Big Green Egg hacks

Been reading how to do a raised grid on the cheap for more room. I did three posts instead of 4, and got cheap 17.5" diameter chrome grid from a friend. All stainless hardware was $10 at Home Depot. It fits like a BOSS. If it works out as well as I think it will, I'll upgrade to a stainless grid. Just wanted to share and see what you fellow Eggheads have done.

Seems like an excellent idea, what would an all stainless grill run for an XL BGE? (And where would I get one?)

I like it. I had the mini-max for on location cooking (small house and not a secure backyard) and it's temp was really hard to control. Looking forward to getting a larger place with a secure backyard to get the XL, i'd be happy cooking on it everynite! Using my friends XL at shore house, always have problems with toasting bread or melting cheese on burgers while the lower grill is just way too hot, was thinking about something like what you did, glad to hear it works, gonna try it out next weekend!

Smoked 27 pounds of brisket flats using this set up last week. Worked really well. Two flats on the bottom, one on the top. Good luck getting your Egg. I use it often.

The airflow on the mini-max is not as straightforward as it is on the larger grills. Can be managed though. I like it for road trips, deer camp, would be great for tailgating but I don't do such.

The biggest change I made was cast iron grates for both the large and the mini, the ash baskets work well, Looflighter to get it going and thermometers. Lots of thermometers.

If I start doing more smoking on the large I'm going to dry the double racks.

I haven't had much luck with the looftlighter. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I liked the fire squares but they take a while. I'm kinda liking a chimney starter then dumping into the BGE, then unlit charcoal on top of it. Still experimenting tho.

Love the Looft!

If you'll: Make sure bottom is clean enough for good airflow and gate is wide open. Stack your charcoal per normal then start a little inwards of 6 oclock with the Looft, rest the barrel on the coals with forced air going towards center and down. Keep it there till you're blowing some sparks. Not the "seconds" they claim, may be up to a minute. When you see sparks back the barrel up a little for wider dispersion of heat. Keep it there until you hear the rushing of superheated air. You'll know it when it happens. Small roar. Should have flames then they'll drop out. Rotate around till about 2:00, barrel facing inward towards center, rest it until sparks - should be quicker this time - then back the barrel up and wait for that roar again. Rotate to about 10:00 and repeat. After 10:00 is going I revisit the three spots in order just to see the flames again. Then drop the lid with the top cap off, chimney wide open. Observe the smoke and in about 15 your smoke will be steady and the grill should be in the 5-600 range. Put the top cap on and adjust top and bottom air gates.

Couple variants.

For low temp, put the looft at dead center and get it going good. Listen to the roar. Close lid and do rest of stuff.

For mini I typically start 2 spots. For large I start 3 spots. For XL I'll start 4 spots.

To get there in a hurry add a spot to each.

Report back with pictures.

I've yet to hook up the Digi-Q. Not even out of the box. Tell me it's easy.

My heat gun (paint stripper) works ok.
The partyQ rocks

Good info, Dave! BBQ IQ, you mean? I have the basic one and it's easy but I haven't gotten the hang of the 1-4 air valve thing. And sometimes it struggles to keep up to temp even with a newly cleaned Egg. I think it has a tough time keeping temp when a lot of the coal is ash, clogging up the holes in the bottom cast iron grate. I've even used big a$$ hunks of charcoal to burn longer to no avail. Still, I like it. I use in conjunction with Maverick remote but I wish I had the thermoworks one.