Big Green Egg Frequently Asked Questions

The Egg uses lump wood charcoal as fuel.  Once lit, the vents at the top and bottom of the Egg are used to control airflow and, therefore, the temperature.  By adding or removing the ConvEGGtor, you can use the Egg to cook directly or indirectly, i.e. either straight over the coals like a regular BBQ, or with the ConvEGGtor, like an oven and smoker.

You always cook on the Egg with the lid shut.  Remember if you’re looking it ain’t cooking!

You can use the Egg as a hot and cold smoker.  During a cook, you can add chips and chunks for hot smoking.  See our smoking section for further information on cold smoking and curing.

This depends on the number of people you’re expecting to feed regularly.  As a broad guide, cooking for up to 5 people regularly, we would recommend the Large. Beyond this, it’s likely to be an XL.

The MiniMax is excellent for couples and taking away with you. Its small size, though, limits what you can fit in it. We take ours everywhere in our campervan and have cooked fantastic food on campsites and at the beach.

Give me a call, and we can discuss which size I think would work best for you after I have asked you a few questions to see how you want to use it.

We’ve put together a comparison of the Big Green Egg’s.

The Egg comes with

1. ConvEGGtor
2. Stainless steel grid
3. rEGGulator top for controlling airflow
4. Tel-tru dome thermometer
5. Internals: fire bowl, fire ring, and fire grate. 
6. Getting started guide – although I would argue ours is better!

It’s tempting to think you need a lot of accessories, but this is our go-to pack. We suggest you start small with the following items, and then, if you need more, you can add to them over time.

1. Ash tool – don’t be without one.
2. Baking stone – you need this to make pizzas and bake cakes and breads.
3. Cast iron half-moon grid – great for adding sear marks to steak, chicken, fish and vegetables.
4. Cast Iron half-moon plancha – this is great for sautéeing vegetables and cooking more delicate foods.
5. Vertical chicken roaster – cook the ultimate roast chicken in just over an hour.
6. Charcoal – any restaurant-grade lump wood charcoal. We use Big Green Egg’s Oak and Hickory.

There is a lifetime warranty on the core ceramics, the metalwork has a 5-year warranty, the ConvEGGtor and baking stone has a 3-year warranty to the original purchaser.  

Take a look at the full details on Big Green Egg’s site. 

This is very personal.  We would say absolutely yes!  We think our customers would also agree.  There is no doubt that it is an investment (expensive ceramics and components), but an Egg is way more than just a BBQ; it offers versatility and temperature control.  Think of it as an outdoor oven, smoker and grill.  You can use it for long and slow cooks, e.g. brisket and pulled pork.  You can use it for hot and fast cooks, e.g. steak and pizza.  Helena loves to bake on it.  Once you have an Egg, it becomes a way of life.  Take a look at the recipes section with over 400 recipes to choose from, we hope this showcases what the Egg can do.

The Egg is made from ceramics.  The Eggs are produced in Mexico; the home of ceramics.  The ceramics are NASA quality, which ensures excellent temperature control and superior insulation.  It is built to last a lifetime, and has a lifetime guarantee. It could be the last grill you every buy. 

The Big Green Egg is designed to use restaurant-grade lump wood charcoal. Restaurant-grade just means charcoal that contains no chemicals or accelerants. Big Green Egg sell their own brand of charcoal and we use it here, but that doesn’t mean you can’t buy charcoal from other brands and use it just as effectively.

Natural lump wood charcoal will burn in a controlled manner in the Big Green Egg because you are regulating the airflow, and as a result the temperature of the Egg. One fill of a Large Big Green Egg could last up to 24 hours. Very little ash is produced.

You shouldn’t use briquettes in a Big Green Egg as they contain a lot of fillers to slow their burn down. They will slump when burnt, and the ash may put your Egg out.

We’ve written a whole piece on lumpwood charcoal.

Yes you can.  The Egg is fully weatherproof and designed to be outside all year round.  We store our Eggs outside all year round without covers.  However, if you prefer, you can cover them.

Absolutely, the Egg is fully weatherproof and designed to be used outside, no matter the weather.

Helena always says there are only two things you need to cook all year round: an umbrella and a glass of wine!

Rain, snow, wind and ice won’t affect the performance of your Egg, and there is no reason to stop you cooking in these conditions if you’re hardy enough. You’re not going to break the Egg. The only time you need to be a little careful is if your Egg has frozen shut.

Indoors, the short answer is no!  You sometimes see Eggs on the TV being used inside, but this is in a professional kitchen with commercial extraction. The Egg is so good, though, that you’ll see it in most Michelin-starred kitchens.

Undercover, absolutely in a well ventilated area or under a parasol.  The amount of heat coming out of the top, even during lighting won’t burn a parasol in my experience. Open sided shelters or gazebos like this are perfect.

Before each cook, we recommend using the ash tool to rake the coals. Then, every 5 or 6 cooks, use the ash tool again to remove the ash from the bottom of your Egg. Every 15-20 cooks, it’s a good idea to lift out the insides and give it a brush down.

It’s as simple as that. 

The Egg is simple to light and should only take 15 minutes to get to 180°C after you’ve lit it.

Here are the recommended steps:

1. Firstly rake any old charcoal to knock of the ash.
2. Make a well in the middle to add the new charcoal to. Add new charcoal so it is level with the top of the fire bowl, maybe just above.
3. Add just one starter to your Egg and push it down a little into the middle of the charcoal. Light it.
4. Loosly cover the starter with three of four pieces of charcoal, but allow the flames to come through.
5. Open your bottom vent of your Egg fully.
6. Leave your Egg with the dome open for 10 minutes. There should be little smoke. If it’s really smokey, it’s because you have smothered the fire starter.
7. After the 10 minutes are up, close the dome and open the top vent fully.
8. Your Egg should now heat up, rising to 180°C in 5 minutes.
9. You’re now ready to set the temp, even if it lower than 180°, still take your Egg to 180°C to warm the dome.

If you’re Egg doesn’t get to 180°C in 15 minutes, you may need to clean it out, or let it dry out a little if you’ve not used it in a while.

Take a look at our loading and lighting video.

There are several rotisseries available for the Big Green Egg. The key ones are:

1. LetzQ Spit—launched in 2019, this is the most popular rotisserie. It was designed in the Netherlands by the LetzQ BBQ Team. The motor is on the left side, meaning you take the spit on and off with your right hand. 
2. Big Green Egg’s own rotisserie – a mirror copy of the LetzQ Spit, meaning you take the spit off with your left hand. I’m right-handed and find this more fiddly. This was launched at the backend of 2022. This has now been withdrawn from the US market. It’s also more expensive than the LetzQ Spit.
3. The OnlyFire BRK-6064 —While this may look great, it is cheaper and includes a pizza door. We bought and tried one of these. Not only is the fit terrible, but the construction is cheap. We returned it as it wasn’t fit for purpose. 

We have put together a full review of the first two rotisseries. 

Le Creuset pans work fine but remember if you’re smoking your food then you’re either going to have a lot of smoke residue on the outside of your pan or a long cleaning job. I prefer to have a set of BBQ pans that I don’t mind getting smoky.

The stainless grid is used for direct cooks, especially for cooks where you don’t want the food to stick. I’d use it for:

• Sausages and burgers
• Chicken
• Veg

The cast iron grid is brilliant for searing so it’s main use is when you need to add sear lines to food such as:

• Steak
• Chicken breasts
• Fish (use wider bars on the back)
• Vegetables (use wider bars on the back)

For indirect cooks I always use the stainless steel grid.

The only piece of kit in your Egg you should consider washing is the stainless steel grid. It’s OK to put this through the dishwasher.

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.

I’m not one of these people that worries about fat getting on the plate setter. However some people like to foil the plate setter.

If you do get fat on the plate setter, the easiest way of cleaning it, is just to burn everything off with the Egg set to 350°C.

Any cast iron product benefits from being treated to a little oil and then heated so the oil smokes and burns off. I tend to just use olive oil. I wipe down my dual function metal top (REGGulator or daisy wheel) with paper towel that is dipped in olive oil and then put it into a hot Egg when it’s been turned off. This will be enough to prevent rust.

You’ll need to repeat this process a couple of times a year.

Your thermometer was shipped calibrated but if it has been twisted while it’s been installed it may need to be recalibrated.

Here’s a good video on the replacement process: https://youtu.be/VEBnS1m_-mg

If you find that the dome of your Egg isn’t aligning to the base this is usually down to the metal bands not being level on your Egg. Most commonly you’ll find that the dome is slightly set back from the base. Take a look at your Egg and you’ll probably find that the lower band is sitting further down your Egg than it is at the front.

To rectify this you can loosen your two carriage bolts until the bands are just able to be moved, don’t undo them any further than this without first putting on the two white hinge retainers that came with your Egg. On a large, medium, small, MiniMax and Mini Egg, the top of the lower band should sit level with the join between the Egg and the gasket. For an XL the band is designed to sit about 2 mm below the gasket (use the spacers that came with your Egg).

I find the best way to adjust the band is to hand tighten the carriage bolt until you can still move the band but it will stay where you moved it to. Level the bottom band all the way around and then tighten the carriage bolt until is starts to bend (you can’t over tighten these bolts really).

Now repeat with the upper band. It should also be level. Make sure there’s no gap between the upper and lower gasket before you tighten this fully.

The dome and base should now be more closely aligned.

If your Egg can’t get to 180°C in 15 minutes from lighting it can be due to a number of things:

• Most likely is that the air vents in your firebox and fire grate are blocked with ash or small pieces of charcoal. It’s a good idea to thoroughly clean out your Egg after every 10-15 cooks. By this I mean taking out all the Egg internals and brushing it down with a dustpan and brush. When you take the ceramics out of the Egg be careful with them and always make sure everything is put where you won’t knock it over and break it. I always make a point of laying everything flat.
• Less likely is that your charcoal has got damp. Always store your charcoal in a dry shed or garage, somewhere where it won’t get covered in condensation/dew.

I’ve put together a page on how to set various temperatures on your Big Green Egg. 

The way I like to think of this is that if you could cook whatever you’re cooking on the hob inside, then it’s a direct cook. If you need to cook it in the oven then it’s an indirect cook and you need to use the plate setter,

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.

At higher temperatures it will burn the charcoal much faster so may only go for 2 hours at 400°C.

On the whole you don’t normally need to add more charcoal to an Egg during a cook. We only did it as we were cooking the whole day at a high temperature.

If you do need to do it I find the best way is to pile the burning charcoal up in the middle of the Egg and then put the new charcoal in around the burning charcoal. This allows the Egg to burn from the middle out.

The best way to cool an Egg that has got too hot is just to restrict the oxygen available by closing down the top and bottom vents. This can take a long time though so it’s much better to bring your Egg up to the temperature you want rather than trying to bring it down.

Opening the lid of your Egg will let out hot air, it will also let in more oxygen and so allow the coals to get going better again. Therefore avoid doing this.

Alternatively, you can minimise the gap of the top and bottom vents and add a cold surface to it or place a large pan of cold water inside the Egg.  Be sure to shut the lid asap.

The white plastic things are hinge retainers as shown in the picture below. You’ll need them when you replace your gasket as it’s much easier to do with the dome of the Egg off. Put them in place before you undo the bands to stop the hinge opening.  

Note added November 2024:  These hinge retainers are no longer available and with the new style bands, these hinge retainers are redundant,  We recommend you upgrade to a new set of bands.

Things you should never do with your Egg are:

• Forgetting to burp it above 200°C, you’ll get a flashback and could burn yourself.
• Cooking with the lid up – if you’ve got the lid open it’s just going to get hotter and hotter as you’re giving it more oxygen. Don’t worry if you’ve seen Michelin starred chefs on the TV doing it, they don’t know what they’re doing.
• Washing out the ceramics – ceramics soak up moisture. The way to clean your Egg is to get it hot. It will burn everything off.
• Lighting it with those white firelighters or lighter fluid – they both contain nasty chemicals that will taint the inside of your Egg.
• Use briquettes – they’re 90% filler an once burnt will slump, blocking all your air holes and putting your Egg out.
• Opening the lid to cool it down – you’re just letting in oxygen which in the long run will make your Egg heat up. To cool it down just restrict the airflow.
• Washing your cast iron parts and grates – these will rust if you wash them. Wipe them clean and then coat them in oil.

The following chart from AmazingRibs.com is a great reference. Take a look around their site too because it is a wealth of knowledge.

While timing a cook is a good indicator, it’s much better to check the temperature of most cooks to see if something is done. For example I’ll cook a chicken until the temperature in the thickest part of the meat is 74°C.

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).

There are two or three possible setups for cooking pizza. As with most other things with the Big Green Egg there is no right or wrong way of doing it. However here are the options and the way I cook my pizzas:

1. Plate setter feet up, stainless steel grid and baking stone. This method separates the pizza stone from being directly in contact with the plate setter. This is the same setup I would use for baking. This is my preferred way of cooking a pizza as you are less likely to burn the bottom.
2. Plate setter feet down with the baking stone directly on top. Try and avoid this, the baking stone will just get too hot and you’ll end up burning the bottom of the pizza. Many of the American sites say to use this method for better airflow, but if you’ve cleaned your Egg, you don’t need to compromise and cook this way. 

As I recommended before the Super Peel (available from bakerybits.co.uk) is a brilliant piece of kit. I wouldn’t be without mine. I use this to put the pizzas onto the Egg.

I use the Big Green Egg aluminium pizza peel to take pizzas off the Egg.

The final setup that some of the chefs use is to buy the additional 2 inch fire ring to raise the pizza up slightly more into the dome of the Egg. I have one of these but rarely use it. I haven’t seen the advantages in the one or two cooks I have used it for.

Yes, you can.  A great technique for prologing the life of your planks is to soak them overnight in lieu of them being soaked in just water, add flavourings to the water. Great flavourings are:

• Lemon and lime – lovely citric flavours go well with fish
• Beer, cider and lager

Now instead of using the planks directly over the charcoal, use your ConvEGGtor (plate setter) feet up with the stainless steel grid and place the planks onto the stainless grid. You’ll still get the wood flavouring but it won’t burn your planks away.

Remember always place your planks onto a heat resistant surface when you take them off the Egg.

This is a very personal thing as buying a steak is a normally a compromise between flavour and texture. However it is worth stating that it’s almost always better to buy steak from a good butcher than a supermarket.

The process of ageing meat allows the naturally present enzymes to break down the muscle, making it more tender. Most supermarkets only age their meat for 21 days, a good butcher will go 28 days or beyond, sometimes over 100 days. During this process the meat will dry out and shrink, loosing weight, so a dry aged steak will probably cost more per kilo as the butcher has had to store it and it’s also lost water content meaning the same piece of meat is now lighter.

Ageing will take place on whole joints before they are cut into steaks. Individual steaks shouldn’t be aged.

Having said all that here are my takes on different cuts:

• Rump steak – probably one of the most flavoursome cuts but because this muscle works harder than most of the others here, it can be a little tougher. My local butcher though will tell you it’s one of his favourite cuts because of the taste.
• Picanha – this is the rump cap. Cooked as we did it during the lesson, a reverse sear, this is my favourite joint.
• Sirloin – slightly more tender than rump but with slightly less flavour. Not too fatty. I normally avoid these.
• Rib-Eye – the next step up from Sirloin but with a great fat content. Think of fat as flavour. Even if you don’t eat it you can render it in a hot pan or vaporise it by cooking dirty. This will add flavour back to your steak. This is my go to steak when not cooking a Picanha.
• Fillet – Super tender as this muscle does next to nothing. However there isn’t much fat so there isn’t much flavour. If texture is your number 1 then this is the steak for you.
• T-Bone – this is bone with the fillet on one side and the sirloin on the other. It looks great.
• Cote de Boeuf – a bone in rib of beef, it’s just stunning but very expensive. It’s the ultimate steak if money is no object.
• Forerib of beef – this is normally a 3 or 4 bone rib joint. Do it as a Sunday roast or for Christmas. My favourite way of doing it is the reverse sear it. A 4 bone rib will cost about £130-£150.
• Beef short ribs or Jacobs Ladder – these are from the tougher part of the animal and need to be slow roasted for 8 or 9 hours. People rave about them but I can take or leave them, I’d much prefer most of the cuts above.

The most used method of cooking pork ribs is the 3-2-1 method where the ribs are rubbed with a BBQ rub and then cooked as follows:

• 3 hours indirect
• 2 hours indirect but wrapped in foil with a small spritz of apple juice (1 tbsp per pack)
• 1 hour indirect

During the last 30 minutes you can then apply BBQ sauce.

The rack of ribs should bend when they are cooked but not fall apart. The meat should pull from the bone but not fall off the bone.

If you’re cooking baby back ribs (the much smaller ones) you might want to reduce the timing to 2-1.5-1.

Try some of the rubs from Angus and Oink, their Sweet Bones and Butts rub mixed with their Porky White Chick is a great combo for ribs.

• Hickory – good allrounder and not too bitter.
• Jack Daniels Chips – quite strong so good with red meats.
• Maple – mild to medium with slight sweetness so good with poultry and cheese.
• Mesquite – strong and spicy, great with spiced meat or poultry and oily fish.
• Oak – heavy smoke flavour but great with most red meats.
• Olive – light but very aromatic and so good with red meats, poultry and veg.
• Orange – citrus and tangy, good with fish and poultry.
• Pecan – sweet nutty smoke, good with desserts, game, meats and fish.

The Egg is amazing at keeping a steady temperature and so most of the time doesn’t require a water pan unlike some of the metal BBQ’s on the market. If the cook is at a low temperature, around 110°C, then I wouldn’t normally use a water pan unless the recipe is Egg specific and requires it.

At hotter temperatures the recipe may call for a water pan to create steam.

Remember though once you create steam, your Egg thermometer will read a lower temp than the Egg is cooking at.

The key to crackling is to start with first class pork. Avoid vacuum packed pork from supermarkets or 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.

If you want to score your pork skin for crackling then the best tool to do this with is a retractable blade stanley knife. You can adjust how much of the blade is sticking out to adjust how deep you cut.

Always cut away from you. You might find it easier to cut from the centre of the skin to the edge. You can then turn the pork 180° and then score from the middle to the opposite edge.

Beef short ribs are very easy to cook. However you want to make sure they have a good fat content.

I’d setup the BBQ at 110°C and smoke the ribs with a bit of cherry or sweet chestnut. Cook them for a few hours until the ribs start to go into the plateau at around 70-75°C. At this point I would wrap the ribs in foil tightly, adding a couple of tablespoons of beef stock.

Then cook them until they reach 88-92°C and probe really easily.

If you wrap the ribs I would expect the whole process to take about 5-6 hours.

My personal preference is to cook steaks at between 250°C and 300°C. Any hotter than this and you end up burning the outside before the middle is warmed, any cooler and you don’t get a lovely crust on your steak.

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 .  

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.

This depends on how you are cooking them. If you are cooking dirty I will only flip them once, there’s no need to turn (rotate on the same side). For one cooked on the cast iron grate I would turn it, to give nice sear marks. For one cooked on a cast iron plate then there is no need to turn but moving it once in a while might give you a better crust as you can move it to a piece of the plate the steak hasn’t cooled down.