Leaderboard

This is my November Guru entry for the "Let Us Give Thanks" challenge. My niece's family -- all eight of them -- will be out of town for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so today is our holiday celebration. We started yesterday with the sourdough. This is a 78% Hydration dough with 30% whole wheat flour and 10% of the entire flour coming from the starter. Here it is after mixing and before the folds and overnight bulk fermentation. Today we did final shaping and into the bannetons for proofing. We baked these in the oven because the KK was busy with other things. A dark chestnut. Just right for this loaf. Early this AM we put the pork loin into a brine of apricot nectar, water, garlic (lots), salt, and sugar. Recipe from Adam Perry Lang. After eight hours, we mixed the rub, and then rubbed up the loins. Onto the KK, using the cold smoker with apple wood chips. Need more pics of that KK: Meanwhile, I prepare the glaze of apricot preserves, cilantro, garlic, and lemon juice. Next, I'm making the prune, rum, chocolate cake. Recipe from Milk Street Kitchen. The prunes, rum, and molasses after a short turn in the microwave. The mixed cake into the springform pan, then into the oven: Out of the oven: Our guests arrive, and Kodi gets re-acquainted with my grand nephew. He's wondering whether this little dude is a puppy or something he can eat: Next, use the indoor grill to pre-char a cedar plank: The pork loin comes off the grill. And the Camembert goes on after cranking the temp to 400. Still cranking apple wood smoke: Finally, everything is ready: Satisfied customers:

I finally completed my storage unit. I kept trying to design something that used horizontal shelving then ultimately decided that @wilburpan had already designed exactly what I needed - vertical storage. His original thread is here: http://komodokamadoforum.com/topic/6027-built-a-storage-unit-for-my-kk-grill-accessories/#comment-61206 I don't have 1/2 the tools, 1/3 of the patience, or 1/16 of the skills that Wilbur has, but I still managed to get this thing together without too many issues and, more importantly, I didn't even get a splinter! No closeup pictures of my joints, they aren't nearly as tidy as Wilbur's. I'd never done half lap joints before and I did these all with my table saw - it worked well enough. I got better as I went. If you were to look at all of the joints, you could easily piece together the timeline of my build. lol I'd also never ripped down a 2x8 into 2x4s. Doesn't seem like it would be, but it's very difficult to find 'half'. I don't have a planer, so I was stuck with my best attempt at 'half'. I probably should have cut a thin edge off of each side of the 8" width to give me non-rounded edges. Failing that, I should have made sure my flat edges were used in the best direction. I made a few relatively minor changes from Wilbur's design. I put in a 2x4 under the center of each of the platforms (perpendicular to the top boards) so that I could put heavy objects on and not worry about the top boards sagging. Not sure if it was at all necessary, especially on the bottom, but it made me feel better to include them. I also noticed way too late that my shelf frames are upside down from Wilbur's. The middle support should help with that mistake. The second change was that I pegged the lap joints on the dividers - drilled two 1/4" hols and drove in dowels. Again, likely not necessary at all but I'd never done that before and it seemed like a good opportunity to practice. Last, on the lower shelf, I notched out the outside edges of the frame and top boards so that the uprights weren't hanging outside of the top and bottom shelf. In other words, the unit is flush the whole way down both sides. If you look at Wilbur's, his uprights are 'outside' of the shelves. Not sure there is a difference either way structurally. It took me three weekends working on and off to get this built. The wood, screws, and sealer cost me about $60. And I only had to message Wilbur once for assistance! Loaded in here are: the lower/sear grate, deflector, rotisserie basket and motor (in the bin) and smoking CI pot. Not loaded are: the main grate (unlikely this will ever find it's way to this storage bin, but it would fit if I need it to), upper grate, and baking stone (all three of which were in the grill working on some calzones for dinner).

A simple stuffed shells dinner with Texas toast and a side salad. Everything cooked outside even browning the meat on my outdoor burner. The pictures should tell the story. I

The surgery went well. Very little nerve and tendon damage. He put a pin and a small plate in her finger. Plate stays forever but at some point in the future the pin will come out. First follow up appointment is Monday the 21st. They have her on oxycodone for pain. Attached is a x-ray with the pin and plate.

I had a teeny bit of this debate internally， but when it comes down to it， if i am entertaining a crowd i am doing low and slow. In terms of low and slow the 23 can definitely handle a ton of meat. If you frequently grill for a ton of people...you might think about the 32. I'd call Dennis to talk about your primary uses of the kamado.... I never felt like he was trying to upsell me. Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

Chimichuri ribs are a great idea! I think chimichuri could go with almost any meat Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

Well they were awesome. Super tender, bite clean off the bone but not sloppy and the rib squirted when I bit into one. Smoke ring was off the charts today

One of the cooks the other day inspired me to do some baby backs with chimichurri. I decided to compare it against one of my favorite pre-made rubs - slap yo daddy all purpose rub. My BIL made a fresh batch of chimichurri last night and we added to the ribs, wrapped them and put them in the fridge overnight. I got up this morning around 7 to fire up the grill. Started the day at 32 degrees outside with a nice frost on the kk By 9, the kk was humming along at 275 and I added the 4 racks; two with my rub and 2 with the chimichurri. Nice combination of smoke and steam coming out of the kk. the smoke pot had been going for about 20 minutes with chunks of applewood. this pic (below) was after about an hour and a half. They got their first spritzing with a apple cider vinegar/apple juice combination. We are about half way into the cook with the pic below. At this point, I wanted to hit the chimichurri ribs with more sauce so I moved everything to the racks. Just before pulling in the pic below. It took about 6.5 hours to get to this point where they passed the "bend" test. Getting ready to cut: This batch may have been my favorite. I really like the chimichurri on the BBR's.

Definitely do some cold test runs (use a 5# bag of potatoes), spin at least 15 minutes to check to see if everything stays tight. You might still need the Flexbar (or blue Loctite). As you've noted, reversing the motor spin isn't the panacea for this problem. It generally takes 2 or 3 different fixes to solve the whole problem.

It's a thicker slice of a egg based bread, popular here at the chain steakhouses - usually grilled with lots of butter. You can find it also in some supermarkets - pre-slathered and frozen like Charles got, or fresh in the bread aisle and do it yourself.

Nice looking steak. Me and Mrs skreef do 1 steak for the 2 of us unless I want leftovers.

You did a great job with that. Storing grates vertically is much better than horizonally.

This cracked me up. With it getting colder outside I knew it was only a matter of time. Check out the upper temperature. Obviously not what the tiles on the outside read but they are comfortably warm.

That looks really good

Beautiful set up everything nice and neat and a table top on top of that

Looks like a good job to me I seriously need to build a home for all of my crap Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Third it lol looks tasty. Texas toast is that just toast on the grill or do you add something Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

I second what MacKenzie said above.

Looks like a great job to me. Everything is nice and organized.

Very true

You didn't need to go down that road for good food and pampering - you get that every day anyway.

I cooked my first Prime brisket this weekend. It turned out great other then my timing and cook temp. I put the brisket on Saturday night at 11ish just before I went to sleep. I thought I had the vents set for 225f or so but at 5:30am Sunday morning the brisket was just about done. The dome temp was 310f...opps. I closed down both top and bottom vents and let the brisket sit till 7am. I held the brisket till 12:30pm in my oven at 165f. The brisket with all the silverskin removed. Seasoned with Smokin Guns Mild rub Not a very good KK shot its pitch black at 5:30am The sliced brisket and my new brisket knife. The knife is 19" long with the handle. Then I cooked some ribs for latter this week.

ck, that is a precious shot.:) Love it.

Thanks CK I may try it

ck, it was seeds and I grind them in a coffee grinder.

Yum! I tried to convince my wife to go the 'one big steak for the two of us' route and she wasn't going for it last time we had steaks. Maybe I'll take her to Tuscany to prove my point. That'll show her!

Perfect, you have a space for everything.

ck, now this a dinner that I'd really enjoy.

Yikes! Susan, you win the ultimate Scary Challenge for that picture! I hope you have a speedy and full recovery! Follow all the doctor's orders!

Opps here are the pics:

It's in two pieces. One piece would not be feasible.

Thanks, tinyfish and Aussie.:) The little 16 inch should work perfectly in the middle of the winter.

Holy that sounded terrible but the pictures make it 10x times worse. Please give Susan my best wishes and I hope she gets better real fast. Susan, at least you know Charles will be cooking some extra special meals for you.

@Bruce Pearson I've done it one time. Use sea salt and you really have to put a lot of smoke to it for 4 to 8 hours (dense white smoke). You would think it would come out acrid tasting but it doesn't. My one attempt wasn't really enough smoke for long enough (very mild smoke taste).

She definitely done a good job there nasty how did she get it caught Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Yikes! Somethings just can't be unseen.. I'm so sorry this happened.. Life's a bitch at times. Hope she gets well soon..

Wow that made my finger heard the minute I saw it. I hope Mrs. reef is doing OK.