The Green Olive Firewood Company do charcoal that has a much milder smokey flavour. It’s made from SheOak. You need their restaurant grade lump wood charcoal.

Stag Charcoal also produce some great stuff in Hertfordshire. Look for their single species Ash or Birch for a less smokey cook.

When you really get into BBQ then look at some of the excellent charcoal from the Oxford Charcoal company. They have a very good reputation for their single species charcoals. They have a great chart on matching wood to meats and fish.

I prefer to cook steak between 250°C and 300°C. I use the lower of the two temperatures for thicker steaks and the higher temp for really thin steaks where I want a very fast sear. 

My three favourite ways of cooking steak are:

• Dirty – cooked directly on the charcoal
• Seared – cooked on the cast iron searing grid to give the steak a criss-cross finish
• In a cast iron pan – this will give a crust over the whole of the steak. 

All three are great methods so give them all a go and find your favourite.  

The coleslaw was a recipe from Reds True BBQ book I think. I can’t find the book so here is my take on the recipe:

• 1/2 red cabbage sliced finely
• 3 large carrots grated
• 2 peppers (red orange or yellow) sliced finely
• Handful of chopped coriander
• Red onion finely sliced (optional)
• 2 fresh jalapeños deseeded and finely sliced
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Juice 1/2 lime
• 1tbsp quality dijon mustard
• 4tbsp olive oil (light, not extra virgin)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Put it all in a bowl and give it all a good mix together. 

I got the sink from GardenTrends.co.uk. It’s the Beefeater 1100 unit.

There are several great forums online (mostly on Facebook).

• Nuts about barbecue – the smallest of the group but the one just for those of you who have been on a Meat Smoke Fire cooking class. This is the ideal place to ask questions related to what we learned in the class and also what to try next. 
• Big Green Egg BBQers UK – dedicated to cooking on the Big Green Egg and hosted by a UK team. This is a superb source of information. I’m activel involved here. There is a US version but I tend to not pay it too much attention, they’re not as adventurous with their cooks across the pond on the whole so it gets very samey.
• CountryWoodSmoke – UK BBQ – CWS – The UK’s best BBQ forum for every type of outdoor cooking. Again I’m actively involved. It’s run by a top bloke called Marcus Bawden who has experience of cooking on just about everything. 

People to look out for and trust:

• Bill Gardner
• Mark Thomason
• Julie Connor
• Marcus Bawden
• Adam Flint 

There are a number of good butchers online. These are the ones we talked about:

• Turner and George – run by Richard Turner and James George. Richard is the executive chef for Pitt Cue and Hawksmoor. 
• Philip Warren Butchers – based in Launceston Cornwall, these guys supply many top restaurants. They’re two minutes off the A30 if you’re driving through Cornwall.
• Hannan Meats – famous for their sugar pit pork. Worth a try.

As promised I spoke with BarbequeBill (Bill Gardner). He uses The Cornish Fishmonger and has done for a good few years. He now writes for them. 

Here’s what I would buy with an Egg starting with the most important things:

• Plate Setter or ConvEGGtor
• Cast Iron Searing Grid
• Baking Stone
• Vertical Chicken Roaster
• Thermapen MK4
• Meater+
• Tefal Ingenio pans
• EGGspander system
• V-Rack

Because you are able to set the temperature of the Egg just as accurately as you can in the oven, the chicken will take pretty much the same time. It will however be far more moist and have a nice BBQ flavour. 

The key to crackling is to start with first class pork. Avoid vacuum packed pork from supermarkets or even bad butchers, you want the skin to be dry, not soggy. 

I leave my joint uncovered in the fridge overnight, this will dry the skin even further. When you’re ready to cook, pour boiling water over the scored skin, pat it dry and then coat with olive oil and maldon salt. Rub the salt into the scored skin. 

Cook your joint on the Egg. For belly pork I cook it skin side down. Towards the very end of your cook, if it hasn’t already crackled, turn your Egg up to 220°C and let it crackle the skin. It will do this in 15 mins. Keep checking it to make sure it’s not burning. 

Rest your joint loosely foiled.

Big Green Egg do have some cooking books. They’re actually cheaper on Amazon than from Big Green Egg:

• Big Green Egg Cookbook: Celebrating the Ultimate Cooking Experience
• Big Green Egg Cookbook: Cooking on the Big Green Egg
• Ray Lampe’s Big Green Egg Cookbook: Grill, Smoke, Bake & Roast

Having said that I don’t rate any of them. The recipes aren’t ones you are going to want to go back and do over and over. You’re much better off using recipes you can find on the web including this site.

See my page on setting the temperature on your Big Green Egg.

• Change charcoal brands to something to suit your cook. See the next section about different charcoals. Some people will switch charcoal to a type to match their cook and then only use charcoal to get the flavour they are after.
• Use chips – when you are doing shorter cooks you will get more smoke from chips.
• Use chunks – ideally suited to longer cooks where you want smoke for a slightly longer period.

Remember meat takes on smoke when it is cooler and wetter. Therefore you need the smoke at the beginning of the cook. Therefore place your chips and chunks towards the centre of your Egg where the charcoal will be burning at the beginning of the cook.

Be sparing with your chips and chunks. I use less than a handful of chips and maybe just two chunks. Start light and build up to the level of flavour you want. A lot of people overpower their food with the smoke flavour, ruining it in my opinion.

You should always use your Egg in a well ventilated area. However that doesn’t stop you using it under a parasol or roof. The amount of heat coming out of the top, even during lighting won’t burn a parasol in my experience. Open sided shelters are perfect.

Cooking indoors though isn’t recommended. You’ll see restaurants doing it but they have very powerful commercial ventilation systems and safety measures to make sure they don’t poison themselves. An Egg will produce carbon monoxide, which can kill if not ventilated properly. I would never recommend using an Egg indoors. As my wife always says, ‘you only need two accessories to cook outside all year round, an umbrella and a glass of wine’.

You’d have heard me say several times in the class that I cook by temperature and not time. In order to do this you need a thermometer or two.

A Thermapen is my essential tool. That’s why I had my aprons designed with a Thermapen pocket. I wouldn’t be without mine. I personally sell the latest version as it’s waterproof and backlit. It’s so good I have one for classes and one for home use. Cheaper alternatives aren’t as accurate and don’t read temperature anywhere near as quickly, I therefore don’t use them.

The other Thermometers I showed you were the Meater, the wireless probe I used to cook the chickens and the pork. I am now a dealer of these and you will be able to buy the Meater+ in my shop. The block (4 probes) is still not available to the public and might not be until late summer. I may or may not stock this when it is available. 

• Top up the Egg with new charcoal to just above the line where the fire bowl and the fire ring meet.
• Create a small indentation in the centre of the charcoal and put in just one lit fire starter.
• Cover very loosely the fire starter with a few pieces of charcoal, you need to allow a good airflow.
• Leave the lid open and open the bottom draft door. Leave your Egg for 10 minutes to allow the middle of the charcoal to get going.
• After 10 minutes, close the Egg lid and open the cast iron top fully. Remember to position the screw towards you.
• Leave the Egg closed for about 5 minutes until it hits 180°C and has started warming the dome.
• You can now adjust your Egg to the temperature you want to cook at. See my temperature guide.

Do take a look at the Big Green Egg Tips Series. This video covers lighting your Egg,

A dirty steak should only ever be cooked on lump wood charcoal or burning untreated wood. Never make one on briquettes, your steak will end up being covered in the gritty material they are manufactured from.

I cook thinner steaks at a hotter temp (300°C) while doing much thicker steaks at a lower temp (250°C). If my steaks are thicker than 1.5inches, I will then consider doing a reverse sear as we did with the picanha.  

1. Fuel – lump wood charcoal
2. Oxygen – air
3. Heat

If you’re struggling to get the Egg lit and up to temperature fast it’s likely to be one of these three things lacking. Causes could be:

• Your charcoal is damp, make sure you always keep it inside out of the rain and dew.
• There isn’t enough airflow:
  • You may need to clean your Egg. I recommend taking the ash out of your Egg every 5 or 6 cooks using the ash tool and doing a total clean, lifting the ceramics out, every 12-15 cooks.
  • The charcoal you are using has too many smaller pieces, these will block the airflow.

It’s good practice to keep your Egg clean.

• Every cook – rake the left over charcoal from the previous cook and let it fall down into the bottom of the Egg.
• Every 5 or 6 cooks – clear the ash from the bottom of your Egg using an ash tool. If you are going to hoover it out, make sure the ashes are cold, I have a customer who set fire to her Henry vacuum cleaner because the ash was still hot the following day.
• Every 12-15 cooks – lift out all the internals of your Egg and give everything a brush down with a dustpan and brush.

Treat your charcoal as one of the ingredients of your cook.

Obviously some things could be done either way, sausages for example. It’s the same inside, sausages can be cooked in a pan or baked in the oven.

I always have a Thermapen handy to check the temperature. I also use the Thermoworks Smoke when doing longer cooks as I can leave this attached to the Egg and a probe in the meat. I can then monitor the cook from the other end (like a baby monitor).

When cooking pizza I prefer to have the plate setter feet up, the stainless grid on top and then the baking stone. The gap between the plate setter and the pizza stone will stop the pizza stone getting too hot and burning the bottom of your pizza base before the top is cooked.

Never wash any of the cast iron parts or the ceramic parts. Washing the cast iron will cause it to rust. Ceramic is porous and would soak up the water and could then cause damage to your Egg if it was heated rapidly, turning to steam.

To clean your Egg just turn it up to 350°C and it will burn off all the fats. Just wait until any smoke has stopped and you’ll find everything is clean.

I keep all my cooking surfaces and the metal daisy wheel inside the Egg, it’s the best place for them. You can put them straight in after a cook, even with the Egg hot.