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Hello to All, looks like a great group, enjoying posts and recipes and, of course, new 23 KK. Notice that many have names for their new family members... mostly seemlingly male... Here are some photos of the dragon landing...if you will notice in pic #5, the new KK, she spoke to me, "I will be called Daenerys, Mother of Dragons... and I will live by the pool...". So must obey my new queen, and feed her frequently... Fun learning what she likes so far, and appreciate all the good advice already online- Best to all, Barry

I cook some naan bread. This is Raks recipe. I used almost the exact recipe. I just cut the amount of yeast. Using the CI Pan was so easy. I didn't loose hardly any heat during my putting them in the pan, flipping them or getting them out. This will be our go to recepie and method of cooking for now on. They were chewy.. Love that. Also I used Ghee to grease the Pan. Worked Perfect.

Well, I finally got around to making another batch of bacon, but this time I used Purple Crack instead of the juniper berries called for by Ruhlman in his brine. All rubbed down and rested for a week. Onto the KK for cold smoking. I initially had some charcoal going in the bottom of the KK to bring it up to 150F, but it eventually went out and I didn't bother relighting it. So, this was truly mostly a cold smoke. I used a combo of small pieces of Fruita wood chips and pellets. Both were a blend of fruit woods. Had a sheet of aluminum foil on the lower grate to be a heat shield. Tried the new trick of several lit small chunks of charcoal into the cold smoker - worked great, never went out, but I did tap the sides a couple of times which seemed to kickstart heavier smoke production when it started to wane. Total smoking time was 4 hours. Rested overnight in the fridge wrapped in plastic. Then sliced up. Can't wait for breakfast in the morning to try it out.

Hey, no eating Bullwinkle! One of my fav cartoons as a kid.

I find it gets a bit challenging too do 4 different things on the kk at the same time. So much to think about like what wood can I use for everything and temp and cook times. Didn't think that the Blues Hog BBQ Sauce was that great it's very sweat. I'd rather have hot and spicy [emoji892] myself. Sent my DigiQ back as it had some issues ended up upgrading to the CyberQ I like that there are 3 meat probs and you can control it from your iPad or phone[emoji7] I also finally pulled out my Boos Walnut block I bought 2 years ago that was still sealed sitting in what my wife calls the Harry Potter closet[emoji23] put a really good coat of oil on it and it sucked it right up good thing I didn't wait any longer it might have started to split🤤 Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk

My home brewers' club - the Cedar Rapids Beer Nuts, puts on a home brew festival each year with other clubs in the state. We got a nice video piece on the local news this year. http://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Iowa-beers-on-display-at-Homebrew-Festival-as-craft-gains-popularity-441097363.html One of the beers I brewed for it was "Purple Crack Wheat" - a blackberry wheat beer with Taz pepperberries. Was pretty popular. Cheers!

Tried the Purple Crack bacon for brekkie this morning with some Purple Crack fried eggs (sorry, no pix). Bacon came out great - just a hint of crack!

Delicious!

Love the coffee shot Outback Kamado Bar and Grill

Looking forward to trying that naan bread, sk.

I love Naan that looks delicious

Hi Robert- LOL, probably not, let's just hope we don't see the zombie dragon (might be handy for charcoal starter though) Thanks, have aready enjoyed and learned from your posts-

This really was the best and easiest Naan bread we've ever made. I'm sold on CI Naan.

SK and CK, thanks for posting, it is a fantastic cook, bread looks soooooo tasty and perfectly cooked.

Do explore what charcoals you can find. If Relae in Copenhagen can taste the different sources for water they use in stock, you'll certainly distinguish between each charcoal source. Do you happen to be rich? Find some Japanese bincho. There are two poles to charcoal handling with a KK. At one extreme, the fire burns like a fuse. This is your only option for a low and slow, hence the importance of your charcoal choice. At the other extreme, you uniformly burn down all of your coals, in the process thoroughly heat-soaking the KK. The KK is in a different league here from other ceramic cookers. I thought I was already an expert, but the feel was akin to landing a jet after practicing on a prop plane. The KK is very well insulated, with considerable thermal mass. You could probably remove the charcoal fire before roasting, and just coast on the radiant heat in the KK walls, if you wanted to run a bizarre experiment. Many of us are hooked on leaning that way for our hotter cooks. There are many advantages; one is the cleaner taste from fully developed coals, akin to the separate fire box of every dream rig if space is not a constraint.

Great meal. Love Salmon.

Great cook

The moose meat is lean and it doesn't have a strong flavour. That was an espresso to end the meal.[emoji847]

Too bad about not getting any of Dennis' Coco or Coffee charcoals, as they are some of the best charcoals on the market. I'm eager to follow your journey with your new KKs and your experiments with sous vide/grilling combos. I have 2 sous vide circulators (a 3rd on order), so obviously I'm a big fan of this style of cooking. As you noted, I won't do fried chicken any other way now. So many of us took up SV cooking that Dennis put a special topic on this Forum for us to talk strictly about SV cooks.

A friend brought me some moose meat and with some of it I made moose meat hash patties. The patties have meat, potatoes, carrots, onion, mushrooms and spices. Did patties on Little Ms. Pebbles for lunch today and served with a garden salad, still warm from the sun. The cheese is a grilling cheese called Haloumi and this one is topped with Mediterranean spices. And someone had to finish off that lemon ice cream. Straight off the warming over the perfect end to a nice lunch.

Is a Komodo Kamado Enough for All Your Grilling Needs? For any cooker, there's going to be what you wanted to do before adapting to the cooker, and what you find you can do after adapting to the cooker. The KK opens up a far wider world than I thought possible, though I can't match absolutely every technique I had learned before. For us, traditional deliberately smoked low and slow barbecue is always a joy, but has become less and less important over time. We do regularly cook brisket or pulled pork for very large groups in a 23" KK. Brisket is dead simple with a KK, but the same quality is out of reach with more primitive equipment. In place of low and slow, the KK has become our outdoor oven. (We love fire and don't love air conditioning, so phasing out the indoor oven in summer is a lifestyle choice.) Bread, pizza, meat roasts, even dessert with good charcoal control. Here, any charcoal short of the KK extruded coconut lump will impart some smoke, that some people will pick up and others won't. With no money constraints or storage constraints, one should consider using extruded coconut lump whenever this could possibly be an issue. Or the KK coffee charcoal, if smoke is ok but has to be that good in quality. (In other words, Dennis is on this.) The KK is a dream for paella. One can close the lid (I sawed the handles off my biggest pan for this), or not. Grilling is like painting. One could happily spend one's life as an oil painter (or only grilling with a KK), but one won't produce watercolors this way. Grilling is also the biggest space hog, and the primary motivation for the largest cookers that Dennis sells. For me, chicken is the most versatile grilling meat, that displays myriad responses to myriad techniques. A couple of decades ago, I nailed a style of rotisserie chicken on a gas grill (like the best you'd expect from a shop that specialized in this), with vivid memories of entire parties rushing the serving table. My rotisserie experiments with the KK never matched this style, for reasons unknown, and I stopped even trying, in favor of direct high heat roasting after a light brine. I also have fond memories of grilled roadside chicken in Thailand, which I came closest to reproducing on 2' x 8' rental grills for a wedding party, constantly tending chicken parts a few inches off nice coals. I can't reproduce this with a KK. Honestly, I've never seen someone nail this style on a Weber either; the coal quality I'm imagining won't last long enough in a Weber, and Weber chicken tends to have the kerosene taste of burnt skin fat. There's something about a uniform, essentially infinitely wide but close and shallow layer of good mature coals, for grilling as people have done for a million years. The KK simply doesn't have this geometry, nor does a Weber. Our meat grilling (pork, beef, lamb, goat) has evolved as we've adapted to sous vide. We're simply very busy, and very fussy about consistent results. The very idea that grilled meat is better on the bone with visible fat strips, shaped like a steak, is an idea that predates and isn't adapted to sous vide. One wants to sous vide a hunk of meat (e.g. pork "sirloin") that can be sliced and eaten in its entirety, then finish it a few minutes over great charcoal. I use KK coffee charcoal, miserly amounts in a basket insert: Mini basket for coffee lump charcoal The sous vide step not only nails doneness, it tenderizes over several hours the more flavorful cuts that can be tougher if cooked traditionally. In summary, I don't trust anyone who disparages a Weber. If one has any talent for grilling, a Weber is a great instrument. However, a KK is far more versatile. How would I quantify this? They're both fairly priced. Does a KK do everything? No. Can I give up what it won't do? Yes, a KK opens up an enormously wider range of possibilities than it gives up.

I'm a little late to this party but you are about to have a ton of fun and you won't believe the moisture in your food (especially chicken)!!

Going to order 10 boxes of coco char

I own two KK's - a 23 and a 32. The best reason for two is that I can run at two different temps or different cook styles simultaneously. Roti on one while direct grill on the other, etc. If I could only have one it would be the 32 hands down. Why? Because it's the best overall combination of capacity and versatility. The 32 can do true two-zone grilling when using the basket splitter. My 23 has a splitter too, but the smaller size and round shape make it less effective at two zone. That said, here's my advice: In your situation I vote for #2. As long as you're reconciled to the fact that you'll end up with two KK's anyway (and you will), start with the 19 at a great price, use it awhile, then see what you need from there.

So did I, it's called a ziplock baggie. I just cut out one of the lower corners for the wires to go through.

erik, you sure are making the most of your new KK. Everything looks delicious and the good news is that there is a fantastic solution for the juggling problem - a call into Dennis for a second KK. A lot of us have made that call.