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Beautiful looking cook! I have to agree that two cookers is a big advantage. It took me a while to get a cooker larger than the 23”, now it’s like where has this been all my life. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This experiment was a big FAIL initially. The doughs were way too wet to put through an extruder. I remembered @Syzygies once lamenting the fact that some bread recipe writers do not take account of the amount of liquid introduced by the levain. Well, without counting the liquid added by the levain, the hydration of this Chad Robertson recipe was at 45%! Waay too high. My neighbours kindly and friends kindly ate what I produced but it was substandard. I finally ended up with a very stiff dough, somewhere between 28% and 32% hydration depending on how you count the water added by wetting my hands while kneading. It was really hard work turning the lever to push the dough through the bigolaro but the result was worth it. Bigolaro action: Really simple but delicious pasta recipe called bigoli in salsa, made with just onions and chopped up anchovies. The dough was fermented for 18 hours. I think the pasta tasted better than any I had made before but I will do a side by side test without levain to see if that is just my imagination. And the KK action came in the form of roasted short ribs (should have been low and slow but I fell asleep and they cooked hot and fast instead!)

When I was trying to decide what size KK to buy, all those years ago, @ckreef's advice was to buy two. He was adamant you needed more than one to make sure you got all the components of your dinner ready at the same time. Well, I took his advice and here is Christmas dinner, cooked on my 23 (high heat throughout) and 32 (very low and slow for most of the time and hot at the end to cook up the pigs in blankets). Happy Holidays everyone! I never normally have turkey but here is a boned turkey leg which I seasoned and then my husband added lardo and rolled it up for roasting. Rolled turkey leg and standing rib roast in the 32 after first having been browned in the 23. Potatoes were roasted in the 23. And the pigs in blankets (sausages wrapped in bacon) were cooked on the 32 when the other meat was taken off to rest. I finished off the skin on the beef roast with the MAPP torch before resting. The cook was edge to edge perfect, with the very low and slow time it had in the 32. It was an outstanding Christmas meal, with just the Brussel sprouts and sauce cooked indoors. Deeeelicious!

Great news!

Hmm, one word: YIKES!

Chris Young seems to have confirmed that they are working on a longer probe: https://www.reddit.com/r/combustion_inc/comments/1pvmkxb/stumps_smoker/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Happy Holidays, everyone! 👍👍

3 bone prime rib, bones on the bottom protecting the spinalis. The pan is 16” wide, the 38” just swallows it up. Mixed in the butter is thyme, rosemary, garlic, and black pepper. I dry brined it overnight. Merry Christmas everyone! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Happy holidays everyone !!!!!! Turkey done earlier and the prime rib is in now, I’ll update later

The package of meat looks bad enough but look at the shelves, I won't be shopping here either.

I wouldn't buy anything in that store, period.

Looks like ChefsTemp have a 4.3" x 0.16" version. 0.4" longer than the GGG. Might be enough Their 5.5" version is too thick at 0.3" Sent from my SM-F966B using Tapatalk

My $95 Thermapen gives me instant readings from the very tip. A typical use, I'll be pan frying a piece of fish or grilling a burger, I slide the tip through the food and watch the movie as the temperature changes. Ask the GGG people how their thermometers work. What zones along the probe contribute equally to the reading? If they're as sensitive at the tip as Thermapen, you're fine. And as I've said before, it can be off if the error is consistent. We just need to learn to cook with it. Most of human history, people have relied on instruments with unusual response curves. No instrument has to be "right". We want instruments that can help us to react, that can predictably tell us what to do. You could establish a stable fire, and swap TelTrue and GGG thermometers every ten minutes. Is there a difference? Is it anywhere near the difference between measuring by the grill and measuring by the dome? One cooks relative to how one measures. Let's say that measuring just inside the dome doesn't correlate perfectly with measuring Tel-Tru depth inside the dome. We're talking a very complex system here. Would this mean that measuring just inside the dome is broken? Or has an utterly fascinating rabbit hole just opened up before us? We want the dome material itself to heat up, we want it to radiate heat... if the dome is lagging behind pit air temperature, that tells us something about where we are in our cook. Near a fire's end, the pit air temperature is entirely because the KK walls are hot. Most strikingly with pizza, cooks partly rely on radiant heat from the walls. There's no primacy to understanding the KK air temperature rather than the KK wall temperature. I can back my car into my driveway using any of three mirrors. We can cook following any of these temperature curves. Hey, I wish a Star Wars hologram could pop up over my smart phone, a 3D version of the weather charts at meteoblue.com, to help me visualize the interior of my KK. Not yet, we're still looking at one number. My point is there's no right number.

The CPT didn't quite fit through the hole. The corners of two tiles on the outside are the restriction. I may get a diamond burr to shave them a touch.

Looks like a dish I make. I cook zucchini in stewed tomatoes. Add some mushrooms and it's out of this world.

I haven’t tried, but once mounted onto the heat deflector the probe does not extend far enough into the KK to fasten it. I’ve asked Combustion if the gauge can be used without the deflector but I’d be surprised that is possible. BTW, anyone familiar with this: https://www.chefstemp.com/product/protemp-s1/ ? They offer their grill gauge probe in different lengths and thicknesses. I already have a Combustion leave-in thermometer so I’m not interested in buying into a new system. Unless . . . There is a hack to use the Combustion thermometer with the Chefstemp grill gauge.

@sobiloff@braindoc Have you tried actually using it? As @Syzygies suggests, the short insertion may work well, albeit differently than a longer insertion.

I was just re-reading this post and got to thinking about ways to measure this. I was trying to conceive of a way to have sensors in both places simultaneously, like the CPT does, when it occurred to me that a CPT inserted from the inside of the KK dome might be able to do just that. I'll see how it fits tomorrow when my KK has cooled down from today's cook.

good to know. i’m guessing they have a full refund return policy

@Tekobo,I hope you report back on the pasta adventure.

Sobiloff - You bet me to the punch! I just braved the cold to see if the recently arrived gauge fit and was about to post with the same sad news - minus the photos because my fingers are too cold, lol.

I received my GGG last week, and unfortunately the probe length is way too short. I've contacted Combustion Inc's support and received an initial response, but they said they don't have any plans for releasing a longer probe. TelTru length vs. GGG pro: This is how much of the GGG's probe enters the chamber when it's inserted fully without the stand-off provided by the GGG mount: At this point I'm considering cutting the ears off of the mount and trying it out, but before I do something irreversible I'd like to have a final word from Combustion support. I'm pretty frustrated that I paid in advance and waited 14 months for something that doesn't work with my KK.

Have KK will travel. OK, you must have a dolley to move that or the stand is on wheels. Nevertheless it's gotta be a touchy situation...I give you credit though, the effort is only outweighed by the food that comes off of it. He ain't heavy, he's my KK.

Back in Italy to enjoy the lead up to Christmas. Cooked ribs on the 16 last night. Came out great. No pix. Used the heat shield/paving stone for the first time. It was a good call, the short distance between the fire box and the grate means I have found it difficult to genuinely cook low and slow without something to shield the bottom of the food from the fire. I am near Venice and in the home of bigoli pasta. Today I am trying three versions using a Chad Robertson recipe that uses up spent leaven. Here we are at the first stage: I am experimenting. Bigoli are made with buckwheat flour as the base. I made three variations. The first with durum wheat, the second with whole wheat flour ground from UK hard wheat grains and the third with Italian 00 flour. I followed the quantities for the recipe without thinking for the first one with durum wheat. It was too wet and I made the necessary adjustments for the second two. Will see how each extrudes, using the bigolaro, later today. KK action? Boiled meats are a speciality here and, as well as capons, they include beef short ribs. I have set the KK going and will do a nice slow cook in place of boiling and will see what the Italians think of it. Warming up now: