Keytickler

Though I have grilled salmon fillets and steaks many times over the years, this afternoon I smoked a fillet for the first time. Of course, huge rolling papers are needed. [rimshot] The fish was farm raised Atlantic salmon from Norway that was purchased skinless. I'm guessing it was ~2 lbs. or perhaps a little less. I adapted a couple of Steven Raichlen's recipes to end up with my cook. The ingredients are: 1 salmon fillet (I suppose you could use with or without the skin), 1.5-2 lbs. 1 cup dark rum 1 cup finely packed brown sugar 1/2 cup coarse salt (I used sea salt) 1 tablespoon black pepper freshly ground Preparation: 1. Check for and remove any bones in the fillet, then rinse under cold running water and blot dry with paper towels. Lay the salmon in an appropriately sized baking dish and pour the rum over it.. Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes. After it marinates, drain the salmon and blot dry with paper towels. Wipe out the baking dish. 2. Make the cure: Combine the brown sugar, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl and mix well with your fingers. Spread 1/3 of the cure over the bottom of the baking dish. Lay the salmon on top (skin side down if there is skin) and sprinkle the remaining cure on top of the fish. Part the cure into the fish with your fingertips. Cover the salmon with plastic wrap and let cure in the refrigerator for 4-24 hours. (I did it for 24 hours). 3. Rinse the cure off the salmon with cold running water and blot dry with paper towels. Liquid will accumulate in the baking dish during the curing process. Discard the liquid. Place the fish on a rack over a cooking sheet in the fridge for ~ 2 hours to let it dry and become a little tacky to the touch. 4 Set up the KK for indirect cooking and heat to 225 degrees F. I used alder wood chunks for smoking in the US Pacific Northwest style. Use a drip pan. Oil the grate well and place the fish in the center of the grate over the drip pan. Close the cover. My fish took ~ 1 hour to smoke and reach an internal temperature of 140 degrees F. 5. Transfer the salmon to a rack to cool. When cool, wrap it well in aluminum foil and refrigerate until cold. Serve cold or at room temperature. The recipe says that smoked salmon will keep in the refrigerator covered for 3-5 days. You can also freeze it to keep for much longer. I plan to enjoy this tomorrow, but I did have a taste before wrapping it in foil. It is delicious and has a lovely brownish red color. Success! Keytickler

I decided to roast a couple of ducks on my KK using this method over Memorial Day weekend. Last time I did them in the oven (it was winter and the weather outdoors was not conducive to cooking out there). Instead of using the bicycle pump to inflate the space between the skin and muscle, I used my fingers like I do when prepping whole chickens for roasting. This worked very well, though it takes a little time to be careful and not puncture the bird's skin in the process. You need to poke around everywhere to separate the skin, and I mean everywhere, so the fat can render out and the skin can have a good chance of getting crisp. I did not have black bean paste this time. Sue me. I had all of the other seasonings available. It is important to use some kind or rack or stand to prop up the birds so they are vertical during cooking so the fat can render and flow into the drip pan. Save that fat afterwards! It's good for lots of other cooking later. My rack was reasonably successful for this purpose but I did check now and then to make sure one bird wasn't leaning on the other, or had listed to one side or another. The only problem I had was increasing the grill temp for the final part of the cook. I couldn't get it hotter, so the skin probably didn't crisp up ideally. I also didn't use any smoking wood other than the lump charcoal, as I felt it might compete with the Chinese seasonings. The final result was yummy! I'd certainly try other variations of seasonings in the future using some kind of smoking wood. Keytickler

Disclaimer: I haven't done this yet. I got the recipe a couple of weeks ago from a Chinese-American friend who has cooked this dish many times. It is my plan to do this within the next weeks. Prep takes longer than cooking. That's why you have to order this dish from a restaurant a day in advance. Preparation: The duck must be completely thawed. If purchased frozen, this takes ~2 days in the fridge. Separate the skin from attachment to the muscle. This is an important step. One way of doing this is to use a bicycle pump with the needle attachment used to inflate balls (cleaned and sanitized, of course). Do the back first--insert the pump needle by the shoulder blades, first one side then the other. You may have to massage the air bubble around so the skin separates everywhere. Turn the bird over and inflate the breasts, thighs and legs by inserting the pump needle on the abdomen end. Make sure the skin separates fully all around. After you do this the bird will deflate a bit. No problem. Make a mixture of honey cut with some white vinegar. Apply this all over the skin of the bird as a glaze. Put the following seasonings in a little hot water to hydrate and rinse: a cut up star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, Chinese 5 spice powder. Place in the cavity of the duck the hydrated dry ingredients, along with some fresh ginger, black bean paste, and scallion cut into 1" pieces. You can sew up the opening to the cavity if you wish. Let the prepped duck dry in the fridge for 1 day uncovered. Preheat the KK (indirect) or oven to 375°F. Roast for 45 minutes. Use a drip pan!!! Ducks have a lot of fat. You can reserve and use the rendered duck fat for many other yummy uses later. Increase the grill or oven temp to 425°F. Turn the bird and roast another 15 minutes, but WATCH IT to make sure it doesn't overcook. Let rest for a few minutes. Carve. Enjoy. I'll try to remember to take photos when I cook this within the next weeks, and I'll post them up then. If any of you do this before I do, please post up your results. Keytickler

Re: Beef Ribs vs Pork Ribs I picked up 4 slabs of beef ribs from member primemeats to grill on July 4th this week. This was my first crack at beef ribs. I used Steven Raichlin's guidelines for the cook: indirect, medium heat (320-350F), 1.5 - 2 hours, hickory chunks for smoke. The rub was a Memphis style dry rub I mixed up and put on the meat in the morning. I began the cook at 3 pm. The ribs came off the KK sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 pm. I wrapped each slab in foil to rest, as I do with pork ribs, as I needed to change things up and cook some other things using direct heat on the KK. Use a drip pan with beef ribs! Before serving I dusted each slab with some leftover rub, and mopped each slab with a white vinegar, salt, dry rub sauce. Delicious!!!! Easy to prep, relatively fast to cook, and I'll definitely do this again. All of our guests loved them. Keytickler

Re: Must Read "physicist-cracks-bbq-mystery" I read this article posted on another forum today, and was about to post it here. I'm glad that it's already been posted. This is excellent info, and so interesting! Keytickler

Re: High temp fast brisket After a number of low and slow briskets, I tried the high temp fast technique yesterday afternoon. Brilliant! The results were delicious. Thanks, Doc Guerra. Given that it takes half the cooking time, I'll use this technique every time in the future. Keytickler

Re: Pork Butt in the crock pot Instead of using the canned chiles in adobo, try coating the pork with Srihacha chili sauce and do it in the crock pot. Excellent! Keytickler

Re: Best Smoking Methods With KK? You have described the issue I faced just this past Saturday. This was my first low and slow of the season (a brisket), and I let the temp come up very slowly barely cracking the bottom and top vents. I allowed 1 hour, and it took longer before I was up to temperature and ready to put the brisket on the grill. I started the fire too late, and it went out at first. Therefore, the meat wasn't done when I had hoped, and everybody was very very hungry by the time it was ready. It caused an argument after dinner. Not fun. I am very interested, therefore, to read your technique here Susan. Load the basket, start the fire with vents open as per use with a high temp fire, then progressively shut it down starting at 50 degrees below the target. I have been worried that I would overshoot and not be able to bring the temp down to ~225 or so. I'm going to try this next time. Thanks! Keytickler

Re: Thanksgiving Turkey on KK Sorry for the delay here--I've been busy the past week. I got my KK one year ago, and did my first turkey on it this Thanksgiving. It was a fresh 20 lb. bird I purchased from primemeats. I brined the turkey overnight this year. I got the recipe from the newspaper (thank you John Kass). The brine recipe is: 1 cup Kosher salt 2 Tablespoons each fresh ground black pepper, dried sage, dried rosemary, dried thyme. Add some cloves. 2 quarts cold apple juice. Mix the brine ingredients. Put the bird breast down in a brining bag, and pour in the brine. Squeeze out the air from the bag, seal it with a twist tie, and refrigerate overnight. I took the bird out of the brine about an hour before I was ready to cook, to let the skin dry and also let the bird get up to room temperature. I set up the KK for indirect heat, and let the grill come up to 325 F. A put an aluminum drip pan on the sear grill when the grill was heat soaked and I was ready to cook, added some water, the turkey neck, onions, celery, carrots, and giblets (except liver). Baste the bird fully before cooking with melted butter. Season with more fresh ground black pepper--don't add any more salt. I stuffed some celery in the body cavity this time. Put the bird on the grill breast side down above the drip pan, put the probe of the thermometer in the thigh, close the lid and let it cook. I added some apple wood to the fire for smoke when I put the bird on. I expected a bird this size to take about 4 hours. In fact, by about 2.5 hours the temperature was in the 150s, and I got worried. I opened the KK and put the probe in the other thigh, making sure I didn't touch the bone. The temperature reading on the thermometer dropped almost 10 degrees. I closed the lid and allowed the cooking to finish. When it read 165 I took it off the grill, put it on a platter on a hot tray, covered the bird in foil (breast up now) and let it rest for about an hour. Total cooking time was only about 3 hours! I used the drippings to make a delicous gravy. It was delicious--great flavor, and very moist. Everyone enjoyed it. Keytickler

Brine them if you want before. Use the rub of your choice. and let them sit with the rub after removing from the brine for awhile. Cook low and slow indirect 250-300 F using a rib rack. for about 3 hours. Baste lightly with your favorite BBQ sauce if you like for the last 20 minutes of cooking. Here's the secret: Take the ribs off the grill when done, wrap them in foil, and put them in a brown paper grocery bag for about 1 hour while you prepare the rest of the meal. The ribs stay hot, and when you unwrap them before serving they will be succulent. Add sauce if desired as a condiment at this point. You will not be disappointed! Props to Primeats for excellent ribs which I purchased from his shop last weekend. Keytickler

Sorry, no photos, but everything turned out wonderfully. Perfect. The roast took a bit longer than the recipe led me to believe, but I think that is largely due to the fact that the roast wasn't out of the fridge all that long before being put on the gril. The meat was not much warmer than 45 degrees F when it went on the grill. Otherwise, it was delicious! Nice starting ingredients, primeats! Keytickler

That is exactly what I am doing on the 26th this year! I'm putting a paste on the outside of the beef first made up of rosemary, garlic, kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, and olive oil. Direct heat, drip pan, using the same temperature plan as smokykensbbq. Keytickler

My KK is too new and I have not yet done ribs on it. My 3rd and 4th cooks on my KK are going to take place this weekend. However, I have had great results with BBQ ribs pre-KK by cooking them on indirect heat low and slow for about 4 hours until they are done, as described above. After taking them off the grill, I wrap each 1/2 slab in foil and put all of them in a brown paper bag to rest for an hour. (Don't ask why it has to be a brown paper bag--the recipe was specific about this.) When you are ready to serve, unwrap the ribs. They will still be hot. Only then put on BBQ sauce as a condiment if desired. I have had uniformly excellent results doing this many times. The texture of the ribs after resting in foil for an hour after cooking is fabulous. Try it! Keytickler

Success! Thanks for your advice and helpful tips. The brisket turned out wonderfully. No problems--I let the KK come up to 250 degrees slowly so it didn't overshoot, the put the meat in the grill. Total cooking time was ~9 hours for a flat that was just under 6 lbs. We're still enjoying the leftovers, too. I'm over the newbie hump and ready to try more. Thanks again! Keytickler

Many thanks for your reply, JD. Given what you and others have said, I may limit the times I open the lid during the cooking. The recipe calls for mopping every hour for the first 4 hours. However, if moistrue retention is what KK users say it is, such frequent mopping may not be necessary. Also, being a noob, I'm still just a little concerned about regulating the temp in there properly, and opening and closing the unit may make this more difficult for low and slow I imagine. I want to ask again about wood chips for smoking. Do people typically put them in a foil pouch or a smoker box on top of the hot lump charcoal? Or do people simply toss soaked wood chips in with the lump? The other question I have is about lighting the KK at first. Do you do this with camper and top wide open? For how long? After it registers ~200 degrees, do you then close both down to barely open for the duration? Is a heat soak necessary before putting on the meat? If so, for how long? I'm ready! Keytickler