Fire Bricks on the BGE

Fire Bricks are available at most brick yards and come in full and 1/2 size also called splits. The ones pictured below are 1/2 size (4.5 x 9 x 1.25 inches). They are used to make the temperature easier to maintain and to have a place to put a drip pan. This use of fire bricks was originally posted on the BGE Forum and I learned their use from the pictures at Tim M's site. 11/25/99 -- today's project is beef jerky.

[11_25_99][06_24]_03.jpg (341576 bytes) 05/22/2000 - this is my preferred firebrick setup for about everything - even pizza. After trying a variety of different setups, I always seem to come back to this one.

I have a medium BGE so I use 4 fire bricks. 2 lay flat on the main grid. The other 2 are positioned on their sides on each side of the 2 laying flat.

If you look real close at the bottom of the picture (click on  the picture for a larger view) you can also see where pieces were removed from the grid so that small pieces of wood can be added to the coals. Idea courtesy of Tim M.
I us an aluminum cake pan for a drip pan. In the picture on the right the foil lined drip pan is inserted on top of the flat bricks between the 2 standing bricks.
A second grid is used for the jerky and is positioned on top of the two standing bricks. Based on the raised height of the cooking surface inserting or extracting a pizza should be easy. 

The fire bricks also help to maintain a constant temperature. In this case I'll be looking to keep the temperature at 200 degrees for the next 11 or 12 hours.
For a more detailed description of fire bricks and their use, link to Tim M's site. Once you arrive, from the menu on the upper left side, select 'baby backs w/firebricks'.  He has both drawings and pictures of a large BGE.

Use these links to find the beef jerky recipe or to see  pictures of beef jerky cooking.
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