I agree 100%. I do not have empirical data but I would be willing to bet that most melted gaskets result from a bad seal between the top and bottom sections. And of course, longer durations at high temps will eventually heat up the ceramic enough to potentially get it to a temperature at which the gasket glue starts to melt, but short durations - with all of that ceramic mass and that low thermal conductivity - aren't going to bother that gasket at all.

I think better advice than saying, "Make sure you cure your gasket with several low temp cooks before high temp searing" would be, "Make sure that you do not have any leaks around the entire circumference of your sealing surface before doing any high temp searing, and don't leave your Egg at high searing temps for more than 5 minutes."

For the record, I have never melted a gasket, and I did high temperature sealing from Day 1 on both my Mini and my newer Medium.

A note to CyberDawg: thanks for bringing up this issue - good discussion. Just to clarify, though - I don't use the dome temperature as the measurement of what temperature I'm searing at, I use it as an indication of heat flux due to coal radiation within the Egg. I always sear with the dome open, so I'm clearly only concerned about that coal radiation (and, of course, some good ole fashioned conduction from the cooking grid).

Cheers,