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The eclipse is making me mad, that is the only way I can explain this playing with food thing. I must be cracked. Plated.

I blew it. The quintessential eclipse photo would be "camera obscura", using the KK TelTru pin hole as a lens. Oops. Instead I drilled a pin hole in our rear shed. Mostly cloudy. Here's the best picture of our eclipse at its peak.

Houston, the Eagle has landed! Using the 5'x8' UHaul trailer and a 8 degree ramp worked perfectly. My brother-in-law and I made the 4 hour trek south to pick up Saturday. wrapped the grill in plastic with two tarps folded up under the plastic for a cushion. Put the grill up against the front wall of the trailer and strapped it in. (BTW, the block for under the grill is 4" tall, not 6") - had to cut the 3/4" ply wood i used to make it by hand --> lovely in 98f / 85% humidity no shade - Pit-stop at Cracker Barrel to re-fuel and then home to the Grill Shack. I cleaned it up today, have it burning right now to clear it out - it had a good bit of muck on the insides the pics did not reveal. Now it is beer-o-clock cheers!!

This turned out fantastic Santa Maria Tri Tip can't wait to eat some more. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I've posted this cook before but this has a slightly different twist. Rigatoni Pasta stuffed with a Italian sausage and Ricotta mix. In single serving dishes with Italian toppings. The pictures should speak for themselves.

Got some nice trimmed cheeks .gave them a beef rub broth I made up puffed up nicely I went with my pepper berry salt mixand on they go can't wait Outback Kamado Bar and Grill

Not the best pics Outback Kamado Bar and Grill

I mean did he really name the beer, Purple Crack Beer?

Ribs turned out great Outback Kamado Bar and Grill

A friend sent me a gift package and in it was a bottle of Orondo Ruby Cherry jam among other goodies. After much thought I decided to start with the cherry jam on freshly made sour dough bread. Just look at this goodness - Plated. Good to the very last bite. Not only does the jam look spectacular but it tastes fantastic. I love the colour, the clarity and the perfect bite sizes of fruit. Needless to say I very much enjoyed breakfast from my corner chair in the ODK. Thanks, Friend.

My local butcher has come to the party and cut some nice ribs gave them some mayo and peach brandythen I vaced them for tomorrow Outback Kamado Bar and Grill

A friend gave me a bag of carrots so it just seemed the right time to make carrot soup. Roasted the veggies at 375F until the colour was just right. I didn't really time it as I was also getting breakfast ready. Done, ready for the blender along with ginger, soft tofu, vegetable stock, pepper, salt, and cumin. Used the blender to heat the soup. Soup is served with some sourdough croutons chives and grated carrot. While we are on the yellow/orange kick how about a little homemade lemon ice cream.

A little 'shadowy' there MacK!

Tasty looking breakfast.

Mac no matter how you arrange it it still looks yummy.

Brother-in-law owns it now

I think it was Tony that coined the phrase "Purple Crack". It fits perfectly.

Tony, did you really name it Purple Crack?

Updated: Grill Shack population grows by 50% 23" Dark Nebula joins the family !

It is hard to believe that the Vitamix can get the soup piping hot in just a few mins. I made a new batch without roasting the veggie first to see the taste difference. There is as expected a noticeable difference in colour and in flavour. The roasted veggies gave a much darker soup and a more mellow taste. I was expecting the big colour difference but not the huge flavour difference. Both are good in their own way.

Hurray, purple crack! I assume you're doing them lo & slo? Target temp? Speaking of purple crack - my Purple Crack beer went over really well at the Festival yesterday.

I have an empty plate here and travel with knife and fork.

Yes if I remember correctly. Either way when you get there an error comes up on the displays just pull it out and pop in the Tel-tru. Both the meat probes and grate probe have the same rating. A grate probe is too fat to fit in the Tel-tru hole. The meat probes are a good, slide in, fit. I use a 1/2" disk of cheapie wine cork pushed onto the probe to hold it's height in the dome. Shove the probe all the way in and the tip gets closer to the meat on a low-n-slow cook. If I'm doing some type of baking cook using the upper grate I pull the probe out so only an inch or so is sticking in the dome. This way the cold dish/cook doesn't mess with the reading as much. Maybe that made some sense.

If you're using the basket splitter, you essentially double the airflow, which explains why the 32 heats faster. Put the splitter in the 23, now you're comparing apples again. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First bread on the Dennis baking stone, best bread of summer. Multiple lessons. We grind our own flour using a Wolfgang Mock grain mill, sieved through lab grade test sieves that fit nicely into a Vollrath 8 quart bowl: Gilson 12in Round Test Sieve #35 (72% extraction) Gilson 12in Round Test Sieve #25 (93% extraction) Vollrath 69080 Wear-Ever S/S 8 Quart Mixing Bowl This was using the #35, for a lower extraction flour. We also bought fresh ascorbic acid, 40 ppm to combat "green flour" flying saucers. Also (Homer Simpson "Doh!" time), I ran the BBQ Guru pit probe through the dome hole meant for the mechanical thermometer. No need for further protection, and lock-solid 450 F preheat. The Dennis (KK) baking stone is bigger and thicker than what I was using. Very stable, no burnt bottom crust, and the loaves could be longer and further away, for no "Siamese twin" scars where they grew into each other. It has passed all tests and is now my default stone.

That was an easy one. Smalls was dorky kewl and give me smore. Sand Lot - one of the very best kids movies for adults.

Here is a cook I did last winter. Seared on the low grate, finished on the high grate at the same time cooking something else. The pumpkin pie was pretty good, as was the roast

Hi Dennis! I just got back in town from an extended trip, first to Houston and then to Australia. Over the course of this trip, I had absolutely no access to my KKs, Beauty! & TheBeast. Talk about going through withdrawal! All I had to cook on we're friends cheap gassers, stick burners, the odd kettle, and a kamado that was a hideous color of green and just another Joe kind of kamado. During my travels (or travails, if you will) I cooked a lot of good food for my hosts, and I did it on their equipment. Dennis, I'd frankly grown complacent cooking on my KKs. Familiarity does tend to breed complacency. Your KKs are just too good and make cooking way too easy and enjoyable. I've always said that the KK experience is very tacit in nature. Everything about the KK is uncompromised. And you get used to that in a big hurry. You get used to uncompromised excellence at every turn. And as the saying goes, "You don't know what you have 'til it's gone!" I certainly didn't realize how deep your design thinking went until I had to use something else to cook. Look, I'm not even going to talk about the differences between gassers, stick burners, kettles etc. those cooks can't haul water for the KK. The differences are stunning. Trying to cook ribs in those cookers is real work! Mopping, spritzing, temp control, having to reload fuels, etc. is just too dadgummed much work! Let's not even talk about the restrictions on the types of cooks you can do. Pizza is generally out of the question and who wants that!? Let's not even talk about breads, deserts, etc. The KKs that you've designed are exceptional in the depth of analysis and attention to detail you've poured into each model. And we who use the KK get so used to so much we take a lot of the whole experience for granted. It might be that our purchase decisions are based on the KK reputation. From the top vent to the casters, the KK never disappoints. In fact it always exceeds expectations. Take the top hat vent on a KK. First, compared to other vents which are monkey see, monkey do, the KK top vent is remarkable. It's gorgeous; the other vents are just butt ugly in comparison. A detail of the KK top vent too often overlooked is the square threads. Those threads solve a host of problems other kamados build in. That square threaded KK top vent doesn't change position when the lid is raised. I've never had a KK top vent jamb shut. Other kamado makers don't even want to go there. Let's not even begin the differences in temperature control because the KK top vent is so good. I also don't have to jury rig something to fit over my top vent so I can cook in a driving Oklahoma thunderstorm! Take the hinge on any KK and compare it to hinges on other kamados. Talk about the difference between chicken salad and chicken crap! Dennis, as you know I've had experience on kamados ranging from the least expensive pos you can buy, to BGEs, KJs, and Primos. The hinge systems on every single one of those kamados isn't even in the same league as the KK hinge. With a KK all you do is pop the front latch and the lid majestically raises to fully open all by itself. That has never happened with those other lids. Never! The KK hinge is rock solid. It's not rickety, it never lets the lid slam shut! OUCH! I know of guys who have owned those other kamados and the lids shattered they slammed shut so hard. The KK hinge system so perfectly balances its heavy lid that every woman who has every been around my 32", TheBeast, was able to open the lid with two fingers and absolutely no effort whatsoever. That never happened on my other kamados. Your gaskets are simply genius. Food grade silicone! Why doesn't any other kamado manufacturer use this type of gasket material! Why do they cheapen their product with those stupid felt gaskets that burn so easily, get grease soaked so readily, that pull apart so readily in cold weather? Why do they build problems into their kamados? Again, your deep thought did away with problems from the onset simply by specifying a better gasket. Again, uncompromised excellence! The firebox on the KK is something special. Refractory. Two piece. No broken fire bowls in a KK as is all too common on every ceramic I know of. As you say, "You can't get away from the physics of it!" but it's absolutely true and you'd think the other manufacturers would take a page from your KK book! Replacement cost have got to be killing them! And speaking of refractory, I've gotta tell you how much I appreciate that choice. I was cooking pizza on a ceramic down in Houston and burned the ever living daylights out of my kneecap when my bare leg hit the side of kamado during a 700° pizza cook. That has never happened with my KKs because of the superior insulating capabilities of your unique refractory. The way the KK handles airflow is something few of us think about. Dennis, you've obviously put an incredible amount of thought into such a subtle process. You've designed the KK to force all airflow through the lump pile. The others haven't. Now that may not sound like much to some, but to me it is the pinnacle of the KK. This simple little fact translates to more advantages than might be readily apparent. First, our KKs get up to temp in a BIG hurry! That means a lot to those of us who want to do a quick cook on a weekday evening. The KK firebox divider works in concert with the airflow capabilities and directs all the air thought the lump pile. Again, it's all about efficiency. Further, the divider allows for a couple of different configurations and again, we're talking about efficiency. The fact that the KK is more efficient in its use of air means less airflow through the cooker and that translates to cooks that are, ceterus paribus, more moist! When you consider the air control dual dial manifold, one really begins to understand how deep your thought processes really are. Those two dials changed the way I looked at airflow, temperature control, and cookin in a kamado. Nobody has anything remotely like it. You couple that air control manifold with the infinitely adjustable top hat vent and you've got a kamado that lends itself to really low temp smoking that even the best conventional kamados can't match. Low air flow equates to longer than normal residence times for the smoke component. Again, the hallmark of the KK, efficiency, come to the forefront. I could rave about your air control system and it's dynamic because I'm an engineer by training, but most folks don't care to get that deep in the weeds! all I'm going to say is that there isn't another kamado on the market as well engineered from an airflow perspective and kamado cooking is all about controlling airflow. That's a simple and undeniable fact. Being away from Beauty! & TheBeast for almost two months was bad enough. Being forced to cook on a host of other cookers compounded the pain. BUT (there is always a but, right?!) cooking on those other kamados again, gave me a real perspective of the KK that I came to take for granted in the year plus that I've had my KKs. Until recently, I was a real fan of the KK for its ease of use and the stunning results it produces. I could go on and on because while you're sitting up tending a fire at 3:00 AM there is a lot to do but think and drink fine bourbon! I examined your designs through an engineer's lens and I came to the conclusion that the KK is the most over engineered Kamado in the world! Now I understand your design so much more. And what amazes me is that you've had not one iota of formal engineering training is some very sublime subject like fluid mechanics and heat transfer! I've rambled on and on here, probably much longer than I should have, but if you're a potential KK customer, what are you waiting for? Nothing comes close to the KK on every dimension you can imagine. The KK is uncompromised excellence in every area. A KK must be experienced because mere words will never do the KK justice. Call Dennis. Get a KK. Enjoy life as never before! Thanks for reading this tome.