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I am so happy with my new rear grate on the 23. I have now set up this KK semi-permanently with a half load of charcoal in the front so I can either cook indirect on the rear grate or rotisserie with ease. I have had problems cooking pork in the past. A thin drip tray over the coals never held enough water to stop the smoke from the dripping fat for long and it was difficult to manoeuvre, filled with water. Today I set a pork shoulder to smoke on the rear grate, over a pan of water with smoke pot at the front. Smoked over apple and alder. It tasted great.

I promise this is the last cheese burger for a little while, but they are so good, impossible to pass up, so I didn't.

So I picked up my new grill just after 1.30pm from the warehouse. Was a decent sized depot so I didn't have to back up the trailer...phew. strapped it down then headed back towards Gympie where I'll be staying for the night. Weather forecast for tomorrow is showers, so I packed in a Tarpaulin to cover my precious cargo. Early rise tomorrow so I can get home. It's been a long day.

There seems to be a common thread here. We like really nice things, and we are all addicts. I bought the Vesuvius machine, looks great but have had some problems. Customer support was fantastic and got both issues fixed. The pressure profiling is what got me to go over the top. And love the Ceado E375 Grinder. My Biggest concern now is what else I will find on this forum that I can't live without.

Nicely done, MacKenzie! Both the cabinet and the burger (sans beets, thank you!) Rainy here off/on all weekend, but I did manage to get in a few nice cooks. Sirloin with 2x Baked spud and corn on Saturday. Yesterday, it was beef ribs, melting potatoes and corn. I rubbed one of the boneless ribs with Suya and the other got coffee/ancho rub. Both were great.

The Day the Fire Died

Bruce, here is the Vacuum sealer stand, not quite finished. I need to put a third coat of varnish on it and now that I have it I think I need another shelf put in the top half. That would give me two shelves for the plastic bags. They are very heavy when stacked so I think they'd be better on two shelves. Not a big deal to add a shelf.

Here is another burger, it is loaded and it looks like it might be a messy eat. The lettuce is from my garden and is the spinach. My garden season has started. Those are red onions, not beets.

Cold and wet down here needed something hearty for Dinner Lamb shanks it is. .ready to go over black cherry..Wow yum..plated over some sweet potato. . Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

Looks great! The wood flavor would be really something for braised dishes like that.

The adventure has begun and what an adventure it's going to be. Thanks for doing the pixs so we can all ride along. Safe travels.

The Coffee went so fast and I'm still not 100% happy with the extruded version so I just ordered another 8 tons of coffee lump and will ship it as lump.

Concur on two, although I did mine as 23 and 32.

What @MacKenzie said, plus add in a Sunbrella cover. Also get the basket splitter. Side tables are nice. Make a smoke pot a la @Syzygies. Agree with @tony b that the cold smoker is a nice to have.

Load up your shipping crate with as much Coco and Coffee lump as it will hold. The cheapest shipping you'll ever get on it. I own a 23", so I'm not familiar with what's "standard" on a 32BB? If it doesn't come with the charcoal basket splitter - it's a MUST HAVE. Second MacKenzie on the rotisserie (rod & basket) and the pizza stone - both are MUST HAVES in my book. If you think you'd like to do a lot of cold smoking, the new smoker attachment is a NICE-TO-HAVE. Oh, and go out and buy a new bigger belt, you're gonna need it pretty soon!

I'm very happy with my 23" Ultimate. There are valid reasons to want or prefer a 32, but no one should feel they're short-changing themselves by buying the 23". If I had another comma in my net worth I'd still buy the 23".

Almost there!!!!

A quick lunch today as I'm busy with my carpenter making a vacuum sealer stand/shelving unit. It was a terrible day with lots and lots of rain, temp. about 15 C and mosquitoes by the hoards. Made the buns the yesterday and also cooked the patties yesterday so it really did make for a very quick lunch. Shelving unit is done except I have the sanding and finishing to do.

Leftovers from yesterday's cook. There is something special on this plate and it's for Tony.;) Best to pull the blossom apart and sprinkle it over the plate. I managed to scrape a few greens from the garden alone with the chives.

Mrs skreef is a pickup truck, country gal. When I came home almost 2 years ago with a brand new Nissan Rogue she wasn't really thrilled. For almost 2 years I listened to her whining about the car. Last weekend we took the Rogue for an oil change. Instead of an oil change we came home with a brand new Nissan Titan V8 4x4. It's a full size 4 door pickup truck with a short bed. Really big on the inside and a very comfortable ride. Mrs skreef is very pleased with this purchase.  The world has a saying, "Happy wife, happy life." I have my own version of that saying, "Happy wife, time for another grill!!!"  So with that thought in mind we took the new truck to Lowes and got a few more pavers. Let the new grill project begin. Will post a detailed thread as progress is made and the new grill arrives. Hopefully I'll order it this weekend. 

After watching a chef programme on Netflix my husband decided that he really liked the Argentinian chef, Francis Mallman and his fire cooking. I got the book "Mallman on Fire" to see what all fuss was about. Today I tried his beef ribs recipe. Here in the UK we don't tend to get racks of beef ribs. They are cut individually and we make them in up slow cooked stews. So I was happy to see this familiar cut in Mallman's book even though he cooked them in an unexpected way. Here they are at the start of their journey, on a thick cast iron "plancha" in the KK. I get jealous of all your talk of side tables and cabinets. I have to use my other KK as a side table!! Looking forward to sorting out a proper ODK in the summer. This is the surprising bit of the cook. Here the ribs are, done. They were up to the correct internal temperature after just 24 minutes of cooking - 8 minutes on each "side". My thumb got in the way of the shot of the endives/chicory cooking on the plancha so here is the plated shot once I had taken them off. And we had some roasted sweet potatoes to go with the meal. They came out OK but putting them directly on the coals was just a little tooo aggressive for the skins. So, the quick cook was surprising but what was even more surprising was just how delicious grilled leaves (dressed in mustard, vinegar and oil beforehand), beef short ribs and baked sweet potato were. The Husband said it was an outstanding meal. What more could a girl ask for? A glass of nice red. And it was forthcoming. All good.

Update: IMG_1443.HEICIMG_1443.HEICEspresso machine has landed and I will say that the Niche Zero is more than adequate to the task. My Lucca M58v2 seems pretty similar to the Profitec Pro 700 (the Lucca M58 v2 is a custom build for Clive Coffee from the Italian Company QuickMill). Both are Dual Boiler, PID controlled machines, the biggest difference I could see was the Profitec Pro 700 uses knobs for Steam and hot water where the M58v2 uses joysticks. So the Nice Zero can grind amazing coffee for pour over and espresso with a well indexed dial that allows you to move from one coffee brewing technique to the other effortlessly, maintaining your precise grinds for each! Nearly zero retention means that after a grind or two, you will find that 20g's in means 20g's +/- .1g out. Can easily grind so fine that NO SHOT will come from the machine! Probably the same with other high end grinders but I was surprised! The Espresso learning curve remains somewhat a work in progress for me, but I will say that it sure beats going to my local 3rd wave coffee shop for anything other than freshly roasted beans. I think I will leave the roasting to the experts for now. Mac, did you ever get that Profitec Pro 700? I'm sure that you could spend a lot more money and not get any better performance as a home barista making a cup or two a day. I think anything more capable will really blur the lines between personal and commercial. I don't need (or want) commercial personally, but the coffee sure is good! https://clivecoffee.com/products/lucca-m58-espresso-machine-by-quick-mill

What I could find on the web about regular black pepper says they'll last 3 - 4 years whole and kept in dark, dry places and in air tight containers. Some sites said that if you freeze them, their flavor intensifies. How all this translates to Purple Crack - I don't have a clue!! I vacuum sealed my last batch in small quantities and just kept them in my pantry. They've seemed to held up well over 2 years. I'll likely do the same with this new batch.

tekobo, that pork butt looks very tasty and just look at that awesome colour.

Tee hee. I didn't think you would be getting much sleep with a KK to get home. Drive safe.

I like it. Going and fetching your KK is a great way to avoid all the hassle of waiting on a delivery company to get it to you when they say they will. I bet you'll be up at dawn to drive that baby home. Good luck! Looking forward to the pictures.

How does one cook under such extreme circumstances...................

Knew I was leaving something out - the cover; if it's going to be exposed in the new home. (Thanks for the reminder - Pequod!)

Glad to hear that the Marabu is back in stock - good stuff. But, I have to say that I'm falling in love with their Brazilian Eucalyptus.

Looking forward to your first cook. Nice pics thanks

Rotisserie and the KK baking stone for sure.

I kept thinking about the Niche Zero but ended up recently getting a Eureka Specialita instead, which was a great improvement over my legacy Baratza Preciso. I was equally concerned about overall size and counter space once I got into the better (albeit not best) class of grinders. My various kitchen toys were already pushing the envelope on counter space...

Thanks for the pictures. Looking forward to the uncrating.

Anything below 20 Celsius lol Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

Ditto what Dennis said. I own both. Most of the time it’s just me and my wife, and most of the time I use the 32. It’s not just the capacity. The most important attribute of the 32 is it’s flexibility. Most of the time my 32 is in two-zone configuration using the half main grate on the indirect side. This is ideal for grilling. But I also have the flexibility to “go big” and do two pizzas at a time, smoke a boatload, etc. Here is what the two zone configuration looks like.

My stock canned answer: As I always say.. if you want to cook low and slow, brisket, butts and ribs.. the 23" Ultimate has great capacity.. it can do 5-7 pork butts / 50-60lbs of meat. If you want to "Grill" for a crowd the 23" is limited by its size. You just can't throw on 6-8 steaks... The 32" and 42" are great GRILLS which also have more low and slow capacity than most will ever need. The 32" is no slower nor does it use noticeably more fuel. Outside of the 20% more in cost and almost twice the weight there is no downside I can think of to getting a 32" Big Bad.. It's all I cook on these days. I pretty much leave the basket splitter in at 50%.. even when I low and slow. That being said, If you want to work a bit you could reverse sear 6-8 steaks and then brown them up three at a time. Gets the job done, but there is a reason there are no 23" gas grills on the market.. it's too small as a grill.

Hammo, looking forward to seeing those pix. This has got to be an exciting trip for you.

Just a quick update. I'm just about to head off to go and pick up my Cobalt Blue 32. Cleared customs and quarantine yesterday. I'll post some road trip photos when I get the chance.

Very tasty looking cook. I'm curious - what do you call cold?

So I finally broken her in. My first cook ever not just on my 19”TT KK but on any Komodo. Considering the high gusty winds and cold weather we had that weekend I’ll take it. I didn’t take hardly any pics because I was so focused on everything else but...ringing in my ears was “if there’s no pic it didn’t happen”. 😄. So I took a couple. Two weekends ago I did a brisket and rack of baby backs...this past weekend half a pork butt and another rack. All was delish but the brisket point was a creepy stringy texture even though I thought that I cut against the grain...looking at the pics I guess not! Anyway...here’s some pics. I’m just a padawan but it’s fun learning! 😄

It can be shipped to AU but only by the container full.. It's classified as semi-Hazardous so it can't be sent LCL (less than a container load)

You only say that because you haven't experienced a pebble cooker.

...and yet the coffee continues to be excellent. No doubt the DE1 is one of the most polarizing machines out there. Just a cursory glance at HB and you’ll find haters (LOTS)...and over the top fanboy enthusiasts...and not much in between. The traditionalists prefer the “art” and wizardry, and the DE1 takes a lot of that away. Now we have data! For every review like the above, there are multiple others that are polar opposite. I actually agree with the first two bullet points above. But I wanted a high end machine with small footprint. Tain’t pretty, but it works. The sounds it makes? Yeah...they’re weird. So what? That grinder next to it is practically shouting high decibel obscenities every time I hit the switch. The next two aren’t quite accurate. Since things are constantly upgraded with firmware and app upgrades, if it isn’t good now, it soon will be. Users simply need request, and it happens. Have seen this multiple times on the DE forum already (including a steam tweak), and I’ve only owned one for two weeks. There’s also a pro steam wand option that user tests show reduces the steam moisture by quite a bit...entirely in the users control to purchase and install. I have one but haven't installed it yet, mostly because the stock wand seems to be more than adequate to me...I enjoy the texture I'm getting and, maybe I'm too ignorant to tell, but don't notice excessively moist steam (especially compared with my previous machine). John Buckman is a lot like Dennis...actively a part of his community of users, and incredibly responsive. Thus putting the lie to the last point. Early adopters have been sent free upgrade kits to keep their machines up to date. Not to mention the continuous stream of firmware and app updates, AND a lively community of users sharing 3rd party upgrades, profiles, etc. Again...think Dennis like service and user community. BUT... I agree with the reviewer that it isn’t for everyone. If you prefer to preserve the mystery and art of espresso, no shame in staying analog. If you’re an engineer (guilty!) or just want to learn more than you thought you ever would about what makes a good cup...the DE1 is a contender. Sometimes more data isn’t better, and it does add to the workflow, because each shot also comes with the desire to analyze the data. Definitely not for everyone, just like a KK isn’t for everyone. Nothing wrong with that. But also nothing wrong with enjoying it if that's your cup o' joe.