Getting Started and First Cook On A Big Green Egg - Ace Hardware

hello everyone is chef Jason Morris your Ace Hardware grill expert and I'll tell you what the last YouTube video we made we talked to you all about how to select the best Big Green Egg to fit your very active cooking lifestyle and today we're here to take it a step further now we're going to show you how to light the fires kick the tires and do all things big green egg that's right we're gonna show you how to get this guy up and running we're gonna walk you through a couple tips we have on how to light the fire how to stoke the fire how to control the temperature from the top and the bottom and then we're gonna start you off super super easy and show you how to grill the most epic steak on this ultimate cooking experience so thanks for joining us for this red vest approve video let's get cooking when it comes time to lighten the big green egg do you know what you have a lot of options and here's a couple of the cool tools that we like to help us get the fire started super super fast we've got the ever-so-popular speedy lights those are great those are nice little fire starters that do a fantastic job getting your lump charcoal up and running in a good amount of time then next we've got the igniter which is our charcoal igniter think of that as the jet engine of lighters we've got the loose lighter behind it works the same does the same both of those guys are some of our favorite tools why may you ask well because they get that fire up and running hot I'm talking 0 to 600 in like 15 minutes flat the stump chunks another great option as well those are some ground up stuff chunks obviously they do a good job as well they get the fire going good I have a great smell to them as well all of these things do one thing well get the fire started and that's great we want to make sure on this Safi green egg we'd never use any chemicals additives and definitely no starter fluid to get this thing up and running we're going all that's or learn either use our igniters our speedy lights our stop chunks but that's what it takes to get this guy going and get a nice hot fire next up we've got our big green egg lump charcoal that does a fantastic job as well it's a good premium lump charcoal all natural oak and hickory and it burns nice and hot so alright let's come back over here and let's get this started we're going to show you how to light this fire we're gonna go ahead and use our leuf lighter today like I said a lot of good options we're gonna pick the loof that's gonna help us get this guy lit and do a really nice job for us and look at that we've already added the charcoal - we're about two-thirds of the way full which is where I like it I know that I've got enough lump to carry me through really any project but here we go we've got our lump set and look at this we're gonna go up top we're gonna leave that wide open and down below we're gonna leave that wide open as well both of those wide open really do a nice job of getting that airflow to come up through the bottom to go out through the top and really help build a strong fire so let me set this guy back here we're gonna go ahead and show you how to get this going with the loof the beauty of these lighters and starters we've picked some stuff that goes fast this stuff lights fast gets this egg up and running in a hurry as soon as we see that fire start to go we want to pull back a little bit and let that big green egg lighter or the loof lighter do their thing we want that heat fan to get in there and start to build that fire why are we doing it dead center in the middle well I'll tell you what I like about doing it in the middle it's gonna build a really hot fire zone in the middle we're gonna have beautiful direct heat and then on the outside we're gonna have a little bit of direct heat so when it comes to learning our big green egg which the first couple times you fire it up you've got to learn how that fire works and how this thing operates for you but this is what I found to be a huge success ray and get me up and running look at that fire building how long do I hold the lighter for well I'll tell you what I'm gonna hold it till I have a beautiful Ember pile in the middle maybe the size of a softball I want that to be strong I want that fire to be burning good so that way it gets the temperature built up a lot faster and I can get into the grill even quicker than I normally would a chef tip for you don't worry if this fire goes out if you think it is still lit and it's doing a great job what it's starting to do now is push down and out into that lump and get the rest of the lump live our goal here is to have just a gorgeous center of embers and heat that will really just kind of feed out to the sides eventually and utilize all of this love charcoal to give us a great fire that fire is definitely doing its thing now what I'm gonna do is start to push some of these embers from the side down into the middle and that's okay I want them to cover because what we've done is established a really nice fire in there and now we've got that lump kind of evened out and what we're gonna do next is put the grilled right on then we'll close it and I'm gonna show you how we adjust the top and the bottom see that smoke coming out of the top that is perfect that's what we want that means our fire is building it's getting strong we're burning up some lump charcoal and we're getting ready to go we have the top wide open and we have the bottom wide open because we want that we want that air to go in the bottom and start to pull its way through the top and build our fire nice and big and strong as we see our temperatures start to climb we'll go ahead we're at the 200 degree mark here almost as we see that start to climb into that 300 degree mark then we're gonna start to slow it down the first few times you use your big green egg I'll tell you what's super important learn how to control your flame learn how to control your fire that to me is the biggest tip I can give you what you want to do is watch it get into that 200 range and if you're cooking steaks I'm gonna cook steaks the first time with you just to show you how good they are once we get in that 3 350 range I'm gonna start to adjust everything just a little bit so that we can slow it down and I want to climb into that 500 range easy I don't want to shoot past it and get in that 600 degree range I want to really control a fire coming up so we'll watch this thing grow and we'll come back and show you how to get it adjusted wanting to give you a quick shot kind of as we climb up the temperature here but that fire is still going good I opened it up it's definitely built in there nice and hot we're gonna keep it closed so that we can watch that temperature grow we haven't done anything yet other than leave the top open in the bottom open and we're just watching that temperature climb we are now about eight minutes in that's what we're looking for we're starting to climb up at 300 what you'll notice too out of the top of your big green egg is once the heat starts to build hot hot hot you'll go from smoke that smoke will clear now you'll start to see some of the heat come out of the top that's when we go ahead and adjust it down we'll show you how to do that next well we talked a little bit about how to start the fire and that's cool because that's one of the first steps in getting this egg going right and then we talked a little bit about adjustments how to adjust it up and down and raise that temperature lower that temperature but I want to take it a step further let's go in depth get out been close and personal with the regulator at the top with the flaps at the bottom and I also want to talk to you a little bit about this thing we call the burp so let's get at it and we'll show you a little bit more of that in-depth micro tuning on our Big Green Egg when I got my Big Green Egg I remember they talked a lot about this guy right here this is the regulator this is what regulates the amount of air that's allowed to escape from the top of our Big Green Egg and look at this you've got some huge adjustments right this is a lot of big volume adjustments here and then you also have some micro adjustments because let's face it my backyard may have more wind blowing through it than your backyard some backyards have fencing some backyards don't these are meant to really allow you to control that airflow to get a good consistent even burn and a good amount of heat control so I like to always adjust mine giving myself you know a good flow of air out using the big part and then I can dial it down by 2030 degree income increments using this little micro adjustment here but regulator does a fantastic job now let's talk about the bottom flaps and how we adjust those because I'll tell you what the amount of air initially going in really affects the way your big green egg operates cool thing about these bottom flaps here is look at this I've got wide open on my big green egg allowing a ton of air to go in and straight up the big green egg but now I'm thinking hey you know what I can't dial it down enough to keep the heat down I need to slow the air in down well guess what now you've got a screen so the beauty of that screen is now I can use the screen in conjunction with the opening this slows the air down a little bit but now I'm thinking hey I need to slow it down even more now I've got a flap that can come in and the flaps gonna go through and slow that air down even more I have a favorite setting I love on this egg and I liken it to car racing in car racing they love to keep the turbos really spooled on their vehicles so that there's instant instant power well I look at this as my turbo spooling right so here's my grit by opening I will go half with the screen and then the remaining half which is here I will do the flap this keeps me so to speak kind of loaded up really it's a lot of air flow in there it does perfect for me it keeps it ready for and slow but also if I open the top a little bit and adjust it it allows a lot of that air to push full through and come out the top again this is all about airflow the bottom flap is really the start to air flow and the start to building your heat the top flap is kind of what controls it and makes your micro adjustments if that makes sense but between the top flap in the bottom flap we really get to adjust this thing down to a perfect perfect temperature that's gonna sustain heat for a long time I remember when I got my Big Green Egg to one of the things everybody said is oh hey don't forget to burp it and I'm sitting there thinking burp it what is burping me well think of this as a backdraft situation we are basically controlling a fire in here that we control with the top regulator and the bottom flaps the amount of oxygen it gets so there are some points in here where our adjustments have just the right amount of oxygen that's needed to sustain the fire and keep us going for hours with low and slow if all of a sudden we throw this lid open it sucks in so much air that what happens is you'll get a huge ignition of all that air in there and the flame will come out so what we'll do is we'll give it a birth we'll go like this and as you can see that smoke we're kind of burping it allowing little bits of air and then I'll grab the handle here and slowly open it to allow it to do its thing but the burp is crucial that is a very important part of the Big Green Egg and once again like I said give it a little burp open it nice and slow let that fire pick up you're good to go and you're doing it nice and safe when it comes to your first cook on the Big Green Egg boy I'll tell you what I stuck simple on mine I wanted something that I could do that would be perfect that would come out good I would give me that true charcoal flavor but would also really help me learn my grill a little bit better so I stuck with steaks and pork chops which is what we're gonna do today the nice thing about this is I can really learn to use the middle of my big green egg as that sear station that direct heat and then the way we lit our lump charcoal today it leaves the outside to be a little bit indirect so I can finish my steaks off but I'll tell you what learn everything you can about how this fire works and how your Big Green Egg works and once you've got your adjustments down and your heat and how much charcoal the load have a total blast while the eggs gone we'll take a little minute here and get these guys seasoned up we're just using a little bit of our rubba-dub-- today nice and easy good ins quick and simple but full of flavor we're gonna give those guys to seasoning and again with as much or as little as you like we'll get that on there we'll let that sit on both sides and that will come back and add a little bit more to the other side again adding as little as we want but I like to get the steaks pre-seasoned ahead of time let's give them five ten minutes to warm up let's give them another five or ten minutes to enjoy that rub and then we'll go hot and fast on this big green egg look at that looking for we open that lid at 500 degrees so here's the cool part look at this we're gonna go direct right over the middle because we built up a nice hot fire in the middle the great thing is here's my direct Heat now we've got a little bit of indirect so I can get a good hot sear in the middle flip them on both sides pull them to the outside and get a beautiful finish I'm gonna do my pork right like that and then I'll add my ribeye in there as well we're gonna let those guys go alright we added our steaks look at that right in the middle beautiful direct heat I'm gonna get a good sear on both these guys I'm gonna shut the lid for just a couple minutes we're gonna let that heat build up so we get a beautiful sear and then we'll flip the steaks get a sear on the other side let's give these guys a check oh yeah look at that definitely beautiful perfect time to flip or getting a good sear on there we're gonna give those guys a flip we're gonna take a peek at our steak we've still got a little bit of sear that needs to go on in our steak but we're gonna get a nice sear on the other half of those pork chops we'll close the lid and keep on cooking we're back and we're gonna go ahead now and move those pork chops over to this side and we're gonna let them just get a nice finish on them right we're gonna move that ribeye into the middle the beauty is guess what that ambient temperature is still gonna allow this convection heat to work finish those pork chops off nicely and give us a great cook a great color and a great sear so we'll shut this lid we'll finish that ribeye off when we come back we're gonna flip the ribeye and finish those pork chops we'll go ahead and flip this now let that sear on the other side beautiful what's so awesome about this grill this is the bad bold robust charcoal flavor for me that really finishes everything off quite nicely for me because sometimes I'm in the mood for charcoal look at that I mean it just doesn't get any better than that and here's a cool chef's tip for you remember when we started the fire we added the lump charcoal guess what all we need to do is add a few chunks of wood whether it's maple Hickory oak some big huge nice fat chunks of wood in there that's gonna add some even more intense smoke flavor but a nice even consistent smoke flavor as we go steaks are off and chops are off so now how do we stuff the big green egg well tell you what we're gonna shut the bottom and we're gonna close the top and now the big green egg is snuffed so it'll take a little while for it to cool down we're probably talking about two to four hours for this to cool down the beauty of it is once it's cooled down all we need to do the next time we get ready to light it is stir the lump charcoal get the ash to the bottom and we can easily relight the same ash that's a huge benefit and a huge savings well there you have it this red festive proof video is all about showing you how to use that new big green egg you bought and we started off simple right we did steak we did pork chop something nice and easy we talked a little bit about how to start the fire how to adjust the fire have fun and practice that's the key tip to learning everything there is to know about this ultimate cooking experience hey let us know - in the comments what would you like to see what what do you need help with we want to be helpful we want to teach you everything you need to know to help make you that best backyard griller ever thank you for joining us thanks for cooking with us I'm chef Jason Morris your Ace Hardware grill expert we'll see you next time on another one of our red vest approved videos

Channel: Ace Hardware

Views: 122,115

Keywords: Ace, Ace Hardware, Chef Jason, 5280 Culinary, big green egg, egg, smoker, smoke, smoking, bbq, grill, grilling, grilled, barbeque, recipe, traeger, kamodo grill, ceramic grill, introdcution, 101, how to, tips, advice, product review, cooking, cook, tutorial, burp, burping, ignite, set up, instruction, beginner, charcoal, machine, ceramic

Id: WXoGF2mEO_g

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 07 2018