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I bought my KK back in May 2006 I believe, so it's bang around ten years old. It's been sitting in the same spot, out in the crappy miserable Seattle weather the whole time; taking a beating year after year. Rain, snow, hail, moss, even the occasional tree-hugger... She's cooked many Thanksgiving and Christmas Turkeys and Hams, countless smokes, sears and oodles of pizza. It just dawned on me that something must be seriously wrong. My tiles are still intact, the damper spins open and closes perfectly, the lid hinge is still meticulously balanced. In fact it looks like and functions like I bought it yesterday. I'm so confused. Shouldn't it have died a horrible MK death by now and look like a sad naked mole rat? Cheers to @DennisLinkletter for making one of best purchases I've ever made!

Pompeian Grapeseed Oil Cooking Spay is the absolute best oil spray. . Grapeseed Oil is an oil with a high smoke point temperature so it doesn't burn and taste sour. Not a pump bottle but ....... Inside the bottle the oil is located within a bag with the propellant between the bag and the bottle. You get oil with no propellant. Also has a easy push button so you can get everything from a drop to a stream, to a full spray. . I'll never buy another type of cooking spray. Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

Bingo! Grapeseed oil is all we use here at ChezChef. BUT! Don't spread the word too wide. That'll create a shortage, increased demand, and higher prices!

I'm going to add an image from the Project Smoke shoot as one of the landing/home page top gallery shots. Which one do you prefer? I'm torn, I like the silk screen background on the 19 image but like seeing the back of the 23 in the other albeit a bit smoky..

I didn't have time to put a lump fire in the belly of my twenty-three but since it was windy as heck (hey...its Nevada after all :D) I dropped the Iwatani blue flame burner down in the KK and smashed some Hole In One Ranch (local) grass fed, quality ground beef into burgers for patty melts.

This weekend I made a seafood dinner for us: shrimp, sockeye salmon, and asparagus. I’ve cooked these before, but this time I decided to push my technique a bit. The first thing I did was to really lighten up on the seasoning compared to what I usually do. For the salmon and shrimp, I used Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning (thanks Robert!), but I applied a very light coating. It looks like there’s a lot on the shrimp, but I only seasoned one side. For the asparagus, I drizzled some olive oil on it and a light amount of black pepper. They all went into Smaug at the same time. Final result. There were a few lessons I took away from this cook. First, dialing back on the seasonings/rub is a great way to test your technique. In this case, I couldn’t hide any over/under doneness of the seafood and asparagus with a heavy application of seasonings. In addition, normally I apply a light coat of olive oil to the salmon to aid in it not sticking to the grill grates, and as a way of helping the seasonings bind to the salmon. Again, not having the oil made me pay closer attention to the cook. Second, often times there’s a comment here about how charcoal is less convenient than propane for hot fast cooks. I’ve found over and over that using charcoal doesn’t have to slow you down for this sort of cook, if you’re smart about your workflow. For this cook, the very first thing I did was to light up Smaug. Then I started on the food prep, which included shelling the shrimp, washing the asparagus and trimming the ends, cutting the salmon fillet into individual portions, and seasoning. By the time I was done, the dome thermometer was at 600ºF, and the grill was ready to go. From eyeballing the grill and from previous experience, I know I was at 500ºF at the 10 minute mark. Could a gas grill have hit 500-600ºF faster? Maybe, but with this sort of workflow, it doesn’t matter. I would guess that the food prep is the rate limiting factor in the majority of cooks.

Great, as it wasn't there right after Ken posted the link.

Me, too. I've been using both coconut oil spray from Trader Joes and canola oil spray from CostCo.

We generically refer to those as POSKs. I owned one before my KK. The damper top assembly crumbled on it.

I have read is a bird book that the mix should be 1:4 sugar to water and you can feed more sugar at the start of the season before there is lots of feed from the flowers. Higher concentrations are hard on their livers and should only be done at the start of the season.

"MK" = the inferior "Mexican Kamado". My friend bought one of them around the same time I bought my KK. After about 3 yrs, his tiles had fallen off and damper had rusted shut - end up giving it away. Looked something this poor one I found online:

Very nice. . I was able to get a matching replacement feeder this weekend. Strangely they don't like the new feeder as well as the old. Maybe it's the new plastic. They eat from it but definitely seem to prefer the old one. No worries once my population gets around 20 they won't be so picky - LOL . Something you might be interested in ...... . A few years ago me and my son did a sugar content test. Regular strength, extra heavy on the sugar and extra light on the sugar. The conclusion we came to is the sugar strength definitely effects how fast they drink it down. Extra heavy on the sugar and they drink it slower. Make a light batch and they'll drink the feeder dry really fast. Needless to say I now make the batches a little heavy on the sugar content. Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

That’s great! Here’s to many more decades. I don’t know how many other grill companies can count on stories like this one. Quick question: what’s an “MK death”?

You know i am going to have to try this i have been using cocunut oil spray

Gotta love grape seed oil.

My humming bird population has doubled, 2 males have been joined by 2 females.

Can't wait to hear that he's eating grits, Susan. Then we'll know for sure that you've fully converted him!