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Lasagna

Sprinkled a chicken breast with lots of spices, chili, garlic, pepper, salt, fennel, cumin, dry mustard, paprika and basil. Coated with finely freshly ground corn and then wrapped in parchment paper. Hit it with the rolling pin, driving the corn and spices into the chicken as well as tenderizing and flattening the chicken. A little ghee and oilive oil in the Vermicular, heater to 475F added the chicken, left untouched for 4 mins., turned the heat down to 300F, flipped the chicken and let it cook covered for 4 more mins. The chicken was very moist and tender. I will be doing this again. The Swiss chard is fresh from the garden.

Left over brisket nachos last night, very tasty!

Thanks all. The fact that we now have somewhere to sit near the KKs and Argentinian BBQ is great. People can help out and I can be part of the conversation as opposed to having to scurry round the corner to cook. Moving the KKs round to their new position means friends sitting around don't interfere with direct access to the grills and I can move easily between the Argentinian BBQ, the storage underneath it and the KKs. I am so happy we paid attention to sorting out our outside space this year. @Steve M, that float is still in Roy's garage. He is a keen fisherman and brought us a nice trout the other week.

The good and the bad news is that I am in the throes of KK indecision. What size, what colour, what do you guys say, what does Dennis say, what does The Husband think??? On and on it goes. A great pleasure at this stage because all the options in all the colours are available. And a great pain because I really ought to be thinking about other things. Like working to pay for them!

Mine is back from warranty repair. I had an extreme bean boil-over incident. All of my recent photographs are of skewers on my Solo Stove, or my new wok made-to-order in Japan, or garden tomatillo salsa in my newest molcajete made-to-order in Mexico, or nixtamal turning into masa in my Indian wet grinder. But this picture is of pork carnitas about to simmer for many hours. An ideal use of our "Indoor K". It was the new puppy before I gorped it. Now it's just another dog in a large family. But I love it. @Wingman505 The instruction manual is buried on their site. It appears at all in response to my feedback: Vermicular Instruction Manual I would say that one should read the manual before purchase. This isn't fair, for various reasons. I didn't. The instructions are easier to follow if one can try them out while reading. And it comes with an elaborate coffee table book that does cut to the chase on heat setting recommendations for various applications. In addition to various rice programs, the cooking settings are MED (445 F, 230 C), LOW (300 F, 150 C), EXT LOW (230 F, 110 C) and WARM (adjustable, 90-200 F, 30-95 C). One can set a timer for up to 6 hours for MED, LOW, EXT LOW and up to 12 hours for WARM; there are two user presets. Otherwise, heating stops after 90 minutes. Not having continuous controls is an interesting choice. I've made my peace with this design constraint. One learns what each setting does, and then trusts it. Less opportunity for user error. My friends with Sous Vide equipment are always calling me to ask "what temperature?!" Here at least the choice is quantized. Each level is handy and well-chosen; one moderates the shape of the cook in the time dimension, rather than fine-tuning the temperature. I had thought I'd be using WARM as a kind of sous vide where I could take the lid off and stir. EXT LOW has taken over that role for me, even though it bubbles away. When I was in Morocco I took various cooking lessons, and saw tagines bubbling away. Somehow they never stuck to their clay pots. This cooker similarly envelopes the Dutch oven, so each temperature is more uniform than one would experience cooking over a flame, or even an induction hot plate. The effect is more like cooking in the oven, a great way to braise without burning, with the added convenience of stovetop access and not heating up the house in summer. In particular, EXT LOW is ideal for replicating how I saw tagines cooked in Morocco.

I’ve never had that experience and am very satisfied with my method for brisket cooking. The best bark formation comes in the last 2-3 hours and I stand firmly behind my belief that while some of ya’ll wrap your brisket in butcher paper that time where the brisket is in the butcher paper is when I’m doing my best work spritzing my brisket and getting that bark going nice and thick I typically put my brisket on at 11pm, I don’t open the lid until 7am then I spritz from 7am-12pm. My pictures show the results of this method. It works for me

Whoa! What a great combination of KKs and Argentine grill and garden! Terrific!

Grilled scallops 🤗 Cooked with a touch of hickory smoke. these are called “colossal scallops”...picture may not do justice to their size!

Realistically, I plan to add a 32 to my 23 at some point when I can convince the Mrs...something tells me I may need to sacrifice the 23 in order to get the 32. Until that day, I’ll just have to make due with the awesomeness that is the Ultimate 23. I still have my gasser for when I need to do a lot of burgers/steaks.

Great photos Tekobo. It looks like you have numerous hot spots, and cool spots depending on the time of the year and the time of the day. Makes for a well designed garden. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That was quite the transformation and beautiful job! Bonus points for the Japanese float I saw hanging with the tiles. Did that end up outside?

Just finished dinner, brisket turned out great! Best one I’ve made yet, and I’m really happy with it, but I already know an adjustment or two that’ll make it better. Family said it was by far the best and they love having the KK around producing all this goodness. Ole Heavy ran 13 hours solid at 225 indirect on CoCo coal. Fun day!

I thought I'd try a sourdough loaf in the Musui from the Vermicular. The edges are ground to make a super fit and I thought if the bread was baked in the Musui in the kitchen oven I might get a nice spring. Here it is-

At last! My konro grill arrived on Friday. It took me by surprise as I'd been sent some tracking data for UPS that didn't work and, by the time I got around to checking it out with the seller, the DHL man was at my door with an enormous, heavy box. Why was it so big? Well that is @Syzygies's fault. He was the one who turned me on to binchotan charcoal. Long before my KK arrived I figured I couldn't afford the real deal and so I bought these binchotan briquettes for a fraction of the price. I never used them in the KK because they seemed like such a precious resource and I instead waited until I could buy a konro grill so I could use them in small amounts. When I came to order the grill from the US it turned out that both the grill and the binchotan were so much cheaper in the US that it was worth ordering both, even with the additional UK duty and tax. Hence my super heavy delivery yesterday. Here are the beauties. Binchotan is notoriously difficult to light. I didn't have a chimney so I lit a fire in my KK21 and put the binchotan in there to get hot. Here are are the hot coals in my pristine konro grill My prawn stuffed chicken wings started to sizzle pretty much immediately. Yum!! I stood out in the cold, turning and basting every couple of minutes. I have to do something about my ODK arrangements. Nothing like @MacKenzie's custom set up!! Best of all, the KK came in very handy at the end of the cook. I was able to put the left over binchotan in the KK23, shut the lid and preserve these pieces for my next cook. I think binchotan actually works out to be very economical given it doesn't burn away very fast, is super hot and can be re-used. All good. Slightly wonky plated shot but very tasty nonetheless.

@MacKenzieHow not can the Vermicular get? What is the temperature range? I’ve been reading up on it and it’s a bit confusing.

Looking good, as soon as the 220v version comes out of the vermicular I will buy one for sure. I must say I am very happy with the" Control Freak" so far.

I see a carrot too.

To be honest, I've been perfectly happy with my 23" and never considered a 2nd KK. Back in the day when I had the POSK, I did get the small Grill Dome, thinking I'd waste less charcoal cooking smaller meals on it than the bigger one. Since I've owned the KK, which is about the same size as the old one, I never use the baby Grill Dome. Also, at the time that I bought my 23", it was the biggest one that Dennis made. All things considered, I'd probably stick with my single 23," but I do appreciate the versatility of the 32".

Wow, I'm hooked on skewers. These skewers are great. Anything a Weber kettle can do better than a Solo Stove fire pit, a KK can do far better than a Weber. This kind of grilling is the thrill and the taste of roadside grilling in Thailand or Morocco. I could never quite recreate this flavor profile on a Weber or a KK. I believe that there's a big advantage to the taller-than-wide orientation in a Solo Stove fire pit, that would be lost with their new grill. Whatever goes over what's left of these embers is surrounded and bathed by the rising spotlight of hot air and radiant heat, a convection oven effect.

I’m a huge fan of the 32. That and anything else are a potent combo. 32/23 is hard to beat.

Awesome, I love the different areas, each one is so interesting and different from the others.

That picanha looks amazing, Aussie.

If I were independently wealthy, my setup would look something like this.

@Aussie Ora that meat is cooked just the way I like it looks absolutely perfect to me @HokieBen those are good observations. I took the Aaron Franklin MasterClass and my biggest takeaway from that was on trimming. It really sets you up for success. I also found cooking brisket on the KK easier because you can “set it and forget it”. Just curious though how long did you let it rest?

Picanha Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

Thanks for the tips and warm welcome! i have only used Royal Oak lump and BGE lump so far. Both have had a lot of small pieces. Will look for a better lump. And try the coconut KK charcoal! Here are a few pics of the new KK

If you haven't figured it out yet, Wingman, one of our favorite pastimes on this Forum is coaxing others into spending money on new toys! It's part of the rationalization process for us after we've bought it!

A little cottage cheese, so easy, just add milk heat to 158F and lemon juice, wait 5 mins. and strain.

I found out why the temperature confusing. On the web site it says 153 one place and 156 in another. The cookbook says 153F so for regular or small eggs that is what I'll use and for my largest eggs it will be 156F. My free range eggs are not graded, just put in the box. I get them from a friend. They have a smooth as silk mouth feel.

Put a blade roast on the KK to smoke for a few hours. When the IT reached 150F I took it off the KK. Put the roast on a bed of onions. Earlier did some carrots, just washed, cut and put them in the Vermicular to cook. It's nearly at pull stage but I need dinner so took a piece of the side and let the rest continue to cook. Plated dinner. The meat had the most wonderful flavour. I could have eaten a lot more. Tomorrow I should be able to do something nice with all that juice in the Musui.

More binchotan cooking this weekend. Such a clean, pure burn. Here is the binchotan, brought up to operating temperature in the KK. New, safer transport mechanism - a cheap camping pot. Some super simple indoor cooking on the konro. Squid and sea bass. Cooking small quantities indoors in the winter is so convenient. And my carbon monoxide monitor sat by quietly, confirming that we were safe. And here is the remaining binchotan. Saved for the next cook by putting the lid on my camping pot. Binchotan is not cheap but it is good value, I promise!