Savor Great Green Grilling

… stop the all the consumerism! The grills advertised are the equivalent of Hummers. Do you really need to have your entire kitchen out on the patio to grill food? The daily green is now the best place to advertise... buy buy buy "green" items. Unfortunately all these items come from China only 6000 miles away. How green is that?

I occasionally throw in a few small pieces of wood along with the charcoal when I want to smoke something, but I've never used wood only. You might want to contact the experts at biggreenegg.com to get a good (correct) answer on whether you can use wood only.

Could one use wood in the place of or as well as charcoal in a BGE?

Hi JohnD - Yes, BGEs are awesome! Before I got mine, I had a standard cast-iron two-chamber cooker. Talk about a fuel hog! A "standard cook" - brisket, couple of chickens - required 20 pounds of coal. With my BGE, 2 pounds of coal will cook a brisket, two chickens, a roast, 5 pounds of potatoes and a rack full of vegetables - and there's usually usable coal left! It seems the difference is due to the fact that the ceramic walls of the BGE are extremely insulating. You have to be about 3 inches away before you'll detect any heat (and that's with an internal temp of 600F or more). With a standard metal grill, there's no insulation, so most of the heat generated is lost, which means much more fuel is required to cook. I've only purchased 5 20-lb bags of coal since I bought my BGE in March of 2006, and that's cooking at least once (usually twice) a month. The BGE seemed expensive when I first bought it, but it's since paid for itself in fuel savings.

The Egg is awesome. My buddy has one. That with lump charcoal does a lot of cooking.

Why was there no mention of kamado cookers, which have ceramic walls instead of metal and can be used to grill, smoke, bake, etc? I own a Big Green Egg and am constantly amazed at how little charcoal it uses. My small BGE takes 8 hours to burn 2 pounds of charcoal at 350F. That means it releases only a fraction as much CO2 as regular metal grills and even the most efficient gas grills. This also means it costs only a fraction as much to operate as the other cookers.

The intense new regs on say the Rutherfordton plant is the answer to our existing energy issues. Something has to bridge the gap between now and a fossil fuel alternative. BTW - noting your sarcasm - I didn't say "no emissions" - I said "reduced". Propane or Nature Gas is the cleanest way to grill - staying on subject.

Sounds like coal-fired electricity is the answer to global warming and the energy crunch. No carbon, particulate or chemical emissions. Thanks JohnD!

Coal fired power plants utilize very high tech scrubbing systems to reduce carbon, particulate and other chemical emissions. Your charcoal grill - and mine - has no filtration. Does that answer your question?