Ok I'm absolutely desperate for help. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I was given this medium big green egg and have spent the last 2 weeks playing with it. I CANNOT get it to stay at 250-275 to smoke on it. I have bottom vent maybe an 1/8 and the top Dial the same it always goes 300+
by philip63012
13 Comments
What’s the condition of the gasket, and is the hinge aligned properly?
If there is a gap between the lid and the base, air will be escaping through there increasing the suction rate through the bottom vent.
A way to tell is to put something like a dollar bill in between the lid and base at various points, and see if you can pull it out easily. There are loads of great videos on YouTube on how to align the lid if it’s not closing properly.
Just looking at the photo close up, I can see quite a bit of the gasket at the front, suggesting the lid might have a bit of an “underbite”, and therefore be losing air at the back. With those hinges, [this video](https://youtu.be/y6Zsa1YFh0k?si=AYyUwYlnlBuuBPaO) should help you align it properly.
Lid is definitely misaligned. Maybe other anomalies not apparent in the image apart from lack of handle blocks.
I’ve had a medium for 15 years. Having the bottom vent 1/8 open for 250 is way too much. The bottom vent opening should be about the thickness of a credit card, slightly less than a millimeter.
You might wanna recalibrate the thermometer as well. Those things get outta whack over time.
Low temps are HARD on the egg, don’t beat yourself up. The trick is a longer setup actually. Start with a chimney of lump and no grate or deflector in. Vents wide open, add the lit chimney, close it and wait for the thermometer to read 400-450. Now you have a solid coal base.
Open, add more fuel for however long your smoke is, any wood for smoke, close your vents to what you need (I usually do 1/2” top, 1/8-3/16” bottom) and your deflector plate and grate. Go ahead and put your meat on now too if you want and don’t have lots of white smoke. To get to this point takes 30 mins ish, sometimes 45.
Your dome temp reading should drop quickly to 180-200. In the next half hour it’ll hit 220-240. After 3-6 hours you might by at 250-275 but don’t fret it. Seriously. Smoke absorption after 3 hrs isn’t much, so you got what you could at that low temp and now your cook will just go a *little* faster
like others have said. Lid is misaligned. It’s actually fairly easy to control the temp on a BGE. It’s hold consistent temps for long periods of time. If you can’t get/keep it below 300, there’s something wrong with the egg, not you. But the picture clearly shows the lids not seated correctly.
I’m not good with keeping the temp either and got this tool. FireBoard. Now I’m stress free every cook. https://www.fireboard.com/
Since everyone else chimed in with better advice, I’ll toss an unsolicited tip about refreshing the side shelves.
Instead of dropping a ton of money on new shelves, you can remove the existing wood and trace the outline onto a cedar fence slat and cut them out with the saw if your choice (I used a jigsaw). A single fence slat can replace all four pieces and is the correct thickness for less than $5 and an hour of work.
Welcome to the club!
Replace the cast iron top with a smokeware or a modern bge version after you align the lid. I would do the gasket as well and also check your bottom vent hardware. Easily replaced and they deteriorate over a period of years. Not likely- but make sure the ceramic is not actually cracked anywhere. Get a small fire going and throw some wood on to generate a ton of smoke- close the top vent most of the way and see where smoke is escaping.
In my experience, the dome thermometer reads 25 – 50 or so degrees higher than what the temperature is on the grid when connected to an electronic device. When I’m smoking at 250 per the electronic, it’s reading almost 300 on dome, and both devices are properly calibrated.
Edit – added more detail
I’ve found the key is how the BGE is started. If it heats up too fast, it’s easy to exceed your desired temp. Once that happens, the only thing you can really do is close it down to extinguish the fire and restart.
I’ll light a few spots of the charcoal and leave the lid up while it spreads. I’ll close the lid and leave the vents wide open until it gets over 150F. For a target temp of 250F, I’ll start reducing the vents and have them in the final position once it reaches 200. Both vents will be open maybe a quarter of an inch. The heat will continue to rise for awhile after the vents are reduced.
I still have my daisy wheel cap, like OP.
Is the firebox aligned with the bottom vent and are all of the holes in the box free from ash?
My 2 bits are, first, always start slow. If I’m smoking and not grilling, I don’t use a chimney starter, just a single tumbleweed. You can’t rush the beginning, let it take an hour to come up to temp. Second, I’m not a purist and will use briquettes if that’s all I have access to for grilling, but lump is essential for smoking. While lump can get hotter than briquettes, the other advantage is that they will also get cooler faster when you need them to, whereas briquettes take forever to cool down. Once you are running over 300 with briquettes it’s almost impossible to get it back under 300..