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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

Made the duck with a molasses sriracha glaze. Roasted the carrots with rosemary and thyme and the sweet potatoes with rosemary and garlic. All very tasty. The one issue I had(which wasn’t huge but want to solve) was the grill went from 200 to 300 over the four hours. I only had the third smallest round hole open on bottom and only a 1/4 turn on top. This things a beast. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My KKs will be arriving soon and I am trying to experiment with the accessories that I have bought so far so I won't be overwhelmed by the newness of everything when the KKs arrive. I swing between being terrified by all that I will have to learn and comforted by the fact that you all say that KKs are so intuitive to use. I am gently settling into the latter mode and looking forward to the excitement when they arrive. Anyway, on to the business at hand: I have been trying out my home roti and found the forks to be so feeble that I had to pierce the skin with a knife to get them in! OctoForks to the rescue. I set them up yesterday and here is my first attempt at balancing a whole chicken on the spit: As you can see, I got the centre of gravity all wrong and it was never going to rotate smoothly. With the forks up close and personal to the sides of chicken, I wasn't sure that I liked the fact that the skin on the sides wouldn't see the heat but the skin on the back, which I don't eat, would be beautifully browned. So I switched to this configuration: Still not perfectly balanced but the OctoForks made a really stable cage for the bird. These are really robust birds that we bought in Italy, in the region that invented slow food. The first time I cooked one, I roasted it as normal for an hour and it came out really tough. The thigh meat is almost gamey. Since then I have found that a slow roti makes them nice and tender. This time the chook was in for two and a half hours at 150 degrees C and came out OK. There are a number of areas for improvement. First, try this out in a KK to see if what you say is true about how well it cooks chicken. Second, take the wing tips off and crank up the heat at the end to crisp up the skin. Third maybe brine the chicken and add more purple crack than I did this time. I do have a MEATER now but hadn't managed to charge and pair it in time and so left it out of this cook. Any advice about positioning the Octoforks? It would be good to see photos of your cooks with whole chickens to help make my first KK chicken cook as good as it can be. Or should I just do what Dennis says and go with a spatchcocked bird? Why am I even thinking of defying Dennis?

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.

It's looking good down here at 4.20 in the arvo strange weather we are having its been so hot but a summer storm has just hit and it's raining suddenly I've gone from 37 degrees to 17 shiver lol Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Gave them some pomegranate molasses and made a grilled salad Outback kamado Bar and Grill

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

Over on the guru it is a “sides” challenge. So I got to thinking about some of my most favorite sides to grill. And they are grilled carrots and ABTs. I saw somewhere that people put fruit in their ABTs and that just sounded fabulous to me. I knew that the next time I made them I wanted to add pineapple. And grilled carrots are a super simple yet awesome side. Here are the nice carrots I picked up and the ingredients I used this was actually my first time using the Tasmanian mountain pepper berries (purple crack) on food. I mistakenly ate a whole pepper berry to just see what it tasted like. I do not recommend eating them plain. Peeled the carrots and they looked so nice and pretty then added all the ingredients. I cover with foil and cook that way until they are tender. I also had some ABTs to prepare. While I went into this knowing that they are not the most appetizing looking side, anyone who has had them knows that they are stupid delicious and always disappear whenever I make them- no matter how many I make. This was just for my family so I only made 12. Here are the ingredients prepped put the carrots on now that the carrots are tender I grilled them for a little char then added back to the liquid with the cover removed to let a little evaporate And my unattractive but oh so good ABTs on my plate with a simple burger. So of course the ABTs were amazing and enhanced by the addition of pineapple glad I tried that. The carrots were amazing normally I put cayenne on them instead of the pepper berries, but this was soooo much better my husband was snatching the left overs odd of my kids’ plates!

Lovely Bacon!

Now the rest of the story- sliced, vacuum sealed and froze the bacon this morning. Taste test was next. This bacon did taste very nice, it had a different flovour than my bacon from store bought belly and the lean was more tender and the fat seemed to be more clear. I have to wait until next fall to do it again. The farmer only raised 10 pigs /year.

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

As you suggested you could brine. Often I do that with pork chops, just using a lite brine for a couple of hours and then let them just rest in the fridge for and hour or so. Thicker cuts I'd brine longer and rest longer. I do like the lite brine technique. Sygyzies on this site suggested 1/2C sea salt per gallon and a little less sugar. For chicken brine for 4 hour or more and I'd do a 2 hour rest in the fridge after that.

Looking good from here, that is how I would put a whole chicken on the OctoForks. One thing I found helpful is to tie loose and flapping parts with some cotton string to the tines or wherever. Sounds strange to say this over an open fire but so far it has always worked and the string has not burned off. Mind you I don't have a rip roaring fire going.:) Sometimes I cut the chicken in half and then I would put it on the tines like you did in your first pix. Sometimes I only use one OctoFork but if I thought there was any danger of things slipping off I put the other set of tines on backwards just close enough so that there is no room for things to fall off. Personally I think you will find a big difference in cooking on the KK. There will be a world of taste difference. Remember, if you are looking you aren't cooking, keep that lid shut. :):):) The delivery excitement is rising.

I'll say it's looking gooood. [emoji4][emoji4]

Great looking bacon and spag bog Mac looking good as usual Outback kamado Bar and Grill

That meal looks just ducky! But also looks sooo tasty. Nice cook

You hit the jackpot, beautiful daughter, beautiful cat and beautiful ribs.

Nice looking ribs

Good to know. Searching for purple crack on Google turned up multiple references to a strain of marijuana. Between that and the smoke pot, I was wondering what this site had come to!

Love her name - it fits her!

Nice color to your ribs. Got your hands full, looks like that'll keep her busy for a while.

Me, too. I use Ruhlman's recipe; but this last batch, I swapped out the juniper berries for the PC. I liked it. http://blog.ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2/

Yes, a good pizza

I love snow and my KK, i'm good hehe. Not so cold, I didn't even put on gloves or coat to shovel that out. Then I AM Canjian eh? tried to move it so it won't get snowed in but that's the leeside of the house so . . . NoCal eh? well at least you're not IN the burning pit that has ravaged SoCal. You ducked that one alrighty. heehee

Aussie looking good save some for me please

I like the spirit of you cooking in it tonight. Here’s just another day in Northern Cal. Sorry attempting a duck tonight.

More like pigs in a blanket. They look all snugged up in spice, can't wait to see the results. You do the like the purple crack on the heavy side.

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.

Right you are Aussie. The people on this forum are wonderful.

Yeah, Bruce, they were one of the first things that I learned to make on the old POSK Forum. You can get very creative with them, as far as fillings go. One of my favs is baby shrimp (aka salad shrimp) with cream cheese and Old Bay. I've done a crab cake kind of filling, too. Chorizo and/or breakfast sausage with Monterey Jack are another great combo. And, I always put a nice BBQ rub on the bacon - typically Dizzy Dust. @5698k - if you haven't tried it yet, get their Ham one. I use it in my red beans & rice and gumbo - better than regular chicken version. Love the mushroom to make my grits.

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.

BASTARDS! Stealing our MacKenzie's awesome food pictures and claiming them on another site!

The rest of the story- Add a little English Cheddar, Ivy's Secret recipe from WKEY Farms, are you familiar with that one Tekobo? It was tasty. The crust in particular has and awesome flavour and to think as a kid I cut all crusts off. Here is what was happening as the bread sang to me - It is a beautiful sound.