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Back in the spring I went to New Orleans for a meeting, and had the wonderful experience of meeting up with 5698k. Tonight’s dinner was in his honor. I picked up some salmon steaks. Not wanting to make the same buying mistake that I did last time I cooked salmon steaks, I asked how much each steak weighed. One pound each. That’s half a pound of fish per person if two people split a single salmon steak. Two salmon steaks were going to be more than enough for my family. When I met up with 5698k, he hooked me up with Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning. I tried it out on the salmon. As John Setzler would say, I used a liberal amount of Tony Chachere’s on the fish. Thanks, Robert! I should mention that 5698k also hooked me up with some Slap Yo’ Momma Cajun Seasoning, which I liked when I tasted it, but knew that it would be too spicy for my wife. Here’s the start of cooking. I loaded up the charcoal basket, lit it, and had all the vents wide open. I was up to steak searing temps in 15 minutes. A while ago, I saw a discussion on the Kamado Guru forum about how efficient kamado grills may or may not be compared to gas grills. I’ve always been of the opinion that Smaug is as efficient as a gas grill in terms of cooking steaks, in that I could go from lighting the charcoal to steak searing temps in about 15 minutes, which was about as long as I would need for my old gas grill to heat up the grates before cooking steaks. The suggestion was made that those who felt this way really didn’t know what they were talking about. All I can say is that if your kamado doesn’t hit steak searing temps this fast, it’s not my fault your grill isn’t as good as a KK. (For the humor-impaired: I’m kidding! I’m kidding! But it really only took 15 minutes for Smaug to hit full blast for this cook.) I think direct grilling fish is pretty easy. Get the grill as hot as you can, make sure the grates are as clean as you can make them, put the fish on, and wait until they release easily from the grill. Then flip. The hardest part is waiting long enough. It was about 4 minutes for the first side, and however long it took me to go inside to sauté a bunch of spinach with garlic for the second side. This is how the salmon ended up. My wife came up with a cool side dish. Asian pear slices wrapped in prosciutto. It was delicious. And here’s the final product. Salmon steak, spinach sautéed with garlic, and the prosciutto-wrapped Asian pear slices. It was great. The salmon was cooked perfectly, and the Tony Chachere’s was a great match. One of the nice things about salmon steaks is that you always get some of the belly part of the salmon, which is the thinner lower part. If you’re a sushi fan, you might know the difference between regular tuna sushi and toro (fatty tuna). The belly part of a salmon steak is salmon toro. So good. You don’t always get that part of the salmon if you buy a salmon fillet. Thanks again to Robert (5698k) for hooking me up with the Tony Chachere’s. It’s great stuff.

Davey, does it have to be brisket for the wedding??? The nature of cooking brisket to 200F doesn't lend itself well to reheating. You can hold it, wrapped in towels in a cooler, for 4-5 hours and it will stay hot and serve very well. I don't think you are going to be happy with a re-heat option either (IMHO). Thanks for being honest about how it turned out. I've torched my share of cooks, have screwed up more pizzas than Dominos delivers during the Super Bowl, and lots of lessons learned the hard way. Makes us all better KKers. Good luck with whatever you decide.

I now have the same dilemma...added a second KK, thinking of renaming. Right now 'Hans and Franz,' is where I'm leaning, but still undecided.