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How cool. On the Egghead forum they do a gift exchange like that.

We just started getting a little bit of color in our trees. A couple of photos at the marina from yesterday.

When I bought my Kamado Joe I had a word with my insulated cabinet smoker and reassured it that it was still the champ. With my KK’s arrival, no such reassurances were made. This time, the title of "Champ" must be earned. The competitors. On the left is the reigning champ, my 270 Smokers Standard. Boxy but good. On the right, the challenger who needs no introduction. 270 started as a regional brand based in Lexington, VA that made inroads on the competition circuit and is now sold throughout the US and Canada. I was an early adopter, posted a review at BBQ Brethren, and still field IM’s, emails and even occasional phone calls from owners and prospective buyers. It's an insulated cabinet with a unique design known as heated draft. I'll spare you the details, but the bottom line is that it is a convection smoker whose design amps up the flow, promoting very even temps and smoke distribution. Water pans are optional but recommended. Couldn't be more different from a KK in terms of airflow and the means by which it manages temps and moisture. To sustain that air movement, the 270 burns a lot of briquettes. After running my KK for 10 hours at 275 the other day I only needed to add two coco char sticks to reload the basket for today’s cook. The 270 excels at cooking the big four proteins popular on the KCBS circuit, so this is stiff competition for a KK. I’ll be using each cooker with my best practices for each. Here's a view of the 270’s firebox loaded to the brim. I’ll burn a fair amount of that today. Lighting procedure is ½ chimney of lit coals laid on top, burning down Minion style. The ever familiar KK lighting procedure for low and slow. One spot lit. Fifteen minutes before the ribs go on I put the smoke wood in each. One chunk of hickory and one of cherry go in the 270. You can see significant fuel consumption already. We'll add more chunks as the cook goes on. Just how you roll with this thing. And the smoke pot with one chunk hickory, two chunks cherry, and the gaps filled with cherry chips. That's it for this cook. No refills. The ribs: four racks of Costco St. Louis cut spares. Four racks seasoned with Meat Church Honey Hog, with two of those seasoned with a second layer of Honey Hog Hot. One of each will go on each cooker. After two hours, both are looking good: Both cookers are struttin' their stuff, smoking their little hearts out: Maintained a steady 275 on both cookers throughout. For the KK this was effortless. For the 270, I had to actively manage the vent because as the coals burned down, the ash was starting to affect the burn of the remaining coals. Whenever I opened for spritzing, the KK recovered immediately to the same temp. The 270 required 5-10 minutes to recover. After 3-1/2 hours the ribs in both cookers were passing both the bend test and the toothpick test. Here's the fire box of the 270 at the end, full of ash and burned down quite a bit. The final product. The KK ribs are on the right. The 270 ribs are on the left. Don't tell my blind taste testers. The Test: I had four blind taste testers. Three are my wife and two daughters who have eaten plenty of 270 ribs. The fourth is Mr. Qua, my eldest daughter's friend, who helped me move my KK to the back yard and is now pleased as can be to be eating ribs. The Results: Wife and daughter the youngest decided both were equally good, although my wife did pick up on a "smokier" note in the 270 ribs. As we discussed it, we concluded that note was the flavor of the briquettes underlying the wood smoke. Not unpleasant, but distinct. The KK ribs cooked with CoCo Char lacked this note. Daughter the eldest and Mr. Qua both picked the KK ribs without hesitation. When asked why, they both stated immediately that they were more moist. I'm the fifth vote and noted that as we continued to eat ribs (Wife and daughter the youngest finished early, so didn't notice this), the KK ribs retained their moisture as they cooled, while the 270 ribs seemed to dry up a bit. The Verdict: With 3 votes for the KK ribs and 2 votes neutral, the new champ is my KK. The KK was both easier to use by far, and also produced more moist ribs. Look for my 270 on Craigslist soon.

I've now done 2 batches of chicken stock in a crock pot. Here's what I've figured out. Small oval crock pot works fine for 1 carcass. Final yield about 36 oz. Wash carcass to remove any residual rub for a cleaner chicken stock. Unless of course you want a slightly rub tasting stock. Set to low temperature is right at 212* and a very low boil. Set to "Keep Warm" temperature is a steady 155*. With that figured out proceed as follows ..... Set on high for 60 minutes (to get temperature above 140*) then switch to keep warm and let it ride for 12 hours. Strain through 4 or 6 layers of cheese cloth. If I'm going to do this on a regular basis I need to buy the larger fat separator. I currently own a small one. Crock pot is a very easy method for making chicken stock. Uses a very minimal amount of electricity.

One thing I did want to be able to do is bake bread on this Little Gem. Today I made a batch of sour dough bread, use 85% of the ingredients for my standard loaf, probably could have gotten away with only a 10% reduction. This KK heated up so quickly it was well heat soaked by the time put the bread on. Things were a little hotter than normal, grill heat soaked at 540F. Next time I think I'll try 525F and I also over cooked the bread by a minute or two. The crumb is good and the flavour is awesome. Tomorrow I hope to do a pizza on the Little One. Can you tell I'm getting ready for winter when I don't to spend any more time in the ODK than I have to?

I had to figure out what do I cook so that I need to use Pebbles and Little Ms. Pebbles. You know the answer, the potatoes at 425F and the chicken at 350F.:) Cut Russet potatoes into cylinders, soak in water for 5 mins, dry and put one end in hot oil on the stove until the colour is nice, about 5-6 mins. Flip and do the other side. Wipe out oil, add butter and thyme twigs. When the foam starts to turn a little brown add 1/2C of chicken stock. Put on KK at 425F for 30 mins. Chicken is done. Plated with some previously grilled squash.

I scored a nice stash from my Aussie connection. This has been about a month in the making and I'm really excited with its arrival. Can't wait to try these. I see a lamb cook this weekend. Some interesting labels. The interesting thing about the list of ingredients is what's not there compared to most US ingredients lists. A great day at the Bistro.

Yeah, Jon was kind enough to whip me up one of the ckreef specials. Prevents flare ups, but transmits a bit more heat than the drip pan would.

Not too many weeks go by without fire roasted New Mexican green peppers and/or Poblanos via Komodo Kamado & KK CoffeeChar in the fridge. I use them for everything including, oh boy this should draw out some comments :D, in cottage cheese for a mid-meal snack. But lately with fall colors turning on and the World Series just around the corner I've been hearing the raw peppers scream John Fogerty's lyrics "... put me in coach" :). So that's exactly what is shaping up: Peppers and fatty pork butt cubes being roasted-smoked on the KK over CoffeeChar along with a little mesquite for another flavor layer. Soup making to commence in a couple days ... stay tuned.

I used to make my own stock all the time, but have fallen out of the habit. Need to start giving those roti chicken carcasses a second life.

Ck, you are right on track.

Cool! bet that's a heck of a lot better than that stuff you buy at the store.

By the taste I reckon it would go really well with seafood as well an all rounder Outback Kamado Bar and Grill[emoji621]

Magic Mojo is pretty good stuff.

Aaaaaaaaah, you are on a big adventure.:)

All right all is forgiven for your previous injustice - LOL You rocked out that homemade pasta. Last time I made homemade pasta it was hung on coat hangers - LOL

Looks good.

Thanks, Stile. Here is another one. I wanted to use my normal sourdough full bread recipe and see if it would fit on the Little One. It is ready to flip out of the brotform. The crumb shot. The full recipe worked and I am very pleased with the bake.:)

Looks fantastic. Next weekend will drive into Macon where I should be able to find a leg of lamb. Will probably have to pay an arm and a leg for it but that's not going to stop me. Then I'll be all over this cook. One day you're going to come home and Dee will have Ora fired up with meat cooking away. There will be no stopping her after that. That's how it happened at the Bistro. And now depending on how the tofu challenge goes Susan might actually beat me in final points - the shame and humiliation if that happens - LOL

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm real disappointed that a baked potato isn't going to go well on the grill. I'm a meat and potatoes only kind of guy. Believe me, I will keep it very simple. If I can cook simple stuff that tastes good then I will love my grill. I was looking at it this morning and trying to see what name came to me and the obvious one came to mind. It's terra blue and I kind of have a bomb theme going with my Yam the Bomb so...The Crusty Blue Bomber seems so obvious. My wife was underwhelmed.

Wow! I remember when mine was that clean. Now it's nice and "seasoned" with pork, chicken, beef and smoke!