Leaderboard

I'll post pics once it arrives at our pavilion

Here is the first tasting, I just hope the next batch turns out as well.

I am ready and waiting for the IT to get to 147F. Done. I used the KK cold smoker for this cook. I can tell you when the fire seems to be dying down in the smoker a very small shot of air from the Milwaukee Compact Blower does wonders to revive it. Most of the smoking wood was whiskey barrel wood and some maple. When things were done I took the top off the cold smoke and in a very short time it went wild, BTW the air pump was still connected. Tomorrow I will slice, package, vacuum seal and freeze.

For a while she worked for an Unlimited Class Offshore Ocean Racing Team and she showed me a video for one of their boats going 100mph in open ocean. Pretty interesting and then it dawned on me, how did you get the video, and her reply, "I took it myself from the other boat"... She has been friends with a particular group of Vietnam Veterans, Marines, and they unanimously agree that she has the largest set of huevos of all of them!

PERFECT.. Keep the great deals in the family!!

When I do low and slow, I generally use cocochar and add in 1-2 large chunks of smoking wood for flavor. Let's just say 'oak' for the sake of this discussion... I usually heat soak the KK, then add the oak chunks about 45 minutes before I want to put the meat on...to give it time for the smoke to mellow out. Do you too hate waiting for the oak to get through that initial acrid / big white billowy smoke phase? Well, I've recently started 'pre-charring' the chunks with a MAAP torch, very quickly, just blackening all sides... Guess what...smoke is clean and blue from that point forward... I can't believe I didn't think to try this before. I've done it 3 times now with great results. And no, if it fully ignites, it won't instantly burn up, just take the torch off of it and flip it with a pair of tongs...when you close the lid it will settle. There are always remnants of these large chunks in the basket the next day if I've remembered to shut everything down -- so this doesn't accelerate the burn rate of the chunks enough to matter to your cook.

I was just notified that we still have 186 boxes of CoCo Char in our New Jersey warehouse!! Send me zip for a quote

I dunno. I think the ruckus I'd get into with that much beer and I get all cringy. Luckily, smoked meat doesn't make me behave badly!

@MacKenzie - what??? No ketchup?

Holy smokes, Foton, what a ride.

That is great, Tucker.:)

She is a real type T person (T for thrill). Her brother would never jump out of an airplane so she took him on a last ride with scattering his ashes off Angel Falls in Venezuela, and that was not her first leap off that cliff! Now that is an OMG moment! That little spec of white in the jungle floor is the landing zone. And no, I would not jump either

I think I tried to eat the screen!!! Mac, that looks beyond good

Eat local! Our farmer's market includes a vendor who sells the delicacies of the Chesapeake. This includes rockfish. Picked up two beautiful filets today, basted with garlic butter, then served with a Steven Raichlen melon-mint relish. Great stuff!

Nice dinner. The beef is still saying MOOOO, like it like that.

Guess who's camera battery died so all we have is one shot of the ends of the bacon. The tasting is tomorrow.

And it turns out Maxwell's equations are really just the ideal fluids form of the Navier-Stokes equations, so they apply to electromagnetism as well. I remember skating through an electromagnetism class in college by just treating the entire thing like a class in ideal fluid flow. Aced it until I got to the final, when the first questions was, what are the units for various e/m things. No clue, but it wasn't psi, m/s, or anything I knew about! What was this thread about again?

Basically everything I would have said about airflow has already been said, so I'll just add my name to the list of people who admire and appreciate the deep thought put into the KK firebox and vent design. It's just as easy to control the temperature 12 hours into a cook as it is 12 minutes into a cook. What I will add is how I use the dual vents. I set the right hand dial to the medium circle upon startup and adjust the left hand dial and the top hat until I reach target temp. I like a smokey flavor, so the top hat is kept open under a 1/4 turn. I then adjust the right hand dial up or down a step or two throughout the cook. Wind, completion of the heat soak, the infamous stall, can all impact your target temps and the right hand dial provides a simple way to consistently manage the heat.

Pale, I have the same cooker as you. The 32 is a Big Bad beast, hence it's name. Once you learn how to tame the beast, it's a wonderful cooker and very mild mannered. However, because of its mass, you have to stay ahead of your 32 all the time. If you overshoot on a 32, you're toast, literally. Also, you have a more complicated air control manifold at your disposal than most, so this can complicate matters, but rest assured your 32 wants you to be in charge. I always recommend that every new kamado owner take a weekend day and get to know their cooker. I generally recommend that you grab a case of your favorite beer, an ice chest, a bag of lump, Some great tunes, a good book, and get after it. I'm really OC, so I put my digital thermometer through a potato and put it on the main grate. This allows you an accurate reading of temps at grate level and this is what you're looking to determine. You're looking to determine the response curve of your 32 to changes in vents setting. You're also looking to determine vents setting for the most common cooking temps, i.e. 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450, and 450°. I'd also suggest that you forget aout the RHS dial at this point and exclusively use the LHS dial initially. Once you understand the response curve of your 32 you can get fancy and add in the RHS dial. Light a single spot in your lump pile. Once the fire is established, close the lid and from here on in, control your temps only with the vents. Open your bottom LHS dial completely and open the top hat vent about 2 turns. Take note of how your 32 responds temperature wise. I have found that my 32, TheBeast, responds to quicker to changes in vent setting than any kamado I've ever owned. I think this is because all airflow is directed through the lump pile unlike other kamados. I start shutting down my vents about 50-75° before my target temp, in this case 225°. Creep up on 225°. My vent settings for 225° are the bottom LHS cut down to less than 1/8th or less and the top hat something like 1/2 turn open. I also fine tune temps using my top hat vent as it is infinitely adjustable. Let your 32 settle in at each temp for a period of about 30 minutes. Use this time to pop the top and enjoy your 32. Make note of each vent setting on paper because these vent settings will note change (for the most part). After about 30 minutes, open your top hat vent about 1/8 of a turn or so. Leave the bottom vent alone. Within a specific temp range, i.e. 200-300° I control temps via the top hat vent. The same holds for 300-400° and 400°+. Take note of how temp rises with this change in the top hat vent setting. You're looking to hit 250° and my advice is to sneak up on it. As you know, if you overshoot, you're toast when it comes to getting temp back down. I've found that my 32 is quite responsive to changes in vent settings so like I said, sneak up on 250°. Again, let your 32 settle in at 250 for about 30 minutes. Pop the top and sit back, jam to some tunes, admire your 32, and enjoy life. Repeat the above for all the temperatures above. When you go from 275° to 300°, open the bottom vent some more (I find I like to calibrate using the notches cut in the LHS dial) and screw down on your top hat vent. I screw down the top vent completely so that I can keep track of the number of turns for each remp. Like I said, I like to control temps largely by using the top hat vent. This may seem like a lot of tedious work, but the dividends are enormous. Your control of the 32 insures impressive cooks. I've smoked cheeses during the winter in my 32. I've smoked jerky at about 175 and finished it in a dehydrator, I've done fish at about 190-200. Once you understand how your 32 responds to changes in vent settings, you can really get creative in a lot of areas. After you've spent the time to get your 32, open the vents wide, sear off some steaks, and enjoy a great meal! Oh, let's talk about the RHS dial on the air control manifold. I use the smaller holes to fine tune my temps. I only started doing this AFTER I had a really fine understanding of how TheBeast responded to changes in vent settings. Used in conjunction with the LHS, I've used the RHS to really zero in on temps. You can also use the RHS entirely by itself, but you've got to go through the exercise again for those numbers. As Dennis will tell you, the holes in the RHS dial are not necessarily cut to correlate with any specific temperature. I love how responsive TheBeast is to changes in vents settings. I hosently think that the KK is so efficient in its air flow, that you can largely control it across a very wide temperature range using only the top hat vent. The draft through the KK's lump pile is unlike anything I've ever seen before. This means the temperature change happens quicker than most people expect, especially if they have cooked on other kamados. Sorry to be so long winded, but the time put in doing the above yields huge dividends. KKs are a once in a lifetime purchase, so in the grand scheme of things, the time invested is really nothing. Besides, you've got a cooler full of beer, some great tunes, and a nice book to help you through the exercise! Enjoy!