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Ok, here we are 8 hours and 15 minutes later, and the 17 pound turkey is at 165°F for all areas probed, so off it comes. Didn’t open Pele up at all except to take a final temperature check this morning with my thermapen. Pictures below... Carving will wait until people begin to arrive much later today, probably 4 PM Pacific time. That of course assumes that I can deal with the scent of smoked turkey in my house all afternoon and not give in to temptation... FYI: I used two medium sized chunks each of pedan and cherry.

It has been a while since I’ve had some fun with Pele and tonight I fired her up to smoke a turkey for my family’s annual Christmas tree trimming party. Prior to acquiring Pele I had bought fantastic smoked turkeys from Greenberg Smoked Turkey in Tyler, TX. As much as I enjoyed those birds there’s no reason for me to not give it a spin on my own cooker so tonight, I put this on for enjoyment tomorrow... Planning on the traditional low and slow @225° I brined in a simple salt water solution for @six hours, dried the bird and seasoned with a mixture of ground black pepper, a bit of cayenne pepper, picante papriki, onion and garlic powder, with some good old Schillings poultry seasoning tossed in as well. Put it on midnight and I’ll check at 8 in the morning. I’ve allowed for a possible12 hour cook, + or - an hour or two. Since I plan to serve this up carved for sandwiches or general noshing, finish time really is not critical. Of course I will post the obligatory finish pictures...

KK is on the left and Idaho pasture pig chops tonight !

Made a rack of St Louis ribs. Had great bark, decent smoke ring, and moist inside. The wife said best ribs I’ve made yet. Only looking to improve as I get used to this grill. Had a bit of trouble with the cold smoker. My baby girl loved the ribs and so did my cat when she threw them on the floor. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thought I might try some dijon as a binder gave the bottom some Himalayan pink salt with some purple Crack and a sprinkle of pigs ass ..on the top I just added some Crack and used the last of some peach and cherry rubs ckreef sent me ..ready to go onon they go over some jam and cherry wood..stay tuned bat lovers lol I'm doing my side challange for the guru on this cook on the kj jr[emoji9] Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Aussie O and Robert....................packages on their way. 5 days to New Orleans and 10 to 15 days to Australia. Hope they make it in one piece!!!!

Here is a picture of my sign on my lanai. After I saw MacKenzie’s sign in her cool KK setup I knew I had to have too

And I don't mean 4 or 5 of your buddies or a fork lift and a case of beer, you really, really need to get a structural engineer to evaluate whether your deck can support it safely. It all boils down to gravity. You know, the force that keeps our feet on the ground and makes launching a satellite expensive. Your deck is designed to resist a reasonable amount of gravity, enough to keep you and your neighbors suspended above ground without crashing through it and being injured. IT IS NOT DESIGNED AND BUILT TO SUPPORT SEVERAL HUNDRED POUNDS OF WEIGHT IN A SMALL SPACE! And if there's one thing a KK cooker is it's several hundred pounds of weight in a small space. Deck design and how it's supported has varied over the years , we've all seen the news where the deck fell off the house and people got hurt. If your deck was built more that 15 years ago you're in the Wild Wild West era and I wouldn't put anything heavier than a lawn chair on it. Building codes began to address this and have increasingly mandated deck construction methods and design to the point that today any new house will have a deck that you can pack shoulder-to-shoulder at a party and have confidence you'll all survive the evening. But the codes don't address excessive loads like a KK weighing 500 lb. or more in a fixed location would be. That's where the structural engineer comes in. I have to get a little techie here, we're talking about weight and the ability of a structure to keep it where you put it after all. Deck codes require a deck to support a minimum of 40 pounds/square foot of live load(think of a 160 lb. person packed into a 2'x2' square that follows them as they move around and fill your deck with those people). Big party, right? But everyone has a good time and gets to take their chances driving home. Now let's look at what the deck is made of and the stuff that sits on it, that's called dead load. Codes require decks to support 10 pounds/square foot of dead load. That's enough for the deck materials and a reasonable amount of chairs, tables, etc.. What happens when you place a 23" KK on that deck? The footprint of a 23 is 23.5" x 30", now you've got 550 lb of weight concentrated in a space that 2-1/2 people would occupy for a short time. Less space than that since the casters are recessed. And the cooker isn't walking around, once you get it there it's there. Do some arithmetic: your deck which is designed to support 10 lb/sft of dead weight is now supporting 110 lb/sft. That's more than an order of magnitude greater than design. This is Not A Good Thing. Looking at the BB32 you're increasing the load to 118 lb/sft. There are no dimensions available for the SBB42 but I'd expect a greater increase, maybe somewhere around 130+ lb/sft. OK, techie hat off: What it all boils down to is that it isn't safe to put any of these cookers on any deck that hasn't been engineered for the weight and location of the cooker. You might get lucky and just experience some sagging in the first few years but eventually there will be a structural failure(we all fall down). As I said, that's Not A Good Thing. I've made my living building houses and decks for the last 25 years, never had one fall down. I use software to design beams, I work with suppliers on load calcs and I'm pretty good at what I do. I wouldn't put my 22" Supreme on my deck without an engineered design. "Do you feel lucky, punk?" I don't. Please get some professional advice before you plunk that new KK in the middle of your deck. FWIW, Bill

My first try and I did bake it in the kitchen oven but you could do it in the KK no problem. How can this turn into... this? It sang to me the whole time I was taking pixs. Can't wait to cut it.

This was one one of them- First thing was to smoke some bacon, 2 slabs as a matter of fact, the whole belly of an organically raised pig. I am aiming for 145F IT and grill temp around 215-220F with some cherry, maple and whiskey barrel smoking woods. Done as planned. While I was waiting for the bacon to finish I made some homemade spaghetti. The little white dish has some shaved cured egg yolk in it. It is going on the plated spaghetti. Plated with Parmesan cheese and shaved egg yolk.

Wow, just look at the crumb on that bread OMG. what is purple crack? I know, i should just search it but that's the second reference today. Sj

Gorgeous looking bacon, MacKenzie! Did you experiment with any Purple Crack in the brine or rub?

All the dishes look great!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not a problem, bagged this one in the wilds of my Albertsons supermarket - it was crazy in there.

I was trying my new smoke pot seeing how the felt gasket will hold up running at 250 for 4 hours I am impress with the smoke pot 58B53FDD-2ABA-4179-84C0-8DADFA5A6056.MOV check the video out perfect blue smoke

Thats a shame mate .All crates into Australia have to be fumegated to stop diseases. coming into our island that's pretty much us we have no borders just water so we don't get the sign .Jon has made my day I'm so lucky to be on this forum surrounded by good people it's amazing Outback kamado Bar and Grill

I’ve got to say, there are some very nice set ups you folks at out there! And I have to agree the Komodo Kamado sign is the icing on the cake, I wish I had the foresight to have saved mine…

Scrumptious looking pizza Mac!

There are times I struggle as well especially if there is no fire in the KK. It seems to me that when I smoke things like bacon and there is a fire in the KK and the temp is around 225F the cold smoker works very well but I haven't done it that many times to say for sure that is always will work.

To be quite honest, I've struggled with keeping the chips lit in mine, too! Dennis suggested lighting a medium sized chunk of lump and putting it in the middle of the stack of chips. It works OK, but I still have had times when it goes out later in a longer smoking session. I've started mixing the wood chips with the pellets that they use in the pellet smokers. It seems to work a bit better, so give that a try.

Thanks, Bruce! I do it as a side project every year just for the fun of it. I love hot sauces and have dozens in my pantry and probably have tried hundreds over the years. It's hard to beat some of what's out there and I don't have any thoughts/aspirations of trying my hand at producing one commercially.

Yeah, you need to hollow them out. You can go either route - core them and stuff them like a tube; or, split them down the middle, clean them out and fill them like a canoe. Jalapenos are funny - you can't judge the heat of them externally by any reliable method that I know. You can do a batch of ABTs and most of them will have a nice level of heat and then you get one that takes the top of your head off! Sort of a griller's Russian roulette! If you really don't like a spicy pepper, you can always make them with Poblanos. You just need to double the batch size of the filling to account for the larger pepper.

Thanks Bruce. I’ve been considering having one built. I’m quite tall as well and think I would appreciate it being higher than the normal cabinet height.

I think the cabinet it’s self is 36” tall and with the wheels it’s 40 “ tall. I think the top is 84” long and 36 “ wide. It’s so big we had take the fence down to get into the back yard I think Dennis will make one to any size you want but you would have to ask him. He was a furniture builder before getting into the KK business. I’m glad he got into the KK business.

Great Pizza, MacKenzie!

Awesome loaf of bread and pizza

Thank you! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The taste is unique and I find myself using it on everything. I did two prime ribs for my company Christmas party and the rub was equal parts kosher salt and purple crack with some rosemary and thyme added as well. I used a mortar and pestle to get a coarse grind on the peppers. My guests loved the prime rib. The peppers were not overpowering at all and really added to the flavor. We also served two pans of chuck roast burnt ends which were demolished.

and here is the rest of the bread story- The dough was enough for 2 loaves of bread or 1 loaf of bread and 2 pizzas. You know what I picked. Here is the pizza made tonight- You no doubt will notice that I have previously seasoned the parchment paper. Loading it up- Purple crack goes on next. Baked. Plated.

My crate got turned into a dog house for the neighbor across the street's pooch. I don't know what happened to the KK strip? But, I'm like Jon, I really don't have a good place to put it, if I had one.

Looks great you did well

Seriously well done, sir!

Now that we have totally hijacked MacKenzie's post .............I had one sign in my office, that we took off the shipping crate, to send to Aussie O. The maintenance employees made a stand-up desk out of the KK crate and took it to another building. Just went over there and the other sign is still on the crate/desk......but not for long. It will be in the mail heading south in the next day or so. Too much fun!!!!!! PS - Sorry Mac for the hijack....but you sorta started all this sign stuff

What a nice thing to do Jon! Those signs look neat. I wonder how many KK owners have hung up those signs be interesting to see.

Aussie Ora's sign will be on it's way tomorrow. In my job, we ship product everywhere but I never have shipped anything to Australia before.....should be interesting. PS - 5698K/Robert........will have to look and see what happened to the 2nd sign/placard that came with my cooker

@Requis, We don't use a lot of Trex here in N Georgia but I think 8" spacing would be OK for a KK and outdoor kitchen. Most of the load is carried on the joists anyway, as long as they're properly sized and supported you'll be OK. Personally, if I was going to spend what Trex costs for decking I'd just go ahead and spend the extra money for Ipe(pronounced Epay). I just did a quick search on pricing, Trex is running around $2.50/linear foot($5.45/sft) for the grooved stuff, Ipe is $3.83/lft($8.36/sft). So it's about half-again more expensive than Trex. BUT: You can make arguments either way but Ipe is a renewable resource and responsibly grown and managed, it comes from a tree and trees consume CO2 and give off oxygen. Trex is made from sawdust, glue and assorted petrochemicals and it takes a lot of energy to make it, no oxygen is produced but lots of CO2 as a byproduct. Ipe can be sanded down and refinished, once Trex is worn it looks awful until it's scrapped and replaced. If you drop something like a hot coal on wood it'll scorch and can be sanded down and repaired, Trex will melt and burn(as @tony mentioned. If you're getting the idea that I'm not exactly a fan of composite decking you're absolutely right. Drop by your local Home Despot and pick up a 16' piece of Trex and see for yourself how floppy it is. Then go pick up a piece of plain old PT Pine decking for comparison. Ipe is to PT Pine as PT Pine is to Trex. Now decide what you want to be walking on. OMG, now I've gone off on my "Composite Decking Rant" again! My apologies, I'm a bit opinionated when it comes to wood butchery. Honestly, I'd be more concerned with the weight from the stone and granite than the KK. Your Fusion stone weighs in at almost 15 lb/sft., granite countertops around the same. If you have a 3' tall cabinet faced with stone and a 24" granite top you're looking at 5x15=75 lb/sft, 7-1/2 times the usual dead load for a deck. My customers are inevitably amazed when I tell them what I have to do to their deck to keep their outdoor kitchen in the air but gravity is gravity and there's no going to court and appealing that law. I've probably given you a lot more information(and opinion) than you wanted but these are all things you need to consider. It looks like your carpenter has a good grasp of the situation, work with him and you should be good to go. Congrats on the new kitchen! Share some pics as it's progressing. Best, Bill

Boston Butt on the KK.