need grid space, the largest cooker will give you the most space obviously.
• Will you ever cook a meal for a homeless shelter? Don't laugh. We did. 32 pounds of pork butt to feed 37 women in a shelter.
• Will you ever want to cook a large amount of food to freeze for later?
• Will you ever get bit by the paella bug and want to have room for a large pan?

If you buy a large Big Green Egg and subsequently decide to buy a second cooker, the perfect companion to the large Egg is the small Egg. It is just small enough that you could transport it somewhere without too much difficulty. It is the perfect size for smaller cooks now that "it's only the two us." It is also the perfect size to do vegetables or other side dishes if you have a big piece of meat going in the large cooker. You may find similar pairings available in other brands of ceramic cookers.

Also, some folks who are really looking for a small and portable cooker ask the question, "Which should I buy, a small Egg or a mini Egg?" Here is what Big Green Egg forum regular "Nature Boy" has to say on that specific choice:

The mini is cool. Very cool. You can sear the pants off anything. And you can pick it up and run with it. Well, not until it's cooled down :-)

Anyways, the small is of another world. Surprisingly long burn on a load of charcoal, and it don't sear too bad itself. Plus you can put a dutch oven on it, or set it up indirect and roll a rack of ribs. You can hang a small drip pan on the fire ring, and set up 2 tiers for doing chicken or whatever. It's really a lot like your large, only smaller.

If you want something to run around with, and throw in the trunk on a whim, and you want to put a mean 45 second sear on an elk steak....then get the mini. If you want a versatile cooker to compliment your large, get the small.

And of course, Big Green Egg has since brought out the MiniMax. It's the size of a regular small Egg, except it is shorter and comes with a carrying nest. At about 60 pounds, it's an easy lift for two people making it a great portable option. ↺#whatsize

Modern day ceramic charcoal cookers should last your lifetime and perhaps beyond. While gas grills need new burners every few years, and even rust to pieces every few years if you don't care for them, ceramic charcoal cookers are made of ceramic or refractory materials that will last a good long time. Even the older terra cotta cookers that were brought into this country back in the 1960's are still going. So, as one manufacturer says, "Choose wisely because you will be giving this cooker to your children." ↺#howlonglast

Sometimes folks ask this question, thinking about metal cookers which can benefit from an initial seasoning. But no, ceramic charcoal cookers require no seasoning. Big Green Egg recommends that your first couple of cooks be held to under 350°F in order to cure the adhesive on the gasket, but otherwise you need to nothing else to prepare your cooker for use. ↺#season

You should check the tightness of the bands when you first get your cooker, if it has them, even if it came pre-assembled. We have found that cookers pre-assembled by dealers sometimes aren't quite completely pre-assembled. Next, you should check the tightness of the bands after your first cook. Allow the cooker to completely cool and then check to make sure the bands are still tight. Then, you should occasionally check the tightness of the bands to make sure that they haven't worked loose. When properly tightened, the bolts on a Big Green Egg should be bent, as you can see in the photo at right. It is difficult to over-tighten these bolts. We have never heard of anyone breaking a cooker from over-tightening the bolts. However, letting the bolts get loose can result in the lid coming off the cooker and possibly breaking and injuring someone. Be sure to read and follow your particular cooker's instructions on this topic! ↺#tightenbands

It's hard to have too much, but you don't want to have too little. The minimum amount of charcoal you should probably ever use (except perhaps for ultra-low temperature smoking like cheese), is enough to just about fill the fire box. For high temperature cooking like steaks, you need to fill the fire box to the top. For long overnight low and slow cooking, you may want to load it up to about halfway up the fire ring so you are sure to have enough to last the entire cook. Just don't worry about having too much or wasting your charcoal. When you are done cooking, close the upper and lower vents. The fire will go out and all the remaining charcoal will be preserved, ready for your next cook. ↺#howmuchcharcoal

There are all sorts of lighting techniques and with time, you will probably settle on your favorite method that works for you. There are electric starters. There are sawdust and parafin starters. There are starter cubes like those sold by Weber. There is a green gel starter that you can buy at Wal*Mart. (See safety warning below.) You can use a propane torch or a MAP/Pro torch. (MAP/Pro gas is sold in cylinders like propane, but with a different burner. It burns with much more heat than propane.) Some people have made starters out of weed burners. They all work and are all different. Personally, we use the Weber cubes and the sawdust/parafin starter sticks made for use in the fireplace. (We just cut off pieces about 1-inch cubed.) You can also use newspaper, but you'll find it produces a lot of ash.

Obviously, you should use whatever instructions come with your particular starter, if indeed you got any. (Propane and MAPP torches don't come with instructions on how to light charcoal. Wierd, huh? Operate the torch in accordance with the instructions, and watch out for sparks when you start the charcoal.) You do have an option, however, when using a starter cube or sawdust/parafin cube. You can place a cube or two or three semi-buried in the top of the charcoal, or you can place a cube or two underneath the grate by sticking it in through the bottom vent. Generally speaking, if you are not going to be doing a nuclear cook like steaks, put the starter cubes on/in the top of the charcoal and let the fire spread through the top. If you are going for high heat, then lighting the starter cubes underneath the grate will get a fire going in the charcoal from bottom to top.

Safety Warning Regarding Alcohol-based Gel Starters That Are Packaged in Bottles: These starters pose a rather unique hazard if not used exactly according to their instructions. This product is alcohol-based and alcohol burns with a barely-visible flame. It is possible to have a flame present and not see it if you aren't looking carefully. The biggest danger is thinking there is no flame and then adding more gel to the fire. If you buy this product by the bottle, it is possible for the flame in the cooker to ignite the fumes in the bottle causing an explosion. This has actually happened, despite the label saying that the product is non-explosive. While the product itself, the gel, is not explosive, the product in its container can explode. Here is what happened, as reported by the victim:

"I filled my mini with lump and added a few dabs of lighter gel. After igniting, I added a few chunks of coconut lump and in the process, put out the fire. At least I thought. I held the bottle over the grill and proceeded to squirt a few more dabs to relight the fire. That is where the first mistake took place. The fire was not out. I couldn't tell because it was daylight and the flame could not be seen. The flame quickly ignited the trail of gel and the flame ran up to the neck of the bottle. When I saw the flame on the bottle, my immediate reaction was to blow it out. Mistake number two. The next thing I remember was a loud boom, a huge flash of light and heat, wind and flame engulfing my face and neck. The blast blew my baseball cap right off my head. I could feel that my face was soaking wet and burning. I assumed I was on fire. I repeatedly slapped my face and eyes and the burning stopped. However, I couldn't open my eyes for close to a minute. By the grace of God my sight was not taken and as I looked around, I found my deck was on fire as well as my lump box and the side of my house. The burning gel had been blown about in a ten foot radius. I was able to extinguish the fires quickly with minimal damage. I rushed into the house to look at my face. It was completely black and the hair on my eyelashes and brows was partially burned away. I received a small burn on my right eyelid."

Yes, he should not have added gel to a burning fire, but he didn't know it was burning. So, be careful with this product. We can only assume that all gelled alcohol products would behave the same way. ↺#light

Probably far more than you would imagine. Here, in no particular order, is a list that is probably not exhaustive.

• Gelled alcohol starter such as that sold by Sterno.
• 90% or above isopropyl alcohol and a paper towel.
• Vegetable oil and a paper towel.
• Vegetable oil and newspaper.
• Newspaper.
• Weber starter cubes.
• Royal Oak Tumbleweed starters.
• Jealous Devil BOOM! Firestarters
• Rutland Fire Starter Squares.
• Parafin firestarter pouches.
• Looftlighter or paint stripper heat guns.
• MAP/Pro gas with a torch.
• Propane gas with a torch.
• Propane weed burner.
• Electric starter.
• Chimney starter.
• Fatwood, aka, lighter wood.
• Kingsford lighter fluid.

We will point out that fatwood/lighterwood and Kingsford (and any other brand) lighter fluid are not recommended by any manufacturer of ceramic grills since the resin from the fatwood and the fumes of the lighter fluid can permeate the ceramic and produce off-odors for a considerable time. The odors will fade with time, but you can speed up the process by doing a series of one-hour 500°F burns to eliminate the odor. ↺#lightingmethods

What most people don't realize is that it takes a lot longer for the temperature of the ceramic shell to stabilize than they think. We conducted two tests to demonstrate how long it takes for this to occur and the effect it has on the cooker's temperature. You can read about it in our article Temperature Stabilization in Kamado-Style Ceramic Cookers. ↺#stabilize

Well, you can but it is certainly not ideal nor recommended. We don't think anyone would seriously argue that the smell of lighter fluid is pleasant in a food context. The fluid will indeed permeate your ceramic somewhat and the smell will persist if you don't do anything about it. That said however, some folks think that somehow these chemicals "burn into the ceramic" and ruin your cooker for life. Another silly old wive's tale. While again, we wouldn't recommend using lighter fluid, you might find yourself in posession of a ceramic cooker that has had lighter fluid used in it. Maybe you bought it used. Or maybe your uncle Harold thought he was being helpful by adding a nice squirt of lighter fluid to your fire. All is not lost! You can burn the smell out by burning charcoal in your cooker at 500°F for an hour. You may have to repeat one or more times, but eventually, the smell will be gone and your cooker will be just like new.

But of course, you want to know if we have ever actually rid a ceramic cooker of lighter fluid to verify this claim that hot burns will get rid of the odor. OF COURSE WE DID! We took a nice big can of Kingsford lighter fluid and sprayed the walls of one of our cookers, the firebox and the fire ring. We left the lid open for an hour or so to let some soak in and some evaporate. Then we lit the fluid to get rid of it before adding charcoal to do the high heat burns. Before the charcoal was lit, the fumes of lighter fluid were epic! We could smell them almost anywhere in our yard. But guess what. After two high heat burns the odor was almost completely gone! After a third high heat burn, the cooker was like new.

So to sum this up, it's best to avoid lighter fluid, but if you find yourself needing to cleanse a ceramic cooker, several high heat burns will do the trick! ↺#lighterfluid

Of course you can! Some folks think that because Big Green Egg says in their FAQ's not to use lighter fluid, that this means don't use chemicals of any kind and that somehow these chemicals "burn into the ceramic". How silly. Weber cubes, Rutland squares, Royal Oak tumbleweeds all contains chemicals yet no one objects to their use. No, gelled alcohol is just fine. Not to mention that Big Green Egg recommends giving your cooker a good scrub with (wait for it) isopropyl alcohol or acetone when replacing the gasket. The chemical that Big Green Egg recommends against is lighter fluid like Kingsford. And even that is not a total disaster. Big Green Egg provides instructions for getting rid of the smell of lighter fluid in their FAQ's. ↺#gelalcohol

You'll find some differences of opinion on this. At one end of the spectrum we have the dump it and forget it crowd. They dump the charcoal into the cooker straight out of the bag, just being careful not to dump the bottom of the bag (dust and chips) into the cooker. At the other end of the spectrum, you'll find those that completely remove all the old lump, clean out all the ash, and then build a whole new fire. And to do this, they will sort their lump charcoal, putting the biggest pieces on the bottom, fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle, and using smaller pieces as they build the pile of charcoal up.

We are sort of in the middle. Well, ok, we are sort of towards the sorting end of the spectrum. We empty all the old lump out. We put several big pieces in the bottom of the fire, and we then add more lump carefully, making sure to use only pieces that are big enough to leave lots of air spaces between pieces. We don't do the jigsaw puzzle thing, however. Here is a link to a write-up on our first low and slow overnight cook: Click Here to read it. It contains a fair amount of detail as to how we built the fire.

Once you have determined which end of the spectrum you want to pursue, there is one other word of advice. Use plenty of charcoal. Don't be shy. You don't want to run out. We fill our cooker up about 1/2 way up the fire ring. It's better to have too much than to have your fire go out.

Assuming that you want some smoking chunks in your fire, we like to bury some chunks in the pile of charcoal near the top so they can start smoking later in the cook. We put a couple of fist-sized chunks on the top of the charcoal for the initial smoke. Other folks will mix in a good handful or two of chips throughout the charcoal so that they get a little smoke all the time during the cook.

Then to start this pile of charcoal, we have had really good results with using a chimney starter to get a roaring fire going in the starter, and then dumping this on top of the charcoal and smoking chunks. The temperature in the cooker will rise initially from all that fire, but by the time you add your ceramic barrier, drip pan and cold meat, you will find the temperature will easily drop below 200 degrees. Then you can start regulating your fire with the air vents as you allow the temperature to rise towards your target temperature. ↺#loslobuild

If you are having trouble controlling the temperature on your cooker, you may wish to read our page on Temperature Control. In general, it is harder to cool the cooker than to heat the cooker, so you should strive not to get into a position where you do have to cool the cooker.

However, if you want to cool the cooker down, there are a few things you can try:

• One is to close the vents and wait. Just be careful not to put your fire out. Check it every so often and give it some air if necessary.

• You can open the cooker, remove the food, grids, etc. and shovel some or all of the charcoal into a metal bucket so as to reduce or remove the fire from the cooker.

• Although this may seem counterintuitive, you can try dumping some fresh charcoal on top of your fire. This will reduce the amount of air getting to the top surface of the fire, and it will absorb some of the heat of the fire. Be sure that you have reduced the opening of your vents so as not to let all this new charcoal simply start burning and making the problem worse.

Whatever you do, don't douse the whole cooker with a flood of water. But generally speaking, closing the vents and waiting for the cooker to cool along with some fresh charcoal dumped on top is your best bet. ↺#tempdrop

The easiest way to remove ash from your cooker is to use an ash tool to scrape out the ash into a metal pan or bucket. Make sure you use a metal receptacle since you often can't be sure that there isn't a glowing ember in the ash. You can see a photo of the ash tool sold by Big Green Egg to the right. This works well on the large and medium Eggs. It can be a little tricky to maneuver through the smaller vent of the small egg, but it can be done. One other thing to note is that if you have any burned charcoal in the cooker already, you might as well give it a stir with the ash tool to knock off any loose ash and small pieces of charcoal. Then scrape it all out through the bottom vent with the ash tool.

You may also wish to investigate the Kick Ash Basket and Kick Ash Can which make cleaning ash out of your cooker fairly easy. ↺#ashremovalhow

You don't have to remove ash after every cook since you will be burning lump charcoal which produces minimal ash. In fact, it is probably better if you don't clean the ash out after every cook. Ash is very good at insulating and a small amount of ash sitting on the bottom of your cooker will help keep the temperature down beneath the cooker. You only need to clean ash from the cooker when it is blocking the airflow from the vent up through the fire. Very little ash accumulates around the outside of the fire box, so you also don't need to remove the fire box very often to clean out behind it. The most important thing to do before every cook is to make sure that the air holes in the fire box are not blocked and that the holes in your grate are also not blocked. ↺#ashremoval

You will have to forgive us if we ROLL our eyes at this question. No. You don't need to vacuum the ash out of your cooker. You don't have to remove every speck of ash from your cooker. In fact, a small amount of ash in the bottom of your cooker provides insulation, keeping the bottom of your cooker from getting very hot. Just scrape the ash out with your ash tool. Maybe once a year take your firebox out to check to see if a lot of ash has accumulated behind it. But honestly folks. Cleanliness is NOT next to godliness when it comes to kamado-style cookers. ↺#ashvacuum

Any number of things:

• Let the ashes cool throughly, then dispose of them in your trash. Just be sure that you DO let them cool thoroughly, perhaps 48 hours.
• Dump ashes on snow and ice to give you better traction.
• Ashes can be used to add nutrients to compost, mixed in the soil around calcium-loving plants or sprinkled around garden beds to keep away pests like slugs and ants. However, DO NOT SPREAD ASHES ON ACID-LOVING PLANTS such as camelias, rhododendrons and azaleas.

↺#ashdisposal

Oh happy day! The answer to this one is that you generally don't have to clean the cooker out! Obviously, you will want to clean the grid and occasionally clean out excess ash, but the walls of the cooker itself will turn black with use. They will build up a layer of smoke, fat, ash, whatever. This is ok! The cooker isn't supposed to stay white inside. You may find that this layer of build up will flake off from the inside of the dome over time. You probably want to help this along by scraping with a crumpled ball of aluminum foil so that the big flakes don't fall into your food. But in general, there is no need to do any cleaning of the inside of your cooker.

You will find many people recommending that you do a "clean burn" which involves taking your cooker up to 600°F or more for an hour or two in order to burn everything off the inside walls of your cooker. This turns out to be a somewhat controversial question. There are a number of things to consider when deciding if you want to do a clean burn. We examine this question in our article Should I Do A Clean Burn In My Ceramic Charcoal Cooker. ↺#cleancooker

You will find many people recommending that you do a "clean burn" which involves taking your cooker up to 600°F or more for an hour or two in order to burn everything off the inside walls of your cooker. This turns out to be a somewhat controversial question. There are a number of things to consider when deciding if you want to do a clean burn. We examine this question in our article Should I Do A Clean Burn In My Ceramic Charcoal Cooker. ↺#cleanburns

It is probably a good idea. Although most ceramic cookers have fired exteriors, some do not. Tiled cookers would probably benefit from a cover to prevent moisture from penetrating the grout, should you not be diligent about sealing the grout. At least one brand of cooker has a painted exterior and it would be wise to consult the manufacturer about this issue. All ceramic cookers, however, have a hole in the top for a thermometer, and water can enter the cooker via this hole. This can contribute to moisture levels in the cooker when you are not using it and thus make mold more likely to form. A good cover can never hurt. ↺#covercooker

Not really. You don't want to simply burn wood in a ceramic cooker. You are asking for creosote deposits on the inside of the cooker. Also, you may find it very hard to regulate the temperature because the wood may choose to ignite and burn with a flame, sending the temperature sky high. If you cut down on the airflow, the flames may go out and the wood will smolder producing clouds of smoke. If you want to try using wood in a ceramic cooker, you should probably do it the way that folks do in normal BBQ pits: burn the wood down to coals in another container, and then add the coals to the cooker as needed to keep your temperature where you want it.

Note that this information comes from personal experience. We were asked to review a wood fuel product which was going to be advertised as a replacement for charcoal. When doing our normal burntime test, we ended up with creosote on the dome of our cooker, and the top vent was stuck shut. We couldn't regulate the temperature and the wood only lasted about 25-35% of the time that even the worst charcoals would burn. ↺#burnwood

We have an entire page of hints and tips for cooking pizza. Click Here to read it. ↺#pizza

This is another topic for which we have separate pages. First of all, the seminal work on this topic was written by Elder Ward in the Big Green Egg Forum. Click here for Elder Ward's writeup. He includes instructions for building and maintaining the fire, preparing and cooking the meat, as well as recipes and tips for serving the meat.

We also have a page about the topic from the perspective of a first time cook, recounting our very first overnight pulled pork cook. Here's a link to our Beginner's Guide To Making Pulled Pork. ↺#pullpork

Ah, here's another topic to which we have devoted an entire page. Click here to read our Brisket Hints and Tips page. ↺#brisket

You may be tempted to put something like a Lodge dutch oven in your cooker, heat it up to frying temperatures and then deep fry some catfish or something like that. BAD IDEA!! If you spill the oil, or if the oil bubbles over the edges of the pot into the fire, you will have quite a firebomb to contend with. Do not use your cooker as a fryer! You can sautee using small amounts of oil (see our page on Paella for details), but do not deep fry! ↺#frying

Absolutely. We have a number of articles on cold smoking. Here's a link to Cold Smoking Central where we have an index to all our articles related to cold smoking. There's jerky, salmon and cheese. There are also articles on generating smoke, including one about how to build your own smoke generator from a paint can. So take a look! ↺#coldsmoking

Good question! If you are going to make a table for your Big Green Egg cooker, you need to know which hinge type you have in order to know what the distance should be between the lower shelf and the table top. Here are some photos to help you determine what type of hinge you have. These two photos show the auto-lock hinge on a large and medium Big Green Egg cooker. Notice the lever on the left side of each photo. If you have this lever, you have an auto-lock hinge:

These two photos show the spring hinge on a small Big Green Egg cooker. The spring hinge for the medium and large Big Green Egg cookers look very similar. The XL BGE cooker has always had a spring hinge, so there should be no confusion if you own an XL Big Green Egg. Notice that there is no lever on the spring hinge. If you do not have a lever, you have a spring hinge.

We should probably note that Big Green Egg hasn't sold an Autolock hinge in ages. The only way you would have an autolock hinge is if you bought a rather old cooker second hand. ↺#hingetype

You certainly can, since all you really need for seasoning cast iron is oil and heat. However, properly seasoning cast iron is a multi-step process involving three different temperatures. We find it immeasurably easier to do our seasoning in our kitchen oven. Proper seasoning does not generate smoke as many would have you believe so there is no need to do it outside. However, if you do find it desirable or even necessary to season your cast iron outdoors in your kamado-style cooker, we would do the first two steps (heat to 200°F and add the oil, heat to 300°F and wipe all the oil off) indoors with your oven. Then you can take it outside and do the final seasoning (bake at 400-450°F) in your cooker.

Another reason that we would avoid seasoning cast iron outdoors in a barbecue cooker is that you must be careful about allowing ash to get on the seasoning oil before it polymerizes. You don't want any foreign materials or particles getting into your seasoning and possibly interfering with the polymerization process.

So, what is a "proper seasoning" method? You can read about how we season our heirloom cast iron pans in our article How To Season Cast Iron Cookware. ↺#seasoncastiron

Properly seasoning cast iron is a multi-step process involving three different temperatures. We season all our cast iron in our kitchen oven. Proper seasoning does not generate smoke as many would have you believe so there is no need to do it outside. You can read about how we season our heirloom cast iron pans in our article How To Season Cast Iron Cookware. ↺#seasonmethod

Flaxseed oil for seasoning cast iron is a recent fad. You certainly can use flaxseed oil to season cast iron, however you need to use the right kind of flaxseed oil and use the correct procedure lest you end up with brittle flaking seasoning on your cast iron. More details can be found in our article, How To Season Cast Iron With Flaxseed Oil. ↺#castironflax

Oh, Lordy! Are there ever! You can read all about cast iron myths in our article titled (what else?), Cast Iron Myths. ↺#castironmyths

There are a lot of cast iron snobs out there (ok, including us to a degree) who claim that vintage cast iron pans are vastly superior to today's pans produced by Lodge. They say that the ultra smooth cooking surface of vintage cast iron pans leaves the rough pebbly surface of modern Lodge pans in the dust. Well, we happen to have both types of pans and decided to a little testing. And ranting. And confessing. Read all about our testing in our article titled, Vintage Lodge Cast Iron Versus Modern Lodge Cast Iron. ↺#vintagevsmodern

The Plate Setter (note the spelling) is a tool used in ceramics to hold plates in the kiln. They can be stacked so as to hold many plates. It turns out to be one of the handiest tools we have for cooking on the Big Green Egg. There are models available for all sizes of Big Green Egg cookers. The plate setter for the large Big Green Egg will also work in a round Primo cooker.

You can use it in two different positions, legs up and legs down. The first photo below shows the plate setter legs down ready to be used for cooking pizza. You would simply place the pizza stone on the plate setter and now you have accomplished two things. First, you have an additional layer of ceramic between the pizza and the fire which allows for better temperature regulation and fewer burned crusts. Second, you have raised the pizza stone up to the level of the opening of your cooker which allows you to use a peel to slide the pizza in and out of the cooker with ease.

The second photo below shows the plate setter legs up for indirect cooking. As you can see, you can place a drip pan on the plate setter and then put the grid on the legs of the plate setter to hold the food.

↺#platesetter

The Big Green Egg company sells plate setters for all sizes of Egg. Needless to say, they will also work in any ceramic cooker that is the same diameter as the corresponding Egg. You can order these items directly from Big Green Egg in Atlanta by calling them. Many dealers also stock plate setters. And finally, any ceramic supply house will probably sell some sort of plate setter. You need to make sure the size is right, the height is right, and that the plate setter doesn't have a hole in the middle of it. ↺#platesetterbuy

No. There are several companies that make cast iron plate setters. You can read about one in our review of Cast Iron Plate Setters. ↺#metalplatesetter

The Grid Extender is another useful device sold by Big Green Egg for increasing your cooking capacity. Here is a photo showing the Grid Extender above the grid. You can place food on both grids to almost double your cooking capacity.

Note that the old grid extender from Big Green Egg could be hung beneath the main grid for holding a drip pan. This grid extender is no longer sold and the current grid extender cannot be hung beneath the main grid. ↺#gridextender

The Grid Lifter is a handy tool for holding hot grids and dirty grids without getting your hands dirty. It isn't meant to hold a grid with 15 pounds of meat on it, but it is meant to help you move your grids around when empty. However, some folks don't use it correctly and it is possible to drop a grid if you don't use it correctly. Here are photos of the correct and incorrect way to use the grid lifter:

Notice that when using the grid lifter incorrectly, the jaws have been placed around both grid wires. If you do this, you are relying on the strength of your grip to hold the grid. If you let up on your hold, the grid can come loose. See how the jaws go around only the first wire and UNDER the second wire when using the grid lifter correctly? Now you have leverage, gravity and numerous other laws of nature on your side. The grid will stay on the Grid Lifter all by itself like this and you don't have to exert any effort to squeeze the Grid Lifter to keep its grip on the grid. ↺#gridlifter

This is the actual name of what most people like to call the Daisy Wheel. It is the cast iron vent that sits on top of your cooker to control airflow out the top.

It should be noted that Big Green Egg no longer sells the Dual Function Metal Top. Instead, they now sell something they call a rEGGulator. ↺#dfmt

The actual name of this device is the "Dual Function Metal Top". It is composed of two moving parts, the slider which opens by pivoting it on the screw which holds it to the metal shell, and the daisy wheel, which is the part which rotates and has a number of oval shaped holes arranged in a circle.

You can effect major adjustments by moving the slider to open or close the big hole in the top. You can create smaller changes by rotating the daisy wheel by small amounts so as to open or close the radial holes (or petals) in the top.

Note that the Multi Function Metal Top is not really intended to be used to snuff out the fire when you are done. It is not airtight and enough air will creep into the cooker to prolong the fire. If you wish to put the fire out, use the ceramic top, also known as the ceramic rain cap, to completely snuff out the fire. ↺#dwinfo

You will find that when you open the top of the Big Green Egg that the daisy wheel slider top will swing to one side or the other, thus messing up your carefully set temperature adjustment. The way to prevent this from happening is to position the top so that when you open the top of the Egg, the slider top will hang from the pivot point. Below are some photos from the front and the back showing how to position the top so that the slider will remain in position when you open the Egg.

Note: The first person in recorded history to think of this little trick was probably Sir Isaac Newton, shortly after the apochryphal apple hit him on the head. However, the first person in the modern era to share this idea was Tim Moore.

Front, lid closed	Back, lid open

↺#dwsetting

"rEGGulator" is the silly name that Big Green Egg gave to the replacement for the Dual Function Metal Top. As you can see, the two part slider is gone and is replaced by a single sliding plate that covers the opening.

↺#reggulator

We have found that the 14-inch stone sold by Big Green Egg is the perfect size for the medium Egg, while the 12-inch stone is perfect for the small Egg. Big Green Egg doesn't sell a 16-inch stone, so we purchased such a stone from a kitchen store for our large Egg. We have found that these stones leave adequate airflow to get the cooker hot enough for cooking pizza and allow for the largest possible cooking area.

Primo sells a pizza stone for their round cooker, and of course, it can also be used on the large oval cooker. Komodo Kamado sells a massive 15" round pizza stone that would be acceptable for use in any ceramic cooker which is at least 17" across. ↺#pizzastonesize

No! A ceramic baking stone should never be seasoned. It serves several purposes in baking. First it is a barrier between the dough and the intense radiant heat of the fire. Second, a preheated stone provides an initial burst of heat that gives dough an initial push in rising when it is placed on the stone. But the reason why you don't want to put anything on your baking stone to season it is that the bare ceramic surface also absorbs some of the moisture in the dough and helps to develop the crust. So, any new ceramic baking stone should be used just as it is without any sort of seasoning. Save the seasoning for the cast iron.

On the other hand, there are baking stones sold which are not made from ceramic. The manufacturers of these stones apparently do recommend that you season the stone. So all we can say is that if you use a ceramic stone, do not season it. If you use a stone made from something else, follow the manufacturer's instructions. ↺#pizzastoneseason

A well-used pizza stone should have stains on it, so don't think that you need to clean it and restore it to like-new condition. Never wash a stone with soapy water. Use a scraper to scrape off any burnt-on foods. If you have food residue on the stone which hasn't burned to a blackened crisp, put the stone in a 400-500 degree cooker (or even use your stove in your kitchen) and get it nice and burned. Then you can scrape it off. Also, you can use a damp rag if you want to clean it a bit more thoroughly, but do not use soap. Soap can get into the porous stone and add nasty flavors to your food. ↺#pizzastoneclean

You certainly can. Soapstone products are available from Kamado Joe and a company named Soapstone Products. You should be aware, however, of a few things to avoid breaking your stone. We have a lot of information available in our article, Soapstone Products Pizza Stone. ↺#soapstone

There are a number of different models of temperature controllers available from a number of companies such as The BBQ Guru, The Stoker, Flame Boss, PitmasterIQ, Fireboard and Auber Instruments. You can read our reports on most of their products by visiting our Product Reviews page. ↺#tempcontrollers

There are a number of different brands and types of charcoal baskets made for kamado-style cookers that replace the stock charcoal grate. Probably the best known is the Kick Ash Basket. Their stainless steel wire-construction baskets are heavy duty and long lasting. ↺#charcoalbaskets

No. While some charcoal baskets do allow for more airflow through the charcoal, this doesn't result in higher fire temperatures. You still control the temperature of the cooker and the size of the fire with your top and bottom vents. We did some experiments using a Kick Ash Basket and a Kick Ash Can to measure the temperature of the bottom surface of a kamado-style cooker and you may be surprised by the results. You can read about this testing at our web page Cooker Bottom Surface Temperatures Using An Ash Basket and Can. ↺#kabdamage

There is a lot of misinformation available about how the Block works and how it charges its probes. We clear everything up in our article MEATER Block Power/Charging Questions. ↺#blockpower

You must create a cook in order for the Block to remain powered on. If you simply turn the Block on and use the probes to monitor temperatures, the Block will eventually turn itself off. Just create a cook and the Block will remain on. ↺#blockpoweroff

Another area of confusion is whether or not you can use MEATER and MEATER+ probes with the MEATER Block. Well, it depends on what you mean by using them "with" the MEATER Block. We have the answers in our article MEATER Block Questions About Mixing Probes. ↺#blockmix

Everyone thinks that they can use the ambient temperature sensor on these wireless temperature probes to replace their cooker's thermometer. Or if they use both, they wonder why the wireless temperature probe's ambient reading is different from their cooker's thermometer. Or why the wireless temperature probes's ambient reading is different than their digital thermometer probe that they have clipped to the grid "right next to the wireless probe." We shed some light on this whole ambient sensor issue in our article MEATER Ambient Sensor Questions. While written about the MEATER probe, it applies to all wireless temperature probes. ↺#meaterambient

These truly wireless temperature probes connect to your phone or a base unit via Bluetooth. Bluetooth is another form of radio waves, just like Wi-Fi. Radio waves cannot penetrate metal like foil. Likewise if you place your probe in a metal pan with a tight lid, the Bluetooth signal cannot get out to your device. Or if you place your probe in an oven with no window, or microwave ovens which have shielding to block the microwave emissions, the signal can't escape the oven or is severely reduced in strength. In the case of foil, the solution is simple. Just poke the probe through the foil and leave the ceramic handle (which contains the Bluetooth antenna) exposed. In the case of ovens, place whatever device you are using to receive the Bluetooth signal as close to the oven as possible. ↺#meaterfoil

The MEATER's ambient temperature will show as a dash ("—") until it detects an ambient reading that is 9°F/5°C or more above the internal sensor's reading. If your probe is lying on your kitchen counter, for example, both sensors will read the same temperature so the ambient sensor will be shown in the App as a dash. It is also possible that the ambient sensor may just show the dash during low and slow cooks when the internal temperature is nearing the ambient temperature. However, remember that the purpose of the ambient sensor is to provide a temperature reading of the air close to your meat to the predictive algorithm in the App. The ambient sensor is not really intended to be used to monitor the temperature of your cooker in the same way that your dome thermometer is. ↺#ambientblank

The cook time is calculated using the internal and ambient sensor readings, as well as how fast the internal temperature rises at the start of the cook. The internal temperature needs to increase about 8°C/14°F for the probe to gather enough data, which can take some time, especially with really large cuts of meat. The estimate may also take longer to appear if the cook is canceled and restarted, or if there are big temperature fluctuations causing the cook time to keep recalculating, ↺#meatercooktime

First of all, you can buy peels from any restaurant supply house and I'm sure you could dig one up at a place like William's Sonoma. Big Green Egg also sells a pizza peel. Restaurant supply houses are bound to be much cheaper if you can find one near you. If you have some basic woodworking skills, you can make your own. Click here to see how we did it and maybe you will get some ideas of your own. ↺#pizzapeel

Well, there are so many different possibilities here that perhaps you need to see some examples and then design your own. Most of the plans we have seen are for Big Green Egg cookers, but they should be adaptable to most brands of cookers. Click here to read possibly the most bizarre account of building a table ever written. My starting point was the Big Green Egg table plans which you can link to below. Also, you will find an equally bizarre account of how to make a table for your small Big Green Egg for under $100 by clicking here.

Here is a page of photos of different types of tables that members of the Big Green Egg Forum have built: Table Gallery

Here some links to webpages that have plans or instructions for making tables:

Plans For Building The Naked Whiz's Table -- Detailed plans and material list.
Official BGE Plans For XL Cooker -- The plans from the BGE website
Official BGE Plans For Large Cooker -- The plans from the BGE website
Official BGE Plans For Medium Cooker -- The plans from the BGE website
Official BGE Plans For Small Cooker -- The plans from the BGE website
Tex Duncan's Table Plans (PDF) -- PDF version of table plans with all details
Wise One's Table Plans (PDF) -- A PDF of table plans with drawings, materials list, cutting list, step by step directions!!
Wise One's Mini Egg Table Plans (PDF) -- A PDF of drawings for a table to hold a Mini Egg!

NOTE NOTE NOTE!! Tex's and Wise One's Plans need to be modified if your Egg has the new spring hinge. The vertical distance between the lower shelf and the top has to be reduced so that the Egg sits about 2 inches higher than before. (Dimension B in the original Official BGE Plans used to be 17". The new plans list this dimension as "Dimension A" and it is now 15".)

↺#cart

Fire bricks are high temperature bricks used in applications like fireplaces. They can be useful for providing ceramic barriers for indirect cooking and for propping things up in your cooker. They can also be used to form a heat shield under your cooker. Fire bricks are much safer than concrete pavers because fire bricks insulate against heat whereas concrete pavers slow down heat but they don't block it. Here's a link to our web page containing a lot more information and photos and how you can use these handy items in your cooking. ↺#firebrick

Does the crack in your firebox look like the photo to the right? Is your ceramic charcoal cooker manufactured by Big Green Egg? If so, then all is well. What you have is the new and improved firebox from Big Green Egg which was introduced in the early part of 2010. That "crack" that you see is part of the design and intended to prevent real cracks from forming in the firebox. That "crack" provides a gap which allows the firebox walls to expand and contract safely during heating and cooling cycles, preventing cracks from forming.

This new firebox has been out for quite some time and it appears to be much better at maintaining its integrity than the original fireboxes were. Regardless, it is certainly a step in the right direction. Charcoal cookers designed by Komodo Kamado have two part fireboxes and there have been no reports of their fireboxes cracking. Kamado Joe has produced a firebox comprised of 6 ceramic pieces and a metal ring to hold it all together.

If on the other hand, your cracks are irregular and are not perfectly straight and vertical like the photo, then you probably do have a cracked firebox and you should view our FAQ entry, My firebox cracked. What should I do? ↺#newcracked

Well, first of all, Big Green Egg has stopped shipping eggs with ceramic grates. They now use a metal grate which is far less prone to suffer damage from high temperatures. You can contact BGE about getting a replacement if you have a damaged ceramic grate. Other options are 7" floor drains from your local hardware store. Also, Lodge Manufacturing, the folks that make Lodge cast iron cookware, makes a cast iron trivet that can be used.

Another option is a piece of stainless steel expanded metal. You will have to find someone with access to it and with the tools to cut a circle about 8 inches in diameter (for a large Egg). However, expanded metal is almost all opening and thus chips and ash can fall through more easily, and you get far more air through the grate than with other types of grates. Stainless steel will stand up to the temperatures and, of course, will last a very long time.

Finally, our favorite option is the Kick Ash Basket. Baskets made from heavy stainless steel wire can stand up to the heat, give you better airflow, and allow you to pick up the whole basket and shake the ash out. We have baskets in 3 of our 4 Eggs. ↺#gratecracked

There are two basic reasons why your Egg won't get as hot as it used to. Not enough charcoal and not enough air.

The owner's manual recommends that you use a couple of handfuls of charcoal. Wrong. You should always use plenty of charcoal. Remember: When you are done cooking, you can snuff the fire out, and use any remaining charcoal the next time you cook. So fill up the firebox at least to above the holes in the side of the firebox, preferably to the top of the firebox. And for long overnight cooks, fill it up halfway up the fire ring so you don't run out.

Regarding airflow, there are a number of things to check. First, make sure the bottom vent and top vent are open enough to allow the temperature you wish to achieve. Second, make sure that the hole in the side of the firebox base is lined up with the bottom vent so air can flow straight into the firebox. Third, make sure that there is no ash or charcoal chips blocking the holes in the firebox and the grate. Fourth, stir your charcoal if you used it before so as to knock all the ash and small pieces of charcoal loose so they can fall into the bottom. Fifth, make sure you don't use charcoal that is all small chips. You need a mixture of sizes that allow air to flow through the charcoal. ↺#noheat

Gaskets eventually wear out. Some people get years out of them. Other people get months. I suppose it has to do with how much heat you allow to get to the gasket. Heat eventually makes the gasket hard and brittle. One way to ruin a gasket pretty quickly to is to have a flashback. What's a flashback? I'm glad you asked. Click here if you haven't read about flashback yet. Multiple flashbacks will certainly bring your gasket to an early demise.

The simple answer is replace your gasket with a replacement from Big Green Egg. You can order them through dealers or by calling Big Green Egg. Replacement is fairly simple. Remove the old gasket by using a utility knife or razor blade scraper. Scrape very carefully and get as much of the old gasket and adhesive off as possible. Then take a rag or paper towel and use some alcohol to rub the surfaces of the lid and base clean. To apply the new gasket, first cut it in half. There is more than enough to do both the top and the bottom. Cutting it in half will ensure you don't go crazy and somehow get too much on the bottom and not enough on the top. Or vice versa if you do the top first. Peel off a foot or so of the paper tape and begin applying the gasket to the edge. Don't pull it tight or stretch it. Just lay it down on the edge. It is best to line up the inside edge of the gasket with the inside edge of the Egg so that you don't have any gasket protruding into the Egg. If the gasket is a little wider than the edge of your Egg, it is better to let the excess extend over the edge on the outside of the Egg. When you have applied the gasket around the entire edge, you can cut the gasket so that the two ends meet. Repeat for the top. Or for the bottom if you did the top first. Note that Big Green Egg recommends that you wait 24 hours with the lid closed before using your cooker after you replace the gasket. They also recommend that you heat your cooker up to 350°F for a few hours in order to cure the adhesive before going any hotter.

So, that was the simple answer. This implies a more complicated answer. The complicated answer is "Rutland" or "Cotronics". As in Rutland or Cotronic gaskets. You can replace the Big Green Egg gasket with a gasket from Rutland that is normally used for woodstoves, or a ceramic tape gasket available from Cotronics. Click here to read about RRP's procedure for installing a Rutland gasket. Rutland gaskets are made from fiberglass and reports are that they will last a long long time. The Cotronics gasket material is made from ceramic and also is reported to last a long time. Another option is to make a gasket out of Permatex Ultra Copper High Temp RTV Silicone Gasket Maker. Click here to read Frank from Houma's method.

You may wish to read the question "Are gaskets like the Rutland and Cotronic gaskets safe?" down below in the Safety section. There have been a lot of accusations and misinformation flying around regarding these products, and it is always good to check up on information from the manufacturers and other technical sources before you make your decision. Quick answer, though, they are perfectly safe. ↺#gasketleak

Perhaps your thermometer needs to be calibrated. See our FAQ entry "How Do I Calibrate My Thermometer?" ↺#foodtoolong

Perhaps your thermometer needs to be calibrated. See our FAQ entry "How Do I Calibrate My Thermometer?" ↺#foodtoofast

Perhaps your thermometer needs to be calibrated. See our FAQ entry "How Do I Calibrate My Thermometer?" ↺#thermometeroff

If food is taking longer to cook than it used to or if your thermometer is showing 200 degrees before you even start the fire, then there is a very good chance that your thermometer is out of calibration. If you think you are cooking at 250 degrees but are actually cooking at 200 degrees due to a mis-calibrated thermometer, food is going to take much longer to cook that you expect.

The dial to the BGE thermometer will rotate if you hold the stem and then twist the dial. This sometimes accidentally happens if you twist the dial while it is in the lid of the Egg. The stem can get stuck in the hole and it won't rotate if it is stuck. Twisting the dial will then cause your thermometer to get out of calibration. As you can see in this photo, there is a nut on the back of the dial which you can hold with a wrench while you twist the dial. Of course, if you twist the dial, then you have just gotten your thermometer out of calibration. Sorry. So, how to get it back into calibration? Well, if you hold the thermometer in boiling water, it should read the temperature that water boils at your barometric pressure/altitude. (Remember, altitude and barometric pressure are related. Altimeters are just extremely accurate barometers.)

So, how can you find your barometric pressure and calculate the boiling point of water? Simple! Click here to open a new browser window and visit the Weather Channel. Enter your ZIP code to get your local forecast which includes the barometric pressure. Close the Weather Channel window and then simply enter your barometric pressure and approximate elevation into the Whiz-O-Matic Boiling Point Calculator® below, click on "Calculate Boiling Point" and voila!

The Whiz-O-Matic Boiling Point Calculator® Pressure: inHg       Elevation: feet

Boiling Point Estimate: °F   °C

Note that the boiling point of water varies more due to altitude than it does due to air pressure. The difference between sea level and Denver, Colorado, is about 10 degrees. The difference due to changes in the air pressure due to the weather is about 2 degrees. You'd need to be in a hurricane's eye to see more variation than that. Bottom line, is if you are using the calculator, altitude is more important that the current barometric pressure. You can easily find your elevation using this tool. Just manipulate the map to find your location, click on your location and the elevation magically appears!

Now that you know the boiling point of water at your location, you can boil some water in a pan and stick the thermometer into the boiling water and read the temperature. If it isn't close to the correct value, use a wrench to hold the nut on the back and twist the dial until the thermometer does read the correct value. Then back into the boiling water to recheck your adjustment. Two things to remember. First, boiling water is very hot. Don't burn your fingers and then blame The Naked Whiz. Second, don't allow the stem of the thermometer to touch the sides or bottom of the pan or you will get hotter readings. One common idea is to take a paper plate and poke the thermometer through the plate. Then you can lay the plate down on the top of the pan with the thermometer stem hanging in the water. Just be careful. ↺#calibrate

There are a number of reasons things that might get your thermometer out of calibration:

• Most of the thermometers used for ceramic cookers are adjustable. The dial can be twisted on the stem, as you saw in the question about calibration which shows you how to calibrate the thermometer. Twisting the dial trying to get it in or out of the cooker is all it takes to get your thermometer out of calibration. Don't use the dial as a handle to try to twist the thermometer out of the hole in your cooker. Push from the inside or use the stem to twist the thermometer, if necessary.
• Over-temping a thermometer can affect its accuracy. Tel-Tru thermometers give the following guidelines for the maximum temperature that you expose their thermometers to:

  Dial Max Temp	Over Temp Limit
  0 to 250	100%
  250-550	50%
  550-1000	continuous use up to 800 intermittent use over 800.

• Most of stem should be inside the egg to obtain an accurate reading. You may need to have the thermometer not entirely inserted into the dome in order to avoid the thermometer touching the food, but approximately 2 to 2.5 inches of the stem must be inside the dome. Read out article "Which Tel-Tru Thermometer Should You Use" for more information about inserting the stem into the cooker far enough for accurate readings.
• Severe shock, dropping, bending of stem or head.
• Submersing in water or placing in dishwasher.

↺#calibrate2

We never really thought we'd have to answer this one, but sure enough, two people have asked this question in the last two weeks, so here goes. Your thermometer should indicate the temperature inside your cooker (in degrees Fahrenheit for most of us). It isn't going to show 0 unless the temperature inside your cooker is 0. Like, below freezing? If it is 80 degrees outside, it is probably going to be 80 degrees inside your cooker, more if your cooker is in the sun. So, it will almost never show 0. ↺#thermnotzero

First of all, make sure that your dial thermometer is properly calibrated. You can see how to do this in our FAQ entry "How Do I Calibrate My Thermometer?"

Once you have calibrated your dial thermometer, it's time to understand how temperatures vary inside of a kamado-style cooker. We report on this in our article "Why Your Dial Thermometer's Reading Is Different Than Your Digital Probe". ↺#thermnotagree

While pizza stones are made of ceramic and can take high temperatures, like all ceramic items, they are susceptible to thermal shock. Never place a cold stone into a hot cooker. Place your stone in the cooker as soon as you have the fire established and before you allow the cooker to heat up to pizza-cooking temperatures. This will allow the stone to heat up at a moderate rate and will cracking less likely.

It is also worth noting that many owners of ceramic charcoal cookers have reported problems with Pampered Chef pizza stones. These stones simply are not up to being used over a raging fire. They were meant to be used in ovens in kitchens by ladies wearing pink aprons. (Ok, that last bit might be a bit of an exaggeration....) Do NOT use Pampered Chef pizza stones in your cooker as it is probably going to crack, and crack quite violently as you can see in the photo below. That photo shows exactly how the pieces were positioned after the big bang. The owner did not move them in any way. So, get a real pizza stone. Several of the ceramic charcoal cooker manufacturers sell very good pizza stones. It's worth the money.

↺#pizzastone

Remote thermometers like the Polder use an armored cable to connect the probe to the base unit. This cable can only take so much heat. We don't know how much is too much, but we do know putting in the flame will fry it! (Don't ask how we know.) One thing you can to do to prolong the life of your probe is to wrap the cable loosely with aluminum foil. Take a piece about 1.5 inches wide and use it to loosely wrap the cable. (Note that there have been warnings, including a few from us, that wrapping the cable makes the heat worse and that you should merely place a layer of foil below the cable to shield it. We ran a little experiment with two identical thermocouples, one wrapped and one bare. The wrapped thermocouple did get a few degrees hotter, but not enough to be significant.)

The probe and cable also shouldn't be submerged in water as moisture can get down into the probe and mess it up. We have read of home-brew methods of fixing a wet probe and sealing it, but it is probably just easier to keep the dang thing dry to begin with.

Some remote thermometers use thermocouples to measure temperature and thermocouples have two different modes of failure. Thermocouples use two wires made from different metals that are soldered together at the tip where the reading is taken. If you kink the cable and break one of the wires, the thermocouple will read some enormously high value. If you kink the cable and cause the two wires to touch in the middle of the cable (which is outside your cooker), the thermocouple will read whatever the temperature is outside your cooker at the point where the two wires have shorted. Be careful with thermocouple wires so as not to kink them. ↺#polderfry

If you leave your Egg out in the rain uncovered and it subsequently gets REAL cold, the gasket can get wet and then freeze, preventing you from opening the lid. Obviously, covering the Egg will prevent this. Also, placing a strip of aluminum foil between the base and the dome will also prevent them from freezing shut.

Once the Egg is frozen shut, however, you can usually get it open by lighting a Weber starter cube and dropping it in through the top vent or placing it into the bottom of the Egg through the bottom vent. Any method you can use to get heat into the Egg will warm the ceramic, thaw the gasket and allow you to open the lid. ↺#frozen

Most likely you have melted one or both of the gaskets due to high heat and the two gaskets are now melted together. This can happen when you have a flashback because the intense flames pouring out of the cooker can heat the gasket to the melting point. It can also occur if you have a significant gap between the base and the lid and then you do a high temperature cook. Again, the heat escaping the cooker through the gap can melt the gasket. Finally, this could also happen if you you allow too much of the gasket to overhang the inside edge of the lid and base when you install a gasket. The portion of the gasket that is actually inside the cooker is then exposed to more intense heat than the portion of the gasket which is between the lid and base.

If you cannot open the cooker with the use of moderate force, you will have to pry the two gaskets apart. You may be able to use a table knife to part the gaskets if they are not seriously melted together. Otherwise, you will need to use something like a utility knife to cut through the gasket. This will most likely ruin the gaskets and you will have to replace them. One last method you might use in desperation (we did) is to take a large flat bladed screw driver and hammer it between the two gaskets. Then you can twist the screwdriver to force the lid and base apart. This will definitely ruin your gasket, but desperate times call for desperate measures. ↺#meltedgasket

You may notice a hot spot develop in your fires that is at the back of the cooker, and possibly a little to the right of center. This is a natural result of the fact that the lower vent is at the front and a little to the left of center. When air enters the cooker through the bottom vent, it more or less shoots into the bottom of the firebox and crosses to the back and then is directed up the back of the fire box. As you can probably guess this extra flow of air will cause the fire to grow faster and hotter where it comes up the back side of the cooker.

Some things you can do to deal with this hot spot are:

• Rotate your grid so as to give all the food equal time over the hot spot.
• If you are using a plate setter for either indirect cooking or for pizza, place one leg at the back. This will encourage the air to spread to either side of the leg, thus spreading the hot spot into a hot region.
• Rotate the firebox so that the hole in the base does not line up directly with the lower vent. Be warned, though, that this will restrict airflow and make it difficult to get hotter temperatures.

↺#hotspot

In wetter climates, you may find that mold will grow in your cooker if you don't use it that often. First, how to get rid of it? Light up a hot fire in the cooker and let it just burn all the mold away. Second, how to prevent it? Well, any technique that can be used to prevent moisture from getting into the cooker will help:

• Keep the cooker covered as much as possible.
• If it is a real problem, try this: After you are done cooking, let the cooker heat up for about 20 minutes after you remove the food. This will help to drive some of the moisture out of the cooker. Let the cooker cool, then close the vents tight.
• If you can't keep the cooker covered, use whatever cap or top that comes with the cooker that keeps out moisture. In the case of Big Green Egg cookers, use the ceramic cap to shut the upper opening, not the daisy wheel. The ceramic cap will keep water out of your cooker, the daisy wheel will not.
• Also, if you can't keep the cooker covered, water can drip down into the cooker through the hole for the thermometer. Depending on how tight your thermometer stem fits in the hole, you may wish to somehow cover this hole. Chewing gum? We don't know, but that's one source of moisture getting into the cooker.

We have also noted that the place where the mold grows first is where there is grease inside the cooker. Grease appears to be a super food for mold. Cleaning the grates of all grease after cooking will help to reduce the growth of mold. A good hot fire every now and then will reduce the amount of grease on the walls of the cooker. But managing the grease will help you manage the mold. ↺#mold

Yes, this is normal. In the world of ceramics this is called "crazing" (if it was unintended), or "crackling" (if it was intended). If you have a cooker like the Big Green Egg, Primo or Kamado Joe which have a glaze on them, you will most likely see this crazing/crackling. It does no harm, and is no reason to be concerned. If you should have chunks of ceramic popping out or big chips coming off, that would be a different matter. But the fine spiderwork of tiny cracks is normal and can be ignored. You can see the type of cracks on question in the photo at right.

All of the five Big Green Eggs, the Primo Oval, and the two Kamado Joe cookers that we have owned were like this when they were brand new and it never created any problems. Nor has the crazing gotten any worse with time. This is just normal for the ceramic glaze used on some cookers. You may not notice it at first, but it tends to stand out if you take a bit of ash and rub it on the glaze. ↺#glaze

Well, when the rear hatch on our mother's Plymouth mini-van wouldn't stay open, she used a broomstick to prop it open. However, this isn't such a good idea on charcoal cooekrs, so we have two suggestions. First, if you own an Extra Large Egg, you may have one of the older hinges which had this problem. Call the Big Green Egg headquarters in Atlanta to see about a replacement. However, if you own a Large Egg, you may have installed the hinge upside down. Yes, this is possible and it happens. Rather than show you how to install your hinge here, we suggest you get the assembly instructions and check them carefully to insure you have installed the hinge correctly. If your dealer assembled the Egg for you, then of course, contact your dealer if necesssary. And if all else fails, contact BGE headquarters in Atlanta for help.

Some kamado-style cookers like Kamado Joe have adjustable springs in their hinges. Consult your owner's manual for how to adjust the hinge springs. ↺#lidstayopen

You can make minor repairs to broken ceramic cookers using a product called JB Weld. Here's a link to our webpage where we show step by step how we repaired a broken cooker: How To Repair A Ceramic Cooker

Others have reported success in making repairs using furnace cement, but we have no experience with it. ↺#repair

Yes you can! You can glue a broken firebox back together with a product called JB Weld. Here's a link to our webpage where we show step by step how we repaired a broken firebox: Repairing A Ceramic Firebox With JB Weld

Others have reported success in making repairs using furnace cement, but we have no experience with it. ↺#repairfb

Don't worry, all is not lost. If you have used lighter fluid in your ceramic cooker or have bought a used cooker that smells of lighter fluid, you will need to heat your cooker to 500°F (260°C) for about an hour. Let your cooker cool and then repeat several times. To test this advice (which, oh by the way, comes from Big Green Egg's own FAQ), we deliberately soaked a medium Big Green Egg cooker with lighter fluid. You could smell it in the front yard. A few hours of high heat operation got rid of the smell. ↺#jumplighterfluidrepair

Dome thermometers on kamado-style cookers often get moisture in them and this moisture most often shows up on the dial glass. The moisture can make it hard to read the thermometer, so you might want to get rid of it. And getting rid of it is pretty easy. Just place your dome thermometer in a 350°F oven for 30 minutes then turn off the oven and let it cool. The moisture will vanish! ↺#jumpwetthermometer

If you find that smoke leaks from around the edges of your stainless steel lower vent, then probably the silicone adhesive used to seal the vent to the cooker has failed. The lower vent assembly is held onto the cooker with some small nuts and bolts, but silicone sealant is used to fill the gap between the vent and the ceramic. If you just have a small leak, you can try dabbing a bit of clear silicone sealant between the vent and the ceramic. However, it isn't hard to just redo the seal completely.

The lower vent is held in place with four nuts and bolts and sealed to the ceramic with silicon adhesive. (Note that on smaller cookers like the MiniMax, there are only two bolts holding the lower vent in place.) The following photo shows the location of the four bolt heads on the outside of the cooker:

If you remove your grid, fire ring and firebox from your cooker and look down into the cooker, you should see the four nuts that hold the vent onto the cooker:

Remove the nuts and washers (don't lose them!) and tap on the bolts so you can pull them out from the outside. Now you can use a screwdriver or putty knife to pry the vent away from the cooker. Once the vent is removed, you can use any sharp tool to scrape the old silicone off the vent and off the cooker. Before applying a new bead of silicone sealant, it would probably be wise to use some alcohol or acetone to clean the vent and the ceramic. (Don't listen to the nervous Nelly's who tell you not to use ANY chemicals on your cooker lest they soak into the ceramic and ruin your cooker for evermore. Alcohol and acetone are recommended by Big Green Egg and they are probably the most nervous of manufacturers out there.)

As for which clear silicone sealant to use, it depends on how hot you let your cooker get. If you keep it under 400-450°F for normal cooking, any silicone that says on the package that it can handle 400°F or more will do. You do not need to purchase some ultra high temperature silcone. The temperature of the ceramic down around the lower vent will never exceed 200-225°F. We measured the temperature around the lower vent of a large Big Green Egg cooker that had been cooking at 400°F for 2 hours and this is what we found:

If, on the other hand, you do high-temperature cooking such as pizza where the ceramic gets truly hot (or if you feel the need to do "clean burns"), you want to get a high-temperature silicone sealant that will work at least up to 500°F. There are silicone sealants out there that can deal with 700°F and these would be preferable. We heated up a large Big Green Egg cooker to 750°F for 90 minutes and the temperatures of the ceramic around the perimeter of the lower vent ranged from 350°F to 463°F:

Whichever sealant you choose to use, apply a nice thick line of sealant around the inside edges of the stainless steel vent. Don't apply sealant to the screw holes; go around them. Then you can press the vent to your cooker, insert the bolts and install the nuts. Let it dry according the manufacturer's instructions and you should be good to go! ↺#jumplowerventleak

It depends on how hot you let your cooker get. If you keep it under 400-450°F for normal cooking, any silicone that says on the package that it can handle 400°F or more will do. You do not need to purchase some ultra high temperature silcone. The temperature of the ceramic down around the lower vent will never exceed 200-225°F. We measured the temperature around the lower vent of a large Big Green Egg cooker that had been cooking at 400°F for 2 hours and this is what we found:

If, on the other hand, you do high-temperature cooking such as pizza where the ceramic gets truly hot (or if you feel the need to do "clean burns"), you want to get a high-temperature silicone sealant that will work at least up to 500°F. There are silicone sealants out there that can deal with 700°F and these would be preferable. We heated up a large Big Green Egg cooker to 750°F for 90 minutes and the temperatures of the ceramic around the perimeter of the lower vent ranged from 350°F to 463°F:

↺#whichsilicone

Kamado Joe casters just aren't very good, so eventually you will need to replace them. What you need to know to do this is contained in our article: How To Replace Casters On Kamado Joe Carts ↺#kjcasters

Now here's a controversial topic! When you read a lot of the cookbooks or articles in papers, they always tell you to soak your smoking wood chips or chunks before placing them on the fire. If you ask on many online forums, everyone chimes in about how the chunks will just give off steam until the water is gone and then they will start to smoke so you are only delaying the smoke production. It turns out that the real answer is "it depends."

Wood is composed of three primary components: cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. These three materials burn at temperatures ranging from 390°F to 750°F. When they burn at low temperatures, they are transformed into various molecules which produce the smoke flavor we all know and love. For example, cellulose and hemicellulose break down into molecules which produce sweet, fruity, flowery and bread-like aromas. And lignin breaks down into volatile molecules which produce the aromas of vanilla and cloves, as well as other spicy, sweet and pungent aromas.

Production of these desired aromas which translate into the pleasant smokey flavor we seek takes place at low smoldering temperatures between 570°F and 750°F. However if they burn at higher temperatures, the molecules which produce these wonderful flavors are themselves broken down into smaller molecules which are either flavorless or harsh. Charcoal, being almost pure carbon, burns at about 1800°F. Therefore if you are going to place your smoking wood directly on your fire, you should soak the smoking wood to cool the charcoal and reduce the combustion temperature. On the other hand, if your smoking woods are wrapped in foil or in a smoking box, thus protected from the direct heat of the burning charcoal, soaking isn't necessary.

One curious side note involves mesquite. Most people will recommend against using mesquite as a smoking wood except for use with meats like beef which can take strong flavors. Mesquite is about 64% lignin (hickory is only 16% lignin) and the more lignin in the wood the hotter it burns. And of course as we have just explained, the hotter the combustion the more that the beneficial flavor-producing molecules are broken down in harsh-tasting molecules. ↺#soaksmokewoods

You will hear the advice to wait for good smoke before putting your food in the cooker, where "good" smoke is usually described as thin blue smoke. But why is there good smoke and bad smoke? And if you have to wait for the good smoke, can you add smoking chunks later in the cooker without risking bad smoke? You can read all about this topic in our little essay, Good Smoke Vs. Bad Smoke. ↺#goodsmoke

We did a review of eight different brands of hickory smoking chunks to try to answer this question. The answer is a resounding NO! You can read our in-depth report on hickory chunks for more details. ↺#hickorychunks

If ever there was an old wive's tale in barbecue this one must be it. First of all, meat doesn't absorb smoke. Smoke only affects the surface of the food. This notion of meat absorbing smoke probabaly originates from confusing smoke flavor with the smoke ring. While the smoke ring penetrates the meat, smoke flavor stays primarily on the surface. While the chemical reactions which form the smoke ring do only occur below certain temperatures, smoke flavor will continue to develop at any temperature as long as there is smoke present in the cooking chamber. ↺#absorbsmoke

Obviously, to a certain extent the amount of smoke flavor which develops is dependant on the amount of smoke to which you subject the meat. However, smoke vapors are deposited on the surface of the meat more efficiently if the surface of the meat is moist. Therefore, increasing the humidity of the air in the cooker can aid in the development of the smoke flavor. This can be done with a drip pan filled with liquid. However, it shouldn't be necessary to do this in a ceramic cooker since the very nature of cooking in a ceramic cooker is to maintain high levels of moisture in the cooker. Another way of keeping the surface of the meat moist, if needed, is to spray the surface of the meat with water, apple juice, etc. ↺#increasesmoke

A smoke ring is the pink to red ring of coloration which can penetrate the surface of a piece of meat as deeply as a quarter inch. It is caused by a series of chemical reactions which take place when meat is slowly heated by the burning of organic fuels. Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) which is formed when these organic fuels (wood, charcoal, even gas!) burn, dissolves on the surface of the meat where it is converted to nitrous acid (HNO₂). The nitrous acid diffuses into the meat (hence the penetration of the smoke ring's coloration) where it is then converted to nitric oxide (NO). Finally, the nitric oxide reacts with myoglobin (a protein in meat which contributes to it's color) to form a stable pink molecule that forms the color of the smoke ring.

Note that the smoke ring only forms while the meat is below a certain maximum temperature, in the vicinity of 170°F. Above this temperature, the myglobin breaks down and the smoke ring can no longer develop. Also, the smoke ring takes time to develop. If the meat is rapidly heated to this temperature, the reaction doesn't have a chance to occur. But if the meat is allowed to rise slowly to this temperature over the span of an hour or two, then a smoke ring can develop. ↺#smokering

Most people, when they roast a piece of meat in their oven, expect the internal temperature of the meat to rise slowly, but steadily, from the time they put the meat into the oven until the meat is ready. However, if you slow cook a piece of meat like a pork butt or a beef brisket which has lots of connective tissue in it, you will observe that the internal temperature of the meat steadily rises for a while, but then it stops. It will stay at some temperature, perhaps even fall a few degrees, for a very long time and then resume climbing. What you are witnessing is the temperature plateau which occurs when the meat gets to the internal temperature at which all that connective tissue starts to break down and evaporative cooling starts to occur.

When you slow cook a butt or a brisket, the collagen in the meat will be converted by the heat into gelatin. If you took high school chemistry, this is sort of like fractional distillation. At first all the heat going into the meat is raising the temperature of the meat. However, when you reach somewhere in the vicinity of 150-170°F, the connective tissue in the meat (collagen) begins to convert to gelatin. It takes a lot of energy to do this, so now all the heat going into the meat is fueling this conversion and no heat is available for raising the temperature of the meat. In fact, the temperature of the meat can actually go down a few degrees. However, once the conversion is mostly complete, then the heat that is going into the meat is once again available for raising the temperature of the meat and the temperature once again begins to rise.

But now science also tells us that evaporative cooling is the main contributor to the plateau or "stall". As moisture in the meat is converted from liquid to gas, a large amount of heat is consumed to produce this conversion. This evaporation of water consumes enough heat that there is little heat left for raising the temperature of the meat.

Typically, if you cook an 8-pound pork butt low and slow, it might take anywhere from 15-20 hours for the internal temperature of the meat to reach 200°F, the temperature when it will be moist, tender and pullable. It might take 3 hours for the meat to reach the plateau temperature and another 3 hours to rise from the plateau temperature to the finished temperature. For the remaining 9-14 hours, the meat's temperature will hover around the plateau temperature. This is when you need to be patient. If the heat of the cooker is too high and you try to force the meat through the plateau, you can do it, but the conversion of collagen to gelatin will be incomplete. This is a bad thing because this conversion from collagen to gelatin is what turns the tough dry meat into moist tender meat. The gelatin is what makes it moist! ↺#plateau

This is just another word for the temperature plateau. See our FAQ entry "What Is The Temperature Plateau?" ↺#stall

No, this is a misconception that comes from confusing smoking or barbecuing with grilling. Grilling is done at high temperatures and sauce should only be applied right before the meat is done so as to prevent any sugar in the sauce from burning. However, when you are barbecuing, you are cooking at temperatures below 300°F. Sugar caramelization occurs between 320°F (golden stage) and 350°F (dark brown stage), so sugar isn't even going to start to burn until it gets above 350°F. Sauce when you like when barbecuing since the temperature will never get high enough to burn the sugar. ↺#bbqsauce

Again, no problem! We have used the following procedure to refrigerate pulled pork and then reheat the next day for serving:

Pull your pork while it is still warm and place it in 2" deep foil pans. Cover the pans with foil and then refrigerate them. The next day about an hour before you wish to serve your meat, place the foil pans into a 350°F oven for 30 minutes. Check one of the pans and heat some more if necessary. When ready to serve, just take off the foil, add some BBQ sauce (our favorite for pulled pork is our Western North Carolina Style Barbecue Sauce) and possibly some of the rub you used to cook the pork. Give it a stir and you are ready to serve. ↺#reheatmeat

We have kept pork butts in a cooler for four hours and the butts were still too hot to pull with bare hands. Of course, we realize that this doesn't mean much since the human threshhold for pain from heat is about 115°F, well inside the danger zone. So, we conducted a more rigorous test and produced a web page on the topic. Click Here to read our web page on holding meat in a cooler. ↺#holdingmeathowlong

Here is how you can figure how much brisket or pulled pork you need to prepare to serve a large crowd. There are several things to consider:

• For pulled pork or brisket, a typical sandwich (or serving) is 4 oz of cooked meat.
• For adult males, you might want to plan on 2 servings per person.
• For women and children, plan on one serving per person.
• The average butt loses about 40% of its weight while cooking. Therefore a pound (16 ounces) of uncooked meat will yield 9.6 ounces of cooked meat. 9.6 ounces is 2.4 servings, so every pound of uncooked meat that you start with will yield 2.4 servings.

So, first figure out out many servings you need (2 servings per hungry eater, 1 serving per ordinary eater). Then divide the number of servings by 2.4 servings per pound of uncooked meat and you have the total number of pounds of uncooked meat you need. Here, then, is an example:

10 men and 10 women would require about 30 servings. (2 x 10 men = 20 servings, 1 x 10 women = 10 servings.) Divide 30 servings by 2.4 servings per pound of uncooked meat and you get 12.5 pounds of uncooked meat.

Or from a real-life example:

We were asked to cook pulled pork for a women's shelter. There were 37 women, but these were 37 hungry women (many took a second sandwich with them after dinner), so we figured 60 servings. 60 divided by 2.4 is 25 pounds of raw meat, which is just about what it took.

↺#howmuchmeat

Typically, the answer to this question is "no." If the two butts (or any pieces of meat, for that matter) are not touching each other, then you have two separate pieces of meat that should cook in about the same amount of time that it would take to cook either one by itself. If you stack them or have them pressed together, now you are beginning to create a single larger piece of meat which will take longer to cook than each piece by itself. ↺#twobutts

Many temperature controllers and remote thermometers use thermocouples in their probes. The most common failure mode for thermocouples is a break in the two wires that make up the sensing circuit in the probe. When continuity is lost due to a broken wire, the thermometer gets a ridiculously high value for the temperature. It therefore alerts you to the problem by displaying any number of error indications like "999", "hi", or "EEEE". If you have a spare probe, try it to see if the problem goes away.

Another failure mode for thermocouples is when the cable gets kinked and the two wires don't break, but instead touch each other. This creates a junction at the point of the short, and this now becomes the location that the thermocouple will sense. So, if the cable has a short and the short is located outside your cooker, the thermocouple will report whatever the ambient temperature is outside of your cooker.

Another cause can be that the system unit or base unit is too cold. Try bringing the unit indoors if the temperature outside is below freezing and see if the problem clears up. ↺#badprobe

First of all, you must understand that blower-based temperature controllers can only raise the temperature of your cooker. They do this either by running their blower or opening their damper to feed air to the fire. They cannot actively lower the temperature. They rely on the fact that when the blower isn't running or the damper is closed, there isn't enough air getting into the cooker to keep the fire burning hot. When the controller stops the blower or closes the damper, it is relying on the natural cooling that occurs in your cooker when the fire starts to recede.

So when your cooker reaches its target temperature, the controller will stop the blower. This should slow down the flow of air into the cooker enough that the fire will recede and the cooker's temperature will level off. If the temperature keeps rising above your target temperature, there is only one reason and that is that too much air is getting into the cooker. How can this happen? Things to check are:

• Is the top vent of your cooker open too far? Try closing it up a small amount and see what happens.
• If your controller's blower has a damper, try closing the damper a bit to reduce the amount of air that can flow through the blower, even when it is not blowing.
• Is your gasket in good condition? Air may be leaking into the cooker through the gaskets.
• Are the cables that run into the cooker creating an air leak?

Just remember that if the temperature of the cooker is rising even though the blower is off, the problem is ALWAYS too much air. ↺#airleak

Flashback is probably the single most important safety issue that you should acquaint yourself with. We have an entire page devoted to the topic. Click here to visit our page on flashback. ↺#flashback

Backdraft is another word for flashback. In fact, backdraft is the more correct word for this phenomemon. Backdraft is the abrupt burning of superheated gases in a fire, caused when oxygen rapidly enters a hot, oxygen-depleted environment; for example, when you open the lid of your cooker. If you have a relatively hot fire going, the cooker will be filled with volatile organic compounds that are being driven off the charcoal. If your vents are closed, these VOC's cannot burn due to lack of oxygen. Opening the lid to your cooker provides the rapid inrush of oxygen that can then lead to what almost seems like an explosion of flame pouring out of your cooker.

Under some circumstances, you may also see flames coming out of your bottom vent. Given adequte airflow, these VOC's will be burning in the cooker with a light blue flame. If you then close the top vent on the cooker, the air in the cooker can no longer exit the cooker through the top. As the air heats up more and more, it expands and the only place it has to go is out the bottom vent. Thus you may see puffs of ash coming out of the bottom vent. If the fire itself is hot enough and there are enough VOC's present, burning VOC's will exit through the bottom vent and you will see a light blue flame licking up the outside of your cooker. You can immediately stop the flame by either closing the bottom vent or by opening the top vent, thus allowing the air in the cooker to resume exiting through the top.

To avoid backdraft to begin with, avoid closing the vents when you have an established hot fire. Closing the bottom vent first when you do need to shut things down will avoid the issue of flames shooting out the bottom. If you do need to open the lid of your cooker when you have a hot fire going, the conventional wisdom is to "burp" your cooker by opening the lid a tiny bit to create a "mini" backdraft or two, then opening the lid all the way. However over time, burping will damage your gasket as it exposes the gasket to extreme temperatures. The best way to prevent backdraft is to open your top vent followed by your bottom vent to let oxygen into the cooker and allow the gases to burn off safely. Then you can safely open the lid to your cooker. ↺#backdraft

This is another important safety question that you should probably look into. We currently have a series of four articles about this subject that you may wish to read.

• In our first article, "How To Avoid A House Fire Or Serious Accident By Using The Proper Base For Your Big Green Egg", one of our readers explains why you need to protect your table, and details his particular solution for doing so.

• In our second article, "What Material Should You Use Beneath Your Kamado-Style Cooker On A Wood Table?" we test a variety of materials such as concrete pavers, two types of firebrick, vermiculite and sheets of calcium silicate to see how well they insulated a wood table from a hot cooker.

• In our third article, "How Well Does A BGE Table Nest Protect A Wooden Table?" we compare using a Big Green Egg Table Nest against using vermiculite bricks for use in protecting your wood table from heat radiating from a ceramic cooker.

• Finally, in our fourth article, "Using Ceramic Tile Or Bluestone Beneath A Kamado-Style Ceramic Cooker" we look at using two more materials that you often see people suggest using beneath their cookers, ceramic tile and bluestone (or slate).

↺#eggbase

We have done quite a bit of research into the safety of using Rutland, Cotronics and Nomex gaskets on ceramic charcoal cookers and have documented our findings in these articles:

• Rutland Gasket Safety Information
• Cotronics Gasket Safety Information
• Nomex Gasket Safety Information

The short answer is that based upon our research, there is no reason to suspect that the Rutland, Cotronics and Nomex gaskets are not safe.

Of course, you should read any information available about the material you are going to use and make an informed decision regarding the safety of using that material. ↺#gasketsafety

We have addressed this question in our report on Using Galvanized Metal In Cookers. The short answer is, yes it is safe to use galvanized metal in charcoal cookers. ↺#galvanized

JB Weld is a two part epoxy/hardener combination and it is easy to see why you might think twice about using it in a ceramic cooker to make repairs. However, it is indeed safe to use in this manner. JB Weld's FAQ states that the cured material is inert. Their FAQ only says that it shouldn't come into direct contact with food. In addition, we have made repairs with JB Weld and found that while freshly cured JB Weld will emit an odor after heating above 400°F, this odor disappears after a few hours of heating. So we conclude that it is perfectly safe to use JB Weld to make repairs to components of your ceramic cooker.

For more information about using JB Weld to make repairs to your ceramic cooker, see the following two articles:

• Repairing A Ceramic Charcoal Cooker With JB Weld
• Repairing A Ceramic Firebox With JB Weld

↺#jbweld

An Eggnest is the metal frame on wheels that you can buy to hold a Big Green Egg. Other manufacturers also make carts that hold their cookers. They are quite handy if you don't choose to do something fancy like build a table or enclosure for your cooker. However, these carts can be a little bit tricky to drive. The wheels on these carts can be relatively small and thus when moving them, if you run into a pebble or the gap between boards on your deck, the cart may suddenly stop. Thus we come to this bit of advice. Never, ever push a cooker in an Eggnest or other type of cart. If it comes to an abrupt stop, you may end up pushing the whole thing over resulting in a broken cooker. Make it a habit to always pull the cooker and the nest/cart towards you when moving them. We personally like to grab the nest itself and pull, rather than grabbing the cooker by the handle or hinge and pulling. Getting a grip lower down makes it less likely that you will be able to pull the whole thing over. ↺#eggnest

Well, we can certainly tell you where you shouldn't lift your cooker. Do not lift your cooker by grabbing the hinge in the back. Do not lift your cooker by grabbing any brackets for side tables. Do not lift your cooker by the handle. Essentially, do not lift your cooker by anything attached to the bands that hold your base and lid. If you do so, the base or lid may slip out of the band and it all may fall to the ground.

Instead, look into something called a pot lifter. Or for large cookers and smaller, you can take the lid out of the band and then reach down into the cooker and grab it by the lower vent. Helpers can grab the rim of the base and provide assistance. ↺#tag

Generally speaking, no. Your cooker is heavy enough to withstand quite strong winds. However, there have been a number of reports of cookers in carts/nests with wheels getting blown off of patios or slabs because the wheels weren't locked. Lock your wheels if you have them, since damage like this is not covered by any warantees. ↺#tag