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ABT holding rack. Sans the exploding champagne grapes. They look great. I did pull the trigger and went for the 21. baby steps. Thanks for all the insight. Looking forward marinating a few ice cubes with my new friend. Funny thing my credit card company initially would not allow the charge. Had to get on the phone and convince a credit card rep, with a southern accent no less, that I did, in fact, want to spend $4k on a grill. Eventually she seemed came around. I figured the folks in the south would fully understand. Haven't told the wife yet. Ha! Dan appreciate the offer. I'm California. Bit of drive especially over the Sierra's this time of year. Tom

Part of my intro into Kamado style cooking (back on the old POSK forum), was ABTs and the Baconator (aka Fatty). I was hooked and never looked back. Two styles of ABTs - vertical (core out the pepper from the top and leave whole) and horizontal (boat - cut in half lenghtwise and seed. Each has their place depending the filling you're using. The down side of vertical is that you need the special rack to hold them upright.

Hey, Serena is bred to look like an Ocelot/leopard but she is actually a Bengal. We have four of them and they definitely "get in your business" which is what a breeder told us before we foolishly(?) moved from owning old fluffy cats to owning young mad cats. And yes, I do cook for the navy. The Husband is an ex naval officer and we live in a navy town @tony b here funny to watch but deadly for the insects. Good thing for birds is that they have learned to stay out of our garden. Sad for us although we can watch them over the wall in other people's gardens. Great side benefit is that we can grow and ripen really tasty berries and they don't get eaten before we get to them.

my wife openly admits she married me because I can cook. I'm just tryin' to keep her happy. ( how's that for the rational? "I'm only doing this for you, sweetheart".)

Thanks @ckreef and @KismetKamado. I too adore ceramics and am so very happy to have these. A potter friend introduced me to donabe pots by way of a gorgeous cookbook called, very originally, Donabe. They too are gorgeous and the book helped me understand why @Jon B. is so happy with his. These La Chamba pots were my 50th birthday present to myself. In 10 months and x days time I hope to have found enough excuses to buy myself a donabe for my 51st!

Don't make me tell the Frenchman story.... because I'll totally do it.

I think my screen ran out of ink after that post.

Dennis introduced me to the concept of smash burgers while we were discussing what accessories to get. When he realised I was completely ignorant of the subject he sent me this link: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/the-ba-smash-burger My KKs arrived and I forgot all about smash burgers until, by chance, I came across this short but fabulous post on the forum: I have now had smash burgers two weekends running and they are great. Still working on getting those edges super crispy but The Husband and I are happy with the results so far. Introducing the burgers to the KK. First batch done Topped with pan fried foie gras Second batch topped with bacon and cheese. In honour of @Aussie Ora's Wagyu fries and Dennis' foie gras fat popcorn, we fried the bacon in the foie gras fat and dribbled some on the buns for good measure. Yummy!

I have been looking jealously at your posts about La Chamba cookware for some time. Postage to the UK looked prohibitive until I got into a conversation with Charles at My Toque. Their postage charge looked the most reasonable and he gave me a discount for buying a few pieces. The pieces, finally, arrived today. Well, they didn't so much as arrive as get rescued from the local Parcel Force depot when I got fed up waiting for the paperwork to get sorted! Box full of polar bear poo, as The Husband calls it. Beautiful artisanal ceramics. Looking to use the pots to cook up dishes in real time and also in the residual heat when I have finished my main cook. The lids don't all fit tightly but well enough for my purposes. Here is the large roasting pan (Their model no SPX) in the 23". I ordered two of these. One broke in transit. It was the only breakage and I am in touch with them about insurance. And the 5.5qt RS6 oval roaster fits just fine in the 21" The 10qt RS15 didn't fit in either KK but, happily, does fit in my indoor oven. Here is Serena, looking grumpy about being asked to give you an idea of the scale of this enormous pot. She looks small but actually weighs 6kg. I am convinced she swallowed something heavy somewhere along the way. And yes, the sun does shine in the UK. Sometimes.

Gotta keep the wife happy!

That's been my experience too. I tried the aluminum pan thing last night but it melted. Going back to the ceramic plates on the lower grate, steel on the upper.

Spoken like a true Californian, endless summer man.

I think a 19" TT is also a cool KK, especially for a second one or a third.

Lol do I see a 22” table top in your future Tekobo?

Tom, i am so pleased that you are getting more expert advice from others! I hope it helps with your decision. Everyone, for my part, when I was making my long and drawn out buying decision it would have been good to see how much you could cook on each level of the different KKs that are available. There are pictures dotted around the place, and I remember that @Paul kindly posted a picture of his 16" fully laden, but it would be great if these could be assembled in one place. Who to ask to set up a pinned page so that we can each post pictures of big cooks to help people visualise what is possible with each KK? Completely randomly and out of the blue, I have just developed a crush on the 22" table top. No one talks about it but it is beautiful in its own sweet way.

Greetings from central Wyoming everyone! Some of you may know me from the Kamado Guru forum... I joined here a long time ago, have lurked a fair amount, but have never posted. I've been dreaming of a KK for quite awhile now... and finally pulled the trigger when I saw a 21" Supreme that caught my eye last month to the point that I couldn't stop thinking about it. When it finally came down to it, and I told my husband I seriously wanted to do it (after a year or more of joking about it) his only response was that he was surprised I hadn't already bought one. I took that as a green light.... and here I am. Had to do my first cook in the driveway. Going to be a few weeks before we make the trip through the house to the back deck. No worries - that is "brrr" chilly cold and not "eek" screaming hot.... Will do the venting once landed on the deck. Thanks for having me!

After giving you that list of possible issues I guess I forgot the most important one - a runaway KK - LOL

I recently went through this dilemma myself. I called and talked it through with Dennis, and landed where I thought I would. I prefer the look and function of the hi-cap lid more and also the increased direct grilling area achieved with the grill shaped instead of round firebox and charcoal basket. Between that and the difference in price, I easily landed on the 21. Now, that said, there are some advantages to the round firebox and charcoal basket as well, since you can clock your basket splitter however you like depending on what you're doing (rotisserie you probably want coals banked front to back instead of side to side, for a direct sear you may want to be clocked at an angle depending on which hand you wield your tongs in, etc). I think the answer all of us can agree on is to give Dennis a call sometime and talk through what your personal cooking style is to see if you can determine which one is going to fit you best. You won't regret that you did - and you definitely won't feel pressured into making any sort of decision or purchase commitment. And you might walk away with some sort of idea for a cook you never dreamed of. If I ever see champagne grapes anywhere, I can guarantee you I am going to swoop them up and make up the most amazing and whimsically splendid batch of ABT's there ever was to be had in all of Wyoming after Dennis shared with me how he does them.

Now you tell me.... lol.

Looks tasty nice cook

There's a whole thread on here somewhere about chockin you KK. Better safe than sorry for sure.

My wife's been out of town. So I've been doing some pizza experimenting. I tried trader joes dough, and Serious Eats NY pizza sauce. But I thought it tasted too much like marinara. So last night I experimented with my own sauce recipe based off Marcella Hazan's pasta sauce. I also made my own 24hr cold fermented NY, coal-fired-style pizza dough. This dough was a revelation. I could finally stretch the dough into a decent sized pizza shape. I grated some mozzarella and tried my best to dry it. 5mins in the kamado on a baking steel at 600F. The bottom cooked a little too quickly. Next time, I'll move the ceramic stones to the felt line so the steel doesn't get too much hotter than the ambient temp.

And I present...... Driveway Tacos: Made a satay type marinade as I was going for an Indonesian flair.... And thin sliced some beef and chicken - chicken not pictured since I don't touch much once raw poultry is in play. Thought a peanut sauce slaw would go well with the satay tacos.... was lazy and didn't make my own peanut sauce - but this wasn't bad.. Then onto my taco shells - used egg roll wrappers spritzed with oil and baked on my taco rack in the KK. Did the beef and chicken in the pan... honestly since it's not where I want it yet, don't really want to dirty it too much right now. My teaser photo from the KG forum. I had a lot of fun with my big reveal over there. @ckreef helped - I had been dropping hints all month long and he would comment on them. Cracked me up while I patiently awaited the big day when it arrived. Brought in and chopped up more... And I present.... Indonesian Driveway Tacos as my KK's maiden voyage....

Jon - you asked the question, so... like it or not, you get the answer. But if anyone accuses me of being long-winded ( @cschaaf in particular ), I am blaming it squarely on you.... A few years back, my husband, older daughter and I went to a local BBQ store looking to buy a new gasser since we've always enjoyed cooking outdoors. They happened to be having an EggFest (crazy in the middle of rural Wyoming, I know). So, we were kind of wandering around not really too interested in the eggs, but sampling the food and such. Honestly I wasn't impressed with any of it. And knowing what I know now, the people manning the eggs didn't really know what they were doing either. Anyway, we went inside to look at the Weber gassers and gave our daughter a few bucks to entertain herself. They had some sort of game that you could play to win tickets for a drawing. Now, I can only describe this game as beer pong - though obviously there was no beer involved. So, by the time the event was wrapping up, she had quite the stash of tickets. Where she got the gift of being a natural at that game, I'll never know..... Long story short (kind of) - we walked away with a Mini Big Green Egg as a prize. It sat in the garage for months before I played with it one day out of boredom - think I did an Easter ham on it now that I think about it.... Anyway, I was hooked after the first time. Bought a Vision shortly after that, and then an Akorn Jr, and another Akorn Jr. (because the black came out and I can't stand red), and then I found a used black Big Joe last fall.... In any case, I totally fell in love with kamado cooking. And winning that Mini BGE is what started it all. So, I consider it Kismet - my lot in life - to have landed where I'm at, and that's how I came up with my username. I primarily had been using my Vision and more recently Big Joe, down on a concrete patio in my back yard over the summer. In the winter I have been using the Akorn Jr and sometimes Mini BGE (though it's tiny) that I can keep in the garage. But I don't like Akorn Jr. to get wet which isn't ideal because of snow frequently this time of year and the wind is atrocious as well..... And my back yard and deck is on the north side of the house, so my winter access to my concrete patio stinks since I have to go out on the deck, down the stairs and around the house. That's how I decided and justified a Komodo Kamado to myself (really it didn't take much to convince me) and my husband (that was a slightly tougher sell and we may have a full reloading setup showing up sometime soon in what appears to have been some sort of scheme to keep things "fair"). The KK will go on the back deck and be easy access for me year round. I wouldn't have felt cozy with any of the other kamado's living there. And it will join my husbands Weber Summit gasser and Traeger Timberline and our Blackstone Pizza Oven. There you have it... more than you bargained for in an answer, right.

Well, the instant you didn’t poo poo the idea, I knew you were done. I just didn’t want to apply any pressure at all, I knew the grill would do all that work. Dennis has a great thing going, he lets the product sell itself, which it does easily. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And I'm lucky that you're mine! I was looking for a good recipe for Easter lunch and came across five different recipes in my books for tea smoked duck. The trad method required a 6 hour marinade, followed by a 6 hour air-dry, then 30 minutes smoking over tea leaves, then steaming for about an hour before leaving to cool prior to a deep frying the whole or half duck, depending on your capacity! In spite of my love of deep frying I didn't have the capacity or the inclination to be frying half a duck while my guests hung around so I opted for the Pitt Cue Co adaptation. Brined the birds in a tea brine overnight. I quadrupled these quantities for two birds: 1.5 litres water, 50g tea leaves, 2.5cm ginger, 1 bulb of garlic (just used one), 2 star anise, 100ml soy sauce, 60ml honey and 50g smoked Maldon salt. They only called for one hour of air drying but that just didn't seem like enough so Mr and Mrs Ducky got a blow dry for about 8 minutes each. This great Chinese implement is used to puncture pork skin to make it easier for the fat to leach out and become wonderfully crispy. I figured it couldn't do any harm with a duck so I used it, more gently, on these two. Rubbed with a home made rub, again from the Pitt Cue Co book, 100g Maldon sea salt, 38g maple sugar, 12g black peppercorns, 5 g toasted fennel seeds, 5g star anise, 5g stick cinnamon and zest of half an orange all blitzed in a blender. Then onto the KK to smoke over cherry for about an hour and a half at 170C (ish) until internal temp got to 78C. The drip tray was essential and I added a bit of water periodically to reduce the duck fat smoke. Finger licking good with a gravy made with chicken stock, duck giblets and finished with the pieces of foie gras that were too small to fry. Not the same as the traditional tea smoking but very good nonetheless. I am not really into dessert but we had some Maraschino cherries to get rid of so I looked up a clafoutis recipe. This one https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/basic-clafoutis-51208430 was nice and simple and recommended using a cast iron pan. it was perfect for a KK and they tasted great. A lot of similarity with Yorkshire puddings and I will definitely try this again soon.

Go for it, Shuley! Can't wait to see the pics. I'll go searching for one of those Chinese picks. Definitely will come in handy on a number of cooks. @tekobo - don't think for a minute that all that prep work on the Peking ducks got in the way of having an adult beverage (or 3!)

I tried Syzygies' fried potato wedges today. SV the potatoes wedges for 70 mins at 185F. Let them cool and dry off then pan fried with Ghee and served them with smoked meat on rye. The smoked meat was previously done on the KK sliced and frozen for days just like this one. One thing that stands right out is the creaminess of the inside of the potato. I sprinkled with cayenne pepper and salt. They are delicious. The creaminess does not show in the pix but it sure does in the mouth, awesome. Thanks Syzygies. The lettuce is looking a little ragged but that's from being in the oven under the broiler when I melted the cheese.

Adding a few more pics.

I hear you, Tony, snow storm warning out here for the weekend.

Listening to the wind howl all morning makes me think that we're still at the end of March and it's trying to go out like a lion!

Tom, don't know where you are located, but due to a twist to my life, I will be selling my 2YO 23" with all accessories including the KK teak cabinet.