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One of my favorite things about summer is when the Hatch chiles arrive at the local market. As I comment earlier this summer, I thought that I'd try and rig up a roaster basket for the rotisserie and spin some chiles to see how I like the results versus just putting them on the grates and flipping them around to roast. I built the basket out of 1/4" wire fabric. I left half-moon openings on each end to facilitate loading and unloading. Placing the roaster inside the rotisserie basket with the openings on the bottom, utilizes the solid sides of the rotisserie to keep the peppers inside. A couple of shots of the roaster in the rotisserie basket. Some lovely Hatch chiles. Toss a couple of pounds of chiles into the basket and onto the KK for a nice spin. Spun on direct heat, no smoking wood, started out around 300F, for the first hour, with a ramp up to 425F over the next hour period, with another 30 minutes at the higher temperature. Total roasting time was 2 1/2 hours. Just experimenting with it. At the low temp, they were sweating nicely, but not roasting, so I upped the temp to char the skins. I will likely do another batch soon, as they are still available at the local market. Happy with the way they came out. Next time, I'll start out at the higher temperature and probably shorten the time down to an hour to 90 minutes.

chicken tacosleft over pulled pork chili (amazing)cornbreadpizza

Yeah one thing if I can add. Remove the clamp Norge tel tru therm. When you close the rod will hit the stone likely. I gently pull the therm up when I close the lid. Then place back in. This avoids me bending the therm rod when claiming lid shut. Also I find with the heat soak that the stone gets heated up well allowing me to polar lower temp. I now cook pizza at 550 and deep dish 475 with great results.

We just got hammered with a rain storm..... but I was able to get my dinner cooked in time. I love me some tri-tip and when I saw this 3.5 pound monster at the supermarket yesterday, I had to grab it. I hit it up with Lanes Ancho Espresso and brisket rub. I usually do my own custom santa maria style rub, however, I wanted to try something new. Like all Lanes rubs, this is a game changer! Cooked to and IT of 135, 145 on the end for my wife and younger son. Grilled some asparagus at the end of the cook. I absolutely love tri-tip, it is very difficult to find up here in Canada but man it makes the times that I find it all the better.

Positive on the hex part. Looks like I need to contact Dennis.

I certainly cannot speak for all but in my case I definitely had to cut the right side bolt/shaft down in order to insert into the right side wall of the KK. In fact I had to do it twice because I have the large roti basket with the reducer and the first cut I made was based upon the center mount (for use w/o reducer). So that worked just fine and then for the heck of it I tried the other fitting meant to be used with the reducer in place and found that my bolt/shaft was too long to fit in that use configuration. Clearly there was an issue with the depth of the basket sockets for lack of a better way to phrase it.

Pizza stone on upper grate no deflector below. . I get my KK fully heat soaked at the temp I want (45-60 minutes) then I'll put my stone in. The temp will drop. I leave the vents alone and the temperature will slowly climb back up. Once it gets to the temp again (about another hour) I know the stone is fully heat soaked and ready to go. . Dennis's baking stones are really thick and take some time to heat soak properly. Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

I have a few questions about kk`s that can be applied to several of the models. The first is how easily they are moved (after then are initially out in their place). I know several models have wheels but would it be 1. Practical and 2. Necessary to move them out of the rain or hail? I have had grills with covers before and know that I just never use the cover..... Another question was about tiles becoming broken or chipped by the gardeners using a weed eater and throwing rocks into it. Because I have a small yard and patio area if I got a kk it would be within a few feet of the edge of my lawn. Has anyone experienced this? Is it a relatively easy fix? Finally， and most importantly， how did you know kamado cooking was going to be a permanent hobby in your life? I have always loved cooking. I bought my akorn 250 expecting to use it once per month whenever I felt like bbq. I severely underestimated the quality of food I would be turning out and it's versatility. I typically use it 3 or more times per week. I actually get sad when I can't use it (like right now when I am sick and dont feel up to it) but I have only had it since August. I have had other cooking “fads” for example I baked a cake once a week for a few months. I don't think I have ever felt as into any particular kind of cooking before， and I don't think I would get bored of it， but I would be wasting a huge amount of money if this wasn't a hobby I kept up for a substantial amount of time. I feel almost addicted. to kamado cooking， so I guess what I'm asking， is does that feeling wear off? That makes me sound crazy but I am legitimately concerned.

Looks like you had a great couple of days!

Sous vide steak for dinner tonight and served with grilled onion, portabella mushrooms, new potatoes and eggplant. The smell sooo nice when they are grilling, just cut them in half leave the skins on and grill for a couple of hours or so.

I have used the basket splitter with the splitter running left to right with the rotisserie in Smaug. It works well. I haven’t figured out all the ins and outs of using the splitter with the rotisserie as opposed to a regular charcoal basket set up, but I think there’s a slight advantage in being able to have a smaller, more intense fire by using the splitter. This way you can still cook at a lower temperature, which is achieved by the smaller fire, but the direct exposure to the more intense fire results in more browning of the skin of a bird or the outside of whatever piece of meat you’re spinning.

Lump size won't make a Noticeable difference, I use RO a lot which has mostly smalls. Light it in 2 spots should do. Top vent at 3 turns, bottom vent wide open. (With a wide open top vent you'll get rageing coals quickly but a lot of the heat is blowing out the top vent.) At around 450* close the top vent to 2 turns. At 550* close top vent to 1 1/2 turns and start closing down the bottom vent until it settles at 550*. Let it heat soak for a while after that. 3 turns is the most I ever open my top vent. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT