My father in law left me his big green egg when he moved overseas. I am trying to make good use of it, and while I have grilled many times I am brand new to any kind of long cook times. This past weekend I tired to cook my first pork butt and I was pretty happy with it, but I was wondering if people have good resources / charts they like to use to figure out cook times or top/bottom vent measurements for specific temperatures. I managed to keep the temperature between 250 and 280 for the whole time but it took me a while to find the right configuration (checking and adjusting every 30-40 min but more like every 15 at the start). Is it mostly just getting a feel for it, or is there a more structured approach people recommend?
by hvpeteet
7 Comments
[Captain Ron on the FOGO youtube](https://www.youtube.com/@FOGOcharcoal) channel! He has since left and has his own channel, but there is a ton of content on both.
Welcome to the BGE family! Enjoy it!
You have two options: learn by doing (not a terrible learning curve, btw) or get a temp controller and let the temp probe / fan manage it for you.
Either way will work, it’s really just a preference. The BGE is great on its own for maintaining a steady low and slow cook but a temp controller makes it dead simple.
After cooking on several kamados including the same models I find it varies quit a bit. Even the same kamado particularly in different weather can just behave differently. And then there is lump variance.
So you kind of just need to react based on what the probes tell you and often that requires preemptively doing things (e.g. aiming for a really low temp and then slowly increasing). BTW you should put multiple probes in the grill and you will see just how much variance inside there is. Like one part of the grill can easily be 50 degrees higher even with full deflectors on (wrapping or placing aluminum foil on stoes btw helps this a little bit but still…).
I suppose you can use one of the fans and I have owned some in the past but strangely I prefer manual.
For most cooks though particularly pork butt being perfect temperature wise doesn’t really matter that much. In fact I find the quality of meat can make a bigger difference (e.g. prime brisket vs choice).
As for cook times I have had pork butts take 3x per pound and some 1x per pound. Again timing is difficult particularly bigger cuts.
https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1228229/bge-vent-guide-for-temperature
Good starting place.
It can vary from grill to grill, so any type of directions you see online are really just guidelines.
I think the one gadget that’s been the most useful is a temperature probe you can see remotely and you can monitor the food and the grill temperatures at the same time.
Look at the smobot. Really makes life simple. Otherwise your experience is the norm. Tweak, wait, repeat.
For a low and slow cook, my philosophy is that I want a small fire that I am pressing the gas pedal on and not a big fire that Iʻm pressing the brakes on. This means that I use a fire starter to start it in one spot. I’ll keep both vents wide open for 15-20 minutes then will add the deflector. Then as it gets to around 200 I’ll close the vents down. I want my upper vent to be more open than the bottom vent so that iʻm not braking the fire iʻm pushing it. The bottom vent will be less than a finger width open Nd the top vent slightly bigger. The big thing is be patient and donʻt try to go too fast and make a big fire that you are trying to dampen to stay at temp. I count on 45 minutes to an hour to get my fire ready to put food on