BIg Green Egg Grill

Cowboy charcoal is sold at Home Depo - $8 a bag.

Where is Wicked Good sold?

our local lowes carries cowboy for six bucks and change. as for the other ive never seen it

Wicked Good can be a little tough to find and it is pricey, but worth it. Here is a link to their "where to buy" page.

http://www.wickedgoodcharcoal.com/retail_locations.htm

We use the Weber smoker 22.5 for cooking ribs. I can put 6 slabs (laying flat) on the smoker at one time. Smoked 20 pounds of ribs in 4.5 hours and drank some cold beer. I can smoke a 15 lb turkey with the room this smoker has. I payed $350 for this thing, you may want to consider this one also.

http://www.weber.com/explore/Grill_details.aspx?glid=8&mid=121

For the money these are not bad. The difference between this and a BGE is you can also grill, bake, roast and do high temperature cooks of 650 °F + . You will never be happy eating a steak at a restaurant again. Also try to maintain a low and slow for 20 hours in the middle of the winter or anytime of year with a WSM without adding fuel. This gives you more time to drink beer :coolsmile:. Really this is like comparing apples and oranges, the egg does what this can do and whole lot more.

Let your back and wallet be your guide......

I hear ya! If money is a issue the WSM gets a lot of good reviews and makes a pretty darn good smoker.
I have a question though never having used one. How easy is to control the temperature with those? Is it easy to keeps temps down below 120 °F to do jerky? Or under 100 °F to smoke cheese? I ask because with the egg it can be done but takes some unconventional set ups. Nothing difficult but not as simple as loading up and lighting it. Jerky and cheese are two things I want to do but haven't done yet.

The WSM uses a large water bowl as the heat sink to control temps. I have not done Jerky or smoked cheese, but I have read that the smoker is better at low temp smoke that the egg. I bought the WSM last summer and had all the peolpe that live around us over for ribs or chicken. Every time I use it I learn more and more about making ribs. If its a windy day it effects the temp of the smoker. Seems to suck the heat out of the thing.

How are you making your spare ribs with the egg?

If done in the winter those temps are easy to do!

I do an indirect setup and a drip pan with a dome temperature of 250 °F with a dry rub and sauce for the last hour or so. Usually they take about 5 hours until the meat begins to pull back of the bone. This makes the meat come clean off the bone when you eat them but not mushy like when some people foil them.

Here is another method I've used that a lot of people enjoy: http://playingwithfireandsmoke.blogspot.com/2002/06/baby-back-rib-class.html

Yes, one of the nice things about the thing is the ability to maintain temperature for hours year round with little or no adjustment. The ceramics are a great insulator. I do use a remote thermometer and one of these for long cooks in the Winter:
http://www.thebbqguru.com/categories/Power-Draft-Controls/
Ya, its cheating but it make things a whole lot easier. I cooked 32 lbs of pulled pork last year in a snow storm for close to 20 hours on one load of charcoal and had plenty left over.

I have the sameones

The Weber Smokey Mountain is a fine cooking implement. You can do just about anything on it. AGainst the Egg, though, the Weber will come up short. The Egg is made of thick ceramic and the airflow is totally controlled by the top and bottom vents. In the dead of winter, the Egg is unaffected by wind or cold. The weber is made of uninsulated metal; whle you can smoke on it in the winter, it takes a lot more work to maintain a constant temp. Some recommend replacing the water with sand.

I did a 20-hour pork butt last February that was as good as anything from the warmer months.

My old water smoker was shot and I was kind of temped by an egg until I saw the prices. I got a Brinkman water smoker at Home Depot. Maybe it uses a little more charcoal, but you can buy a lot of charcoal for the difference between $60 and $900. ;-)

I haven't found anything I couldn't cook in a water smoker. I usually fill the water bowl about half way, and then as the fire dies down and the water evaporates things even out. I did a 4 pound roast last weekend on a single (half) load of charcoal.

People love their Big Green Eggs like people love thier Fiskars/Stihls/Dolmars. I don't have one, but have friends that do. They love the BGE.

Lol for anyone good with DIY projects, check this out-

http://z12projects.blogspot.com/2010/07/little-blue-egg.html

Half tempted to try it myself. Not sure how well terracotta flower pots insulate compared to the BGE's ceramics (which are some special type, according to the sales guy I spoke with at a local dealer) but a hell of a lot cheaper!

I have seen them made out of big clay pots as well.

Good Eats with Alton Brown?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ka2kpzTAL8

Thats it..........