Leaderboard

I thought the purple crack you guys were using was just a nickname for a rub.😀

Test pix to see if I can see this one.

It actually is the nickname that I gave to the Tazmanian mountain pepper berries.

I just got on the site for the first time since the new servers, etc. Weird layout (very vertical and narrow, with 1/3 of the page on the right as white space). Also can't see the prior pictures. Can't say I care much for it. If anyone discovers a setting which clears up the above issues, I would be grateful to receive it.

Always good to get a second opinion!

and this waiting game has a real treasure at the end.

Welcome @Wilsonj. As someone who has been through the waiting cycle for her first KK, i can tell you it is well worth the wait. I've never had a gasser and so cannot comment on the difference in the way the food tastes. I can certainly say that the "effort" of lighting charcoal is made less so by the excellent engineering of the KK (max airflow through the coals when you open up the vents) and by the techniques that I learned on this forum (MaPP torch and mini leaf blower to get the fire going). Welcome, again.

@Wingman505, as Tony's questions imply, it depends on what you need. I also think that "high end" and "commercial" may be mutually exclusive. We had a fancy pants scale for many years that irritated me by conking out periodically and not measuring above 5kg. This year The Husband bought us a new, very simple and cheap scale from a commercial supplier in the UK. It's advantages are that it measures more accurately, can switch between units easily and gets up to much higher weights. I use that alongside my "drug dealer" scales which measure small weights very accurately and help with things like yeast and salt for bread making etc.

Well, as luck would have it, we were in Costco this afternoon (to my Aussie friends: Costco is a huge buying cooperative, run practically like a non-profit, that has a very large national presence in the US, enormous buying power that extracts razor thin discounts in bulk buying and passes them along to their "members"). Passing along the meat counter, I found they had- and this is in my experience unusual - these huge Cowboy/Tomahawk ribeye cuts for sale for $11.99/lb. This is about half of what I would pay a good local restaurant supplier or Snake River. Did I mention, "prime"? So I brought one home, and had my first experience cooking....not bad. I probably could have moved it farther away from direct heat and cooked slower, but overall, it was good experience and I think I have this cut at least partially figure out. PS, Don't hate me, but I still like filet mignon (tenderloin) better.

Who'd have thought it? Newspaper was the key to my problem. We don't normally have newspapers in the house but our house guest left a pile of Sunday papers when she left on Monday. I scrunched some up and stuffed the paper under my loaded firestarter chimney. Went away for an hour and came back to nice, glowing coals. Bingo! Slower than a KK but low effort. I used the amount of coal from the chimney with a little booster char half way through to cook the ribs slowly last night. Tasty. Here cooking in the last stages with some tira de asado, my preferred way of eating short ribs. The author of my Patagonian bbq book would disapprove of the ribs - sauced AND with dark grill marks. Will aspire to achieve the even golden colour that they recommend by holding the meat higher above the fire in future cooks. Looking good. Didn't pass the bend test but you wouldn't expect that after two hours. Gratuitous picture of sunflower. Happiness is knowing you have a half rack of ribs waiting for you for lunch.

The deposit was paid today for a 23" KK. I got the one with bells and whistles. Judging by other orders- most recently Hammo- coming into The Port of Brisbane it's expected to be about 3 months away. Summer will be kicking in by then, however, before the KK arrives I have plenty of work to do in preparation. Our house is a timber "workers cottage" built in 1913 so during summer all doors and windows are open to breathe. Given the back deck is attached to the house, the smoke doesn't go down that well from the back deck. My back yard is a mess and the current ODK sits on the deck so a new ODK needs to be built to house the KK, and other toys. It'll be detached and far enough away so the smoke doesn't cause a problem to house. I had in mind something like this- A mate of mine has been milling some grade 1 blue gum hardwood timber from his property and kindly wants to donate some 150mm posts and slabs for the bench. It'll cost about 10 years of cook ups. I also found some cool river stones carved into bench top sinks. I think they might be from Indonesia. We have street gas that I can run to the ODK so the gas burner will always be on tap with no need to refill bottles. And the KK can just rolllllll around at will.

@Troble - same scene up here in the Bay area. Left Napa yesterday after folks started closing because of the poor air quality. This was taken as we were leaving at 10:30 am. Quality didn't improve substantially as we traveled south back to San Jose.

I am still experiencing problems this morning.