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well, it has been one week since I took delivery and I was really busy with work and getting everything set up. I don't think that I really took it all in. I ordered my grills on August 16th, and made a few adjustments to my order later that month to a 23/32 combo instead of a 23/23. They shipped October 3rd, and I followed them on all of their boats and missed ports cut off dates. I talked everyday about KK and learned a lot and constantly waited and wondered when they would arrive. Fast forward to last Wednesday. It was a whirlwind arrival and I was so busy, unpacking, dump runs, storing everything, setting it up, taking pics. Then I was crazy busy at work all week and then we had crummy weather. I cooked yesterday for the first time and was just so surprised with their responsiveness and functionality. I was just sitting in bed and I felt all this pressure just subside. I finally own these things.... it hit me like a ton of bricks. I smiled and thought this is one of the coolest things that I have ever done for myself!! I love cooking and BBQ, it is my true passion and hobby. If anyone ever questions the cost of these to me, I can honestly say that I would pay double for the amount of happiness this purchase has brought me. Yes it is material possessions, but it is a hobby for me that I can share with my family and friends. I go outside daily and just admire them...... I am so grateful to finally be cooking on the best!!!

I baked this in the oven since it was my first loaf of brioche, next time I'll do it on Pebbles. I used a recipe on the Brod & Taylor web site. The link is : http://brodandtaylor.com/no-knead-brioche-recipe/ Here is the dough ready for dividing into 3 equal pieces. Ready to bake. Baked at 350F for 23 mins. until the internal temp. is 190F. The crumb. Taste test, take it from me it was like tasting a fluffy white cloud.

Tonight I cooked up some short ribs with mashed potatoes. I rubbed the ribs with Eat Barbeque sweet rub and Cimarron Doc's Sweet Rib Rub. The ribs were about 1.5" thick. I smoked them with coffee wood and sugar maple. All plated up....

I saw a bumper sticker recently that said "if it ain't broke, fix it til It is". That about sums up my cook last night. I lit the grill and let it come up to temp slowly, natural draft, in preparation for an overnight butt. It was a quiet still night, and the smoke was rolling down the sides of the grill almost like waves over a waterfall as they came out the grill and cooled off. Once it was up to temp, I closed the lower vent, closed the top all but the slightest crack, and turned on the stoker. Rock steady temps were insured now. Loaded up the butt: Cleaned up the pan, listened to a little music and finished my drink while I smelled the peach and pecan floating on the air, and went to bed. Didn't think anything else about the butt - it would be ready sometime this afternoon. When I got up, I walked past my iPad, which had the Pit Pal app running and logging the cook, and remembered I had food on the grill. Then I realized that the iPad was showing a notification that said "error communicating with stoker". I went outside to find the stoker completely turned off! The irrigation had come on at 6 am and the other device I had plugged into the grill outlet got wet and tripped the gfci. I checked the log in the iPad and it had been off for about 4 hours! I popped the grill open to have a look: So the device that I used to insure my cook, ended up hindering my cook. Had I set the grill for natural draft it would have held the temp just fine, but I added an extra moving part, and it backfired. With the stoker the grill is closed up too tight to draft naturally, so the grill was down to about 150. I stuck the tip of the torch down though the hinged grate, lit a spot in the lump, and set the stoker for 250. Despite the fire going out, the meat was at about 145, so it cooked a few more hours, and I bumped it up to 275 for a final couple hours, then pulled this off when it reached 250 degrees: 15 hours total, 4 hours with the fire out, for an 8.5# butt. In the end, no harm done, the butt was amazing after resting in foil/towels/cooler for a couple hours. Gadgets are fun, but there's definitely something to be said for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

It seems the old adage "I wish I hadn't waited so long to order my KK!" still holds true. I know that was true for me. Rob, I LOVE that Darth Vader picture. It says it all, especially to the outside world once you are inside. I've always said that if you ask why a kamado that costs so danged much, you would never understand the answer. Then I'm called an elitist prick. I try and explain and all I ever hear is "My wife/spouse would kill me!" I"m still an elitist prick who look at only money. I've been called an elitist prick long before I took delivery of my KKs, but I take it as a badge of honor. The KK experience is very tacit until you begin to really think. Thanks, Dennis!

Dennis the shipping thing is no big deal. It was the fact that you're customer is extreme OCD/control freak and needed to be on the ship steering it home LOL!! The stainless tops are so beautiful and they are super functional. Especially with our climate they will be great!!! Benton, I agree with you. It seems that every time I look at them I catch a new part that draws me in. And I am constantly just unlatch inns because I like the sound it makes !!

Dennis, not only have I purchased a new set of cookers.... but more importantly I have gained a new friend!!! Thank you so much for all of you're help during the process!! Komodo Kamado is something that you need to see for yourself only once!!! And once that happens... you see the quality and power of them!! I feel like all the waiting and worrying has just disappeared!!! I am so impressed with them!!

I would but it might get a little cold on that long trip. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT

The conclusion to my experiment. I currently have 27 cooks worth of ash. I probably could have squeezed 35 in but it seemed pointless. It was a kewl experiment to know you really can go for awhile on a KK without cleaning it out and performance was not effected. After 27 cooks. As promised here is a picture of the space up under the fire bowl, up against the wall. No air flows through that space so you can push all the ash you want under there. All cleaned out. A Walmart sack full of ash. I do have another experiment or two I want to try. Will crank another one up soon. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT

A little while ago I asked about whether cooking ribs on the lowest grate position was feasible or not. Yesterday was my younger boys birthday, and we did a big rib cook. Here’s what happened. Mission: cook eight racks of baby back ribs without a rib rack. This was the biggest rib cook I’ve done so far. When I got back from the store, I realized how much area eight racks of baby backs covers. Luckily, it was a nice day out. Here’s my prep station. The recipe was pretty much what I’ve done before. Aaron Franklin-style DIY rib rub, rub some olive oil on the ribs, and then put rub all over. Now it was time to load up Smaug. I lit the charcoal, put the diffuser plate on the charcoal basket, and let Smaug settle out. He wanted to be at 210ºF yesterday. I put two racks on the searing grate. I should note that there’s enough room under the searing grate for the diffuser plate, but putting a drip pan under the searing grate would have been pretty tight. I didn’t use a drip pan for this cook. Then three racks on the main grate. And the last three racks on the upper grate. I let the ribs go for about 6 hours, turning up the heat for the last hour to 250ºF. It was suggested before that I rotate the racks between the grates, but I didn’t do that. I used the bend test to check for doneness. Dennis keeps complaining that I stopped posting money shots. That’s only because sunset comes quickly at this time of the year. So here’s a money shot with the flash on my phone. Now you know why I don’t like posting money shots taken after the sun goes down. And here are the ribs. These are the ribs from the main grate and the searing grate. The kids ate the ribs from the upper grate before I could get a picture under better light. The ribs were great, as always. You could tell that the ribs on the searing grate were cooked a bit more than the ribs on the main and upper grates, which is what you might expect since they were closer to the fire, but they really weren’t cooked more by much. Basically, the ribs from the top two grates were just about perfect, and the ribs from the searing grate were at the fall-off-the-bone state. In the picture above, you can see that the rack on top of the platter broke in half as I tried to get it off the grate. That rack came from the searing grate. One thing I considered doing is placing the heavier racks on the searing grate to account for the searing grate being closer to the fire, but I forgot to do that when loading up Smaug. Based on this cook, I would think about doing that in the future, but that’s getting towards BBQ OCD territory. In any case, I would consider this a success. Doing low and slow cooks on the searing grate still would be my last choice for a low and slow, but it’s good to know that it’s doable.

Every so often I have been sweeping the ashes to the back and sides. This experiment was really done for the Guru. To show the users of the big 3 that you shouldn't have to clean everything out every few cooks.At this point I'm sort of taking it to the extreme. I would never let it go this long normally but I do want to see just how far I can take it. I'll get at least 30 cooks before I throw in the towel. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT

Jon, my exact feelings. Guess I'm cheaper than you with my bean can.

Ok sorry, no fancy odd named pork here. Just plain ole regular fed pig...no clover fields or free ranging. If one asked locally for Waygu or whatever those other names were, there would be an awkward silence followed by a waygwhat? Though most of our pork now is too lean to me and would not mind the opportunity to try some chops with more marbling. But frankly some pics of the high end steaks turn me off to it. My preference is nice fat marbling in the meat, not nice meat marbling in my fat. -=Jasen=- Ran out of Walkerswood jerk and tried Busha Browne instead. Very similar flavor with the Walkerswood being more spicy....I like spicy! Since pimento wood is hard to come by, had to settle for the allspice berries in the foil trick. I let them hang in the smoke for a bit before searing. Got some nice flame action going on these chops. Scorches the season a bit, but I like the charring. Might also be a faux pas in foodie circles, but around here, paper plates don't seem to change the flavor of my food. The cream sauce was surprisingly good with the jerk pork (when is cream sauce not good..right?). Chose that thinking it might be needed to cool the taste buds...but the jerk season was mild. Next time, may make my own jerk season so it can be as hot as I want it!!