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Tomorrow is my birthday. My plan is to go golfing on Torrey Pines South and eat a brisket. I’ve pulled it off before. The trick is to cook it before you go, wrap it, go play your round and come back and serve. So maybe 5-6 hours after wrapping you eat it. I made my mashed potatoes tonight and put them in a foil tray....but I’m going for the gold with the brisket as some of you may or may not remember when I got my KK I said my dream was to be a to do adobada/al pastor on a spit (which I am happy to say I have accomplished) and I want to cook a Lomo Saltado brisket. My wife is Peruvian and I’ve fallen in love with Peruvian cuisine. Lomo saltado is my favorite dish. I posted pics a few months back of me making it but essentially you light pisco and soy sauce on fire and cook meat in a wok with a bunch of cumin, garlic, red onions and aji peppers (from Peru). If it’s done well the juice or “jugito” is so delicious that you will likely lick every last drop off the plate. It’s amazing I’ve tried on a few occasions to make a Lomo saltado or aji amariillo brisket using cumin, aji powder, soy sauce, garlic powder etc as a rub in the past and while it was good the flavor never penetrated the skin and it didn’t pack a huge flavor punch like I hoped for I think it was @Wingman505who was posting about injecting brisket that got me thinking....I’ve never injected a brisket before. So I took a pan and made my Lomo saltado sauce, lit the stuff on fire and let it simmer 5 hours. I also took a boatload of aji amarillo paste (which is spicy as hell) and rubbed it on my brisket. I rubbed soy sauce on there and sprinkled cumin, salt and pepper. I then took my 5 hour simmering Lomo saltado sauce and injected it into my brisket side note - the wife and I are doing a two day staycation for my birthday so my mother in law is coming to watch the kids. I made her favorite Peruvian dish (my wife’s as well) Aji de Gallina, so she has good food and does not have to cook all weekend. That leaves me completely open to go all Mad Max with my brisket. If it sucks there is a back up plan already waiting.... I say this because for some reason I got a hair up my butt about not having enough flavor so I decide to cut up to Peruvian aji peppers and put them on top of my brisket. These peppers are super hot. So I did that and then let it marinate for 48 hours just fired up my KK tonight and took out the Brisket. Removed most of the large chunks of aji pepper that were on top of the meat and then threw it on the KK at 235 with some mesquite wood. I sampled the juice in my pan and it was spot on so I’m hopeful that this may be a crazy ass experiment that works....or it might end up so spicy it’s unedible....we shall see. I’ll pull it in the AM around 10am PST and will eat it at 6pm PST. I plan to wrap it in foil in the morning. Normally I tend to leave my briskets unwrapped for the full duration of the cook, especially with the KK as it keeps things so moist. However since I love this sauce so much and I sautéed it 5 hours then injected it and since it’s gonna rest for 6 hours I want as much juice as I can in the final wrap. So contrary to my usual style I’ll pull it wrap it in foil and put it back on for 90-120 minutes to finish in the AM. We’ll have to see the temp when I wake up. Here’s progress to date

Got my pic from Dennis today - on the boat!

Pulled and wrapped in foil at 8am pst. Will take it off at 10am to put in cooler

In a non Covid time you are welcome to come to San Diego vacation with your family and come by for a KK cook. Just make sure you show up with decent alcohol

Tekobo, Thank you, Yes, it's an important point about the expense of shipping things individually at a later date, but I'm struggling to think of an occasion when I would cook something which couldn't be fitted on the forks. The cradle is a lovely design, but I think I am struggling to justify getting both. I am not normally this sensible in my decision making when it comes to things like this - I have previous form - and I may find that in a day or two passion overrides logic. I did have a panic last night that I might not be able to get the oven into the back garden I had visions of some how trying to crane it over the wall from the pub carpark, so was up just after dawn in my dressing gown, tape measure in hand. I have just over an inch to spare at a bit over 37 inches. The gap between the yew hedge at the front is a bit narrow so will need a bit of slash and burn without the burn. I count myself lucky that I have experience with horticultural hurdles when it comes to outdoor cooking. I was kind of hoping that I could just rock up at Southampton Docks with a tail lift van and a pallet truck with Mrs RD (she does pilates and yoga and is quite strong) and pick up our KK, but I'm not sure it'll be that simple ........ Best RD

I got the cradle first. Spit later. I’ve not used the cradle since I got the spit

Yes rok get the forks. i use them regularly and am yet to use my cradle. The forks are much lighter, and easier to clean.

do you take reservations for this resort ?

@tony b you grow aji peppers? That awesome. I’m going to grow a ton next spring but my vegetable boxes and roof work got done too late to grow peppers or siding vegetables this year. I inject my pork butt but have never tried a brisket. I just pulled it off the KK internal temp was 204. Put in the cooler now it’s off to the golf course to drink a few plinys! one thing I’m curious about tony, have you ever left chunks on top of your brisket? I took off the big chunks of aji but I left the smaller ones on there thinking it could deliver a impactful punch in the crust

I would be one of those folks. It's even worse now that the derecho trashed my trellis system for my hop plant. The KK now sits right out in the open, on an elevated deck 7 ft off the ground, in the wind tunnel created by the close gap between my house and the neighbors. One trick with the Guru (assume it's similar for other models), close the damper on the fan outlet down to less than half open and just barely open the top vent off its seat - make the fan do the work. Otherwise, you can get vacuum drag across the top vent and pull air into the KK when the fan isn't running and mess with your temps. Once the inside temp gets above the controller setpoint, it can't bring it back down. You are at the mercy of the airflow created by the wind as to where your temps will equilibrate to?

I do buy books in foreign languages but restrict that game to languages that I actually speak. The Husband speaks Spanish fluently but I don't. I took the photo above so that I could find the book in English when I returned home. All that said, I have not used it much and must get into it. Lots to explore and learn and Lennox Hastie was pretty inspiring.

@RokDok I only ever had the spit. It is very versatile and can be used with OctoForks. For my 32 I have ordered both the spit and the cradle. As @Braai-Q said, it is expensive to get such things shipped to the UK individually if you change your mind at a later date. Ask me in a year's time how much use I get out of each! A couple of things to note. It can be challenging to figure out how to set up the roti and you need to cut a piece that Dennis sends you to fit the gap between the motor that you choose and the KK. There are threads elsewhere on the forum illustrating roti set up. I didn't use my roti as much as I might because I found it really difficult fiddling with the sprung screws that connect the hanger that the motor sits in to the bracket on the side of the KK. That is, until I found that I was doing it all wrong and didn't need to take the hanger off each time but instead just need to leave the hanger attached to the bracket and use the play between the two to slide the motor on and then tighten the wing nuts. This video on the KK website will help you get over that hurdle, although I doubt that you are as mechanically challenged as I sometimes am.

@Wilsonj, I bought a controller and in the 2.5 years that I owned my first KKs, I used it once. I just can't be bothered with all the cables. I use the MEATER to tell me about readiness and ambient temp and I rely on my KK to hold steady within a reasonably small range. My garden is pretty sheltered and others have reported greater challenges with holding temp, particularly when it is windy.

Hope you folks Down Under don't have to put up with these "uninvited guests" at your cookouts too often! Good thing they're vegetarians! https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/family-bbq-in-australia-crashed-and-swarmed-by-dozens-of-giant-robber-crabs/ar-BB19oqmt?ocid=msedgdhp

PBW, my man! Cleaning the cradle is a snap.

Wilson I took 12 months to learn different settings for different temperatures. once I became comfortable with this, I recently acquired a fan temp Controller for low slow cooks. no regrets. If I had the fan earlier, it would have taken me a long time to understand top settings and no doubt would have had some frustrating cooks. the fan now gives me confidence to walk away during a low cook and I can view temperatures from my phone. Kids sport, errands, wherever. Previously I wouldn’t leave the cook for any more than 30 mins.

Hey tekobo. Haha, yeah I was being cheeky. The 32" is more than I should afford, but I think it is a better investment over time. I figure in a few years I won't think about the difference. Not to derail my own thread. But considering temp controllers and I'm wondering with the great insulation the KK has, is a fan/blower system that important ?

Gorgeous!

I use several different configurations when using the rotisserie - Dennis' basket (with insert), the straight rod with forks, and the same straight rod with an adjustable rectangular basket. Each has it place/use. YMMV

I am back on the cow trail. My usual supplier of dairy cow won't be offering them until the new year at the earliest. COVID has affected his usual sales patterns to restaurants and there isn't the room to keep dairy cows and finish them with a few months of special diet. Instead he offered me some beef from a blue-grey cow. He said it had gone down a storm with his restaurant customers. So... I ordered a hind quarter of cow. For the last few months I have been sharing pork, beef and lamb boxes with friends. Not this time. Dan had made the blue grey sound so good that I wanted all of the meat to myself. Not quite true. I didn't want to fuss with other people's requirements and so I just had the meat cut the way I wanted. I wanted to try the Argentinian style of cutting and so sent him this link: https://therealargentina.com/en/a-meat-lovers-guide-to-beef-cuts-in-argentina/. The article is impossibly rude about one of my favourite steaks - rump - but I forgave the writer because they had such good descriptions of each of the cuts. The cow was ready to be sent on Monday and they sent me a preview photo from the packing room: Here is the star of the show, sirloin on the bone: I asked for whole muscles because the Argentinians cut meat that way and I wanted to stay true to their philosophy. That means that I have ended up with huge joints and I need to figure out how to deal with them given I won't be cooking for huge crowds in our COVID affected world. It may be that I get a big joint out of the freezer once in a while and offer some to friends who may be interested. That said, I certainly didn't have room to freeze this monster cut whole. It is the flank and weighed a mighty 15kg. I was at a loss as to what to do with it and so searched on the internet. Found this excellent Youtube video: The Husband and I once spent an exhausting day butchering half of a small Dexter cow. We never saw this cut. I think that is because, on an animal that has been hung for a few weeks, this belly part of the animal shrinks to nothing. In fact, when I first got interested in meat many years ago I read that beef skirt was the butcher's treat and it didn't used to make it to the butcher's slab for sale. Given my hindquarter came from a cow that has been hung for at least 6 weeks, I think that my lump of flank may have come from a different cow. I will ask Dan. All that said, I had a great big lump of meat to deal with when I finished work last night. Twas fun. It went from this: To this: And then we broke into this: And ate this while watching Lennox Hastie on Chef's Table BBQ: Yum and yay!

Tekobo - The decision definitely is 32 " now - hope you get your new sofa by Xmas - I would offer you our old ones if not , but I suspect that, at current decision making velocity we may not have chosen a fabric by then. Can't stretch to a second oven - not for the moment at least, looks like your 16 " will be just the ticket - and as Paul says you'll be getting lots of practice with adult beverages. Just the thought is making me thirsty - and I haven't had breakfast yet. I'm looking forward to hearing about your pizza oven order - I guess you'll get them in colours to match the KKs ??🤫 Braai-Q - That is great information - definitely, definitely the 32 ". I hadn't thought about the double drip tray - it will be great to be able to make gravy too. I will get the pizza stone - I don't think my oven is practical to use when it's cold although to be honest I haven't tried in the winter. Absolutely makes sense for you to have something mobile to chase the sun - you will have a lovely set up. Tony B - nice to meet another home brewer. I brew a fair range of beer, I've done Bitters ,Mild, Munich Helles, Belgian Trippel, Pilsner (if the weather is cold), Weissbier, Dusseldorf Altbier etc. Recently I haven't been following recipes and I quite like using American / NZ hops in Pale Ales. Brew in the garage with a few friends in the village - it's a full day - they take beer home to ferment and bottle. The star of the show is Stout. We have a culvert running through the garden- fed from a spring a couple of miles away. I pump the water from the culvert to brew with. It flows through the chalk valley so is perfect for Stout. Colour has been chosen, by Mrs RD. I will get accessories as you suggest BQ. Jury is out though on the tables, it's quite a bit extra to spend . Money transferred from the savings account into the current (checking) last night. Cheers, RD

I soaked them in PBW last week. You should see the main grate that I cooked the brisket on, Oy it’s a mess.

Played around with the lighting tonight while watching Radiohead and the sunset

Happy Birthday, Troble!! Sounds like a wonderful plan and I can't wait to hear how this turns out. Injecting is the way to go on larger hunks of meat like briskets and butts. I even inject whole chickens. I've been growing yellow aji peppers for a number of years now. This year's crop has been disappointing so far. I've only got one ripe one on the plant right now and just a couple more in the ripening process. So, not enough to make a batch of my hot sauce this year! 😢

I seem to recall an episode of Bourdain on some island with the coconut crabs and they were eating them, so my guess is YES. He said that they definitely tasted of coconut.

Tony B - You've a lot more experience than me ! I've been brewing for six or seven years. I don't know what an oxygen-less transfer is, presumably you use a hop rocket or similar for the APAs ? Brewing is, I think very similar to cooking - there is some science but but it's an art really. - you have a hunch for what is going to taste good. Rudolph would work up a bit of a sweat. I guess it would save on delivery charges. Tekebo - Would you want your Xmas wrapping paper for the KKs to be all the same or different patterns & colours ? Would they all require different amounts of wrapping paper ? Just wondering. Those pizza ovens are really, really nice Braai-Q. Slight delay with our 32" order - Mrs RD's choice of colour is a problem.....