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I'm a UPS Choice member so I get an email the day before they deliver a package, I got one yesterday saying they would be delivering a package from Finex. For those who aren't familiar with the name, Finex https://finexusa.com/ is a small business in Portland, OR that makes a line of heirloom-quality cast iron cookware. I had bought one of their 12" skillets back in October and had an issue with it(the lid rocked a little), they replaced it in due course and that was that. I love the skillet, BTW. Here's a link to their "About" video: So I thought maybe they were sending me a hat or apron or something like that. But UPS Said the package weighed 4 lb. so I was a bit puzzled. So I went back through my email and I hadn't gotten any notification of an order that I might have forgotten, checked my credit card and Paypal account, no payments to them. Got home today and there was the package, one of their 1-qt sauce pots! My memory isn't what it used to be, but I think I would remember ordering a $125 piece of cast iron cookware so I went back through email, credit cards and Paypal again. I hadn't paid Finex for anything since early October and that was just for the skillet/lid. So I called, explained the situation and told the gentleman I would be glad to return it if he would send me a shipping label. He thanked me for my honesty and told me they had run a Cyber Monday deal where the sauce pot was included with the skillet purchase and my name must have somehow gotten on that list. And that I was welcome to keep it! He said he would check to be sure they weren't giving away too many sauce pots, thanked me for being a customer and we parted ways. Now that's the way to run a business!!

Started with smoking some cheddar cheese for me and a pork loin for a friend. Cheese is done, can't see much smoke but can taste it and smell it. It is now vacuumed sealed and resting for a few weeks. While the pork is smoking I smoked some coffee beans. It has been a long time since I did this. I asked someone who shall remain nameless to pick me up 10 pound of GREEN beans and they came home with roasted beans. I am the only one drinking espresso or coffee in this house so it took me some time to use these beans. Actually I don't even have coffee everyday. Time for dinner, SVed some fish, made some fries, PCed the carrots and steamed some of my peas. Canadian is still smoking and the storm is in full force. The wind was blowing snow on Pebbles so I dropped the winter cover. It is being held back by the snow blower which is ready for action. Fortunately it is a low temp. cook. Canadian Bacon is done. Lot of smoke on this cook. Kitchen now smells great.

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Apparently I did not take many pictures for this cook. I did this cook a couple of weeks ago. I have gotten kind of bad at posting but I am still cooking all the time. Anyway I had a hankering for brisket. I saw this "bludawgs" method of cooking somewhere on the kamado guru forum and it promised juicy results in a much faster period of time. I looked into it, and saw it was not developed for kamado cooking so it probably wouldn't give me the results I was looking for. I decided to take some of the technique and just see how it went. No injections and I just used salt and pepper for my rub(I think this will be my go to). Set the vents for 230. Used pecan wood in my smoke pot. Fat cap down for 2 hoursflipped and fat cap up for about 2 and a half hours. Then wrapped and returned for just under 3 hrs I think. I couldn't believe it was at 203 and probing tender that fast. I really didn't think it would work. Rested for about an hour and a half pictures don't do it justice. It was supremely juicy and tender. This method actually works very well. I thought someone might be interested to try it out.

It looks to me that you might have gotten a lump of coal.

50 day dry aged prime rib. 10 pounds 5 bones, cooked with a quick sear in the oven the smoked at 250 for 3.5 hours

Everyone has parts left over. That's part of the KK experience. You get more than what you need. Seriously I had parts leftover too. No worries.

Just saw and read this thread. You'd fit right in with Quinn and Hooper and Chief Brody in that scar scene from Jaws! I had a hand injury like that once and it was big fun. Ouch. Excellent looking repair. I'm guessing you'll get 90% or better return of motor and sensory function. Ask for a quick blast of Propofol when they pull the pin...

Experimenting today with the technique posted by @Syzygies for generating steam in the KK for bread baking. Specifically, heat soaking with a 16" cast iron skillet with two spools of heavy chain (total weight around 30 lbs), and then introducing 350g of ice to generate steam in the initial stages of bread baking. Doing this with a sourdough boule -- 78% hydration with 30% whole wheat flour (bread flour for the rest). Here is the pan with chains on the lower rack: Closed down the vents a bit to keep the steam trapped. 350g of ice generated steam for a solid 10+ minutes. The finished product. I like the look of the crust -- comparable to what I'd expect in a CI Dutch Oven.

I received my 23 KK on Friday. It took us a few days to get it up to the patio. We had to go up 10 stone steps. We grilled several rib eyes as a payment for the help. I was an owner of the old Kamado cooker. I must have been lucky because I didn't have all the problems that others describe. I think I was an early buyer before most of the issues. I gave it away to a friend when we moved from Nashville to Seattle several years ago. Regardless, the KK is unbelievable! The quality of construction, material, design, and function is 1000 times better. There is no way that I could ever own any other ceramic type cooker after seeing and using the Komodo Kamado. I plan to use it for the rib roast on Christmas. I am eager to try brisket, butts, and ribs again, too. Here is my new toy on the patio.

Dee put up the fantastic plastic the other day with our first present. Don't mind the background I leave things everywhere lol Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Whoo hoo and got dinner ready for me it's not on th KK but tasted great Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Thought I would do a spatchy have not done one in ages sort of become a rotisserie nut lolready to goI mixed up some of thiswith some dominator rub and a sash of paprikaput some under the skin then smeared the topI then gave both sides some dominator rubgot Ora up to 400 dee made up a potato bakeand ready to goon goes the bakethen the extender rack and the chook whilst that was chugging along I made up a ginger beer glaze chopped up the gingeradded the brown sugar and ginger beerand brought it to the boil to reduce check out the bark on the chook awesome ready to tent the bake turned out niceafter the restand plated with the glaze bake and some salad the Oakridge dominator rub really shined on the chook and the ginger beer glaze really topped it off Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Cooked up a small brisket yesterday, 11.4 lbs before trimming. I used Texas Original BBQ Rub. Wrapped after 4 hours and fully cooked at 7 hours. Here's the brisket wrapped in butchers paper...I forgot to take a picture before wrapping. Getting ready to slice it up I have one more brisket left to cook from the three I purchased.

That first picture is awesome.

Welcome and what a beautiful KK you chose. Wait until you do chicken, it will unbelievably moist. BTW I love the stones.

Mom passed away many years ago (I am 70 yrs old). She made it to 68 before pancreatic cancer got her, which was not the source of those surgeries, that was Crohns Disease and back in the 1940's-1970's there was not much to do with it if it was causing ulcerative colitis, so chopping out intestine was the method. Pretty gruesome... She is at least at rest now. You have one more week with "The Pin". Maybe make a ring out of it as a reminder to not stick your hand into things that crush, bang, bump and grind?? Pain is a wonderful reminder of what not to do. I have described some of my close calls to friends and relayed the experiences of my family and one of the remarks that always amused me was , "Maybe I should not be standing to close to you". On the other hand I have been incredibly lucky in spite of the things that have happened to me. A girlfriend once said to me, as the car we just flipped end over end down a rural highway came to rest, "boy are you lucky" since neither one of was hurt; the car was trashed. Getting run off the road by a drunk and left in the dark 50 miles from a town was an interesting experience!

I've run out of places to store my roti parts too. Gonna give the tree a go.

I got a good laugh. The present looks a little lonely down there. The rotisserie parts in the background is classic.

Looks like my whole chicken thats in the fridge will be spatchcocked too. Its been a while for me too.

I think I have a good bit.. Maybe after having children helped.. On no meds at all now.. Yayy!!! We are getting there.

Found all the pieces and more! Put the roti in and have parts left over. That sort of worries me but....

sweet mate. yeah dont need to kill anyone Play it safe

Love it Aussie, nicely done. Ive been cooking my chooks lately like that as i couldn't be bothered with the roti Love the BBQ outside the KK gives. What temp you take the IT to?

Dayumn.. Nailed that.. The best ever.. Zero tan or grey outside area.. That baby is pink from crust to crust! Killer cook.. don't get any better than that prime wise..

Beautiful bird, great color.

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).

Looks wonderful, Aussie. I'd have a hard time putting that ginger beer in the glaze, I love ginger beer not sure I could refrain from drinking it.

TelTru FAQ TelTru is a premier manufacturer of replacement thermometers; various of us have several (trading sensitivity for range). They state a low temperature operating limit of -50F for bimetal thermometers with silicone fill. My speculation is that their other bimetal thermometers have no such lower limit. The display quite naturally goes off scale low well before this point. Whether this causes loss of calibration is both an empirical question and a question for each manufacturer. My thermometers often see 25 F over winter nights, and on low & slow cooks the comparison with my BBQGuru is at least a sanity check (the different locations take a very long time to converge to the same temperature, even if all instrumentation has perfect accuracy). So, dunno. I've been able to ignore this issue and my food tastes good. As I said, ultimately an empirical question. Who has witnessed loss of calibration after freezing nights? For the regulation issue, the operating temperature range would be a good question for Dennis to take up with his supplier. Don't get me wrong; I deeply respect asking this question. What's the poster child for asking this question? Apollo 13 returning home alive after a severe explosion in space. The ultimate cause of the explosion was bare wire inside an oxygen tank, which sparked the contents during a routine in-flight stir. Earlier on the ground, NASA needed to boil off the contents of that tank, missing a voltage design change that accidentally fused a heating element always-on. They asked some guy to sit on a folding chair and say something if a thermometer read over a certain limit. The thermometer quickly reached and got stuck at this limit; it wasn't designed to read off scale high. The guy didn't say anything, and the tank problems went unnoticed.

Uhh, tony, that's not a kk. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Susan, it is good to hear that you are now only on ibuprofen, that is a good step forward with your recovery! Saying prayers that the pin removal will go smoothly. Last year I had a screw taken out of the bone in my right foot (bunion surgery) because it hurt more with the screw being left in than just removing it. So you might feel a whole lot better when that blasted pin is removed. Save the pin and make something out of it When I requested the screws from my foot I had to sign a release, even though it was mine and I paid to have it put in and I was paying to have it removed. Pretty odd if you ask me. My mother had 21 major abdominal surgeries in her lifetime and when they did the last one there was not enough skin left on her belly for the sutures to hold without tearing through scar tissue so the surgeon used strain reliefs for the sutures to distribute the load on the skin; they were about 3/4" diameter buttons so it looked like she was laced up. She had a sense of humor about it and saved the buttons so after the surgery/removal of sutures and for the follow up she made a new dress and used the buttons on it. The doctor just busted out laughing when he saw what she had done with the hardware. So, shock your doc with creativity

Wow, you must have a high tolerance to pain.

Why we do this...

Don't rush back to quick I know it sucks but you want to make sure everything is good to go Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

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.

Santa is going to have a hernia after delivering all the KKs that folks want for Christmas this year - LOL!

We have been working on the issues, first was the adjustable bracket which covered all the variations in motor sockets. We no longer need the outside drive shaft to be adjustable so we have solid ones. the last is we now have cradles with pins instead of threads.. Solid shafts were sent before the factory closed for Idul Fitri. If they are not there now they will be any minute now.

Big Bad 32" Colbolt Blue

Background - I cooked on Akorns for a few years before buying a KK. The Akorn being insulated steel has a really lite dome. The KK's hinge system makes it effortless to open the dome. I've played around with other brand ceramic domes so I know a decent amount of effort is needed to open them. Mrs skreef has only opened an Akorn and KK dome. Onto the story - last weekend me and Mrs skreef were in a large outdoor kitchen store. Like usual I was walking around playing with ceramic Kamados. I opened the dome to a KJ classic. I then called Mrs skreef over and had her open the classic dome. She got it about 4" open, gave me a screwed up look and put it back down. After that little test she'll never want to cook on anything but a KK. Bosco once your KK's arrive you will be truly amazed at how easy the domes open up. When I got my KK the dome was so kewl I played with the dome for 5 or 10 minutes before I finished unpacking everything - LOL

Problem is every motor has a different depth of drive socket, even the same brand and model. This has been driving us crazy for years. For a while one grill.com was cutting custom shafts for customers.. You will need to measure the depth of your socket. The length will be the distance between the motor and the grill plus the spring compressed into the motor socket will just clear the grill. We have another batch of adjustable ones coming from the machine shop. Last batch they messed up and some of them were right hand threads instead of left and just unscrewed! Argh.. good news is that a bit of loc-tight or epoxy fixed them up but still.. These adjustable ones solve the socket depth issues. We will airmail a box to the warehouse and a few directly to customers who don't mind the airmail expense. They will be up in spares on the new forum.. All the spares segregated by grill size will be up this week too..