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Freezing cold here with snow overnight and rain and wicked winds, time for comfort food. Chicken drumsticks, baked potato and a salad coming...... Drumsticks on the KK. Plated As usual the chicken was moist as can be.

Except for Charles...

A stick burner Pros: Probably the cleanest smoke flavor profiles in BBQ. Produces vapor without any of the wood's unburned gas vapor. Very clean flavor because they burn wood with a flame which consumes the nasty gas which is bitter and acrid. Great Bark. Cons: Burning wood with a flame requires lots of airflow which can be very drying over a long cook. Needs skills to balance heat and babysitting when the ambient temps change.. not much sleep involved. They are pretty much limited to low and slow cooking.. no grilling, roasting or baking. Wife thinks they look like a choo choo train.. Komodo Kamado Pros: It's all about the airflow.. Copious amounts of insulation simply holding the heat in. Charcoal always burns at the maximum volume for the allowed airflow. If you can burn less fuel to maintain your cooking temperature, you have less airflow, less evaporation, and and of course more retained moisture in your meat, and that's the holy grail of BBQ. And the reduced airflow creates longer/more retention time for the charcoal vapor/smoke.. the longer the vapor is in contact the more condensation takes place creating more Q flavor. Basically set and forget temperature wise. You will get plenty of sleep and complete novices can get great results. They excel in low and slow, roasting and baking. You can also grill on multiple levels and create 2 zone cooking. Wife thinks they look great.. Cons: You can't just toss big chunks of wood into your grill while your meat is in there.. the lack of oxygen will create a thick nasty grey bitter acrid smoke.. This can be resolved using foil pouches, cast iron pots or external smoke generators. Heavy, not available in your local retails stores..

This adventure actually started last Christmas when I bought 2 packs of Prosciutto but only used one. Later in January I figured the unused pack was getting old and I'd have to throw it out. Then I looked at the expiration date, 7/10/20 - What? I guess unopened prosciutto in the refrigerator lasts almost forever. With that realization I figured I would save it for something special. Then came February, March, April, and now it's May. What could be more special than a COVID-19 Challenge. Enough of the background, let's get cooking. Friday night I started a small Boston Butt that finished Saturday. Made a fresh slaw and some squash strips. Added bbq sauce to some pulled pork then rolled that and a little slaw in prosciutto. Cooked the squash on my Primo Oval Jr and the prosciutto wraps on my 19" Komodo Kamado. When the wraps were almost done I drizzled a little bbq sauce on them. Dinner was served with muffin top cornbread and a salted carmel brownie. Note: what's wrong with the prosciutto manufacturers? It costs enough you would think they could make that separator paper a little wider to save their customers some aggravation when trying to separate the prosciutto. Maybe I'm buying cheap prosciutto or maybe there's a trick to separating the prosciutto I don't know about.

@Tyrus has an offset and a KK. He’s best suited to answer. My 2 cents: KK brisket is awesome. A stick burning offset in the right hands probably produces an even better one, though. Kamados are extremely versatile, with excellent results across a range of cook styles. But there is often a specialized tool that does even better. Love my KK pizza, but a wood fired oven would be even better. The great advantage of Kamados is that one tool can cover a lot of ground with excellent results, reducing or eliminating the need for multiple cookers.

You are going to love this cooker, I have one similar but not a table top, just make sure when you build it in that you have room for the rotisserie motor, and smoke generator, just in case.

There’s still a little tweaking too do, but @Christinelynn and I agree this is the best brisket we’ve ever had. The bark is crunchy without being tough, it’s smoky and beefy rather than pot roasty (not a word), and it’s super tender/moist.

Made a couple of my South Side thin crust pizzas on the 32. Perfect clone of my hometown favorite, the legendary Colucci’s. Two 14” pies fit no problem. Homemade sausage — only way to get that distinctive Chicago flavor. Always, ALWAYS cut square. Wedges are the enemy of the people. 🤔

"The Girls" made me do this pizza cook, eh Troble. I did two identical pizzas and some days are stones and some days are diamonds. This was a diamond of a day. 10 inch pizza shell. Starting to dress them up. Dressed. Baked. Served.

It doesn't, however, reduce the need for multiple KKs.

When we relandscaped, we built ours into a large cement form:

You have every reason to love that KK, awesome, stunning

All ya'll are cooking up a storm! LOVE IT! Keep up the great work. It's my entertainment during the lockdown!

@Troble, yes I have but not recently but I'd eat your pizza for breakfast and be happy.

Great looking brisket!

Ribs turned out great..... Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

Celebrated Mother’s Day tonight with my mom and dad at a separate table 6ft away. Like my jump shot and golf game I’m committed to nailing this pizza thing. Cheese, veggie, couple Hawaiian couple pepperoni

My new ritual - a steak night every week in lockdown! Tonight, it was a Porter Road Chuck Steak, direct, lower grate, dome around 325F, with a chunk of grape vine. Turned out a bit more "black & blue" than the rare that I was shooting for, but it was still a nice damn steak! Plated with frites, sprayed with duck fat and fried in the air fryer, with dipping sauces of chipotle ketchup and an aioli. Marsala mushrooms and a nice chimichurri for the steak. A nice side salad with blue cheese. Bon Appetit!

14 pound brisket. Following Aaron Franklin’s process and wrapping later than I usually would. Here’s a couple of pics just before wrapping. 36” paper is pretty handy.

Ribs tonight gave them some pecan and Chile lime Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

This one? That’s a pineapple guava tree

Got an interesting cut of pork from Porter Road a while back and decided to try it out last night for dinner. They call them Pork Wings. It's a cut from the shank area of the front leg. Website says to cook them like ribs. I was a little behind schedule, so I did them "hot and fast" method - 325F, direct, main grate, with peach wood chunks. WTF??? I can't upload any pictures? Had a similar problem in another post, as well. The upload "times out" and fails. UPDATE: PFM - it's working again!! The interesting thing about this cut is that small bone was barely visible before cooking. Plated, with homemade pasta and sauce. This was a very tasty cut of pork, somewhere between a pork chop and a beef rib. Got a nice smoke ring on it, too!

Yes, vacuum sealing works just fine.

I have packets of vac sealed yeast in my freezer. Works great. That said, I use very little commercial yeast thanks to my sourdough starter.

That would work. I purchased an air tight container that holds a 1lb bag and keep it in the freezer. Probably about 3 years old at this point but still works just fine.

You know you can freeze yeast and it will keep a looong time. Keep this in mind for the next pandemic.

Here are a couple of prime NY strips. I reverse seared them and initially smoked with hickory and Jealous Devil @ 250 degrees for an hour or so bringing the internal temp to 127 degrees. I then let them rest as the cooker climbed to 550 degree dome temp. Seared them for 1 minute a side just over the coals. I didn't take the time to take sexy pics of the finished product. Plating is not looking good and is "messy" per my wife Christine, but the cook looks great. I used Hardcore Carnivore "Black," which is why they look so dark prior to the sear.