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Scored a butterflied leg of lamb gave it a reverse sere Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

Happy Thanksgiving. A twenty two lb fresh not frozen bird rubbed with a citrus black pepper rub and smoked with apple. Cooked to 165, tender and moist with a crispy skin

Basher - I think it would be ungentlemanly of me to pick up that gauntlet. It would be rather difficult to clean the garage out - although it would be great fun trying. The ciders here are from the couple of ancient trees in the garden some with a bit of pear juice from the recently planted Perry espaliers. I don't use any sanitising chemicals and don't add any yeast - just juice the apples stick in a sealed bucket for a few months over winter, prime with a bit of sugar and bottle. Some are 5 years old and the taste changes over time. They are quite dry and don't taste like commercial ciders. Together with the beers of various styles and ages there is nigh on 500 bottles here. Plus a couple of hundred bottles of Bronze Trippel and this years cider/perry in the house in the warm getting a second fermentation to provide a bit of fizz and the still fermenting Big Bad Matt Black Stout ...... I'm getting carried away here but if @Braai-Q, @sovsroc, @Sir Bill want to come down and anyone else for that matter and give it a try I'm up for it !! Bring meat. @tekobo - I've taken on board what you've said about beer..... but I have something special for you... I've spent the day rubbing down soffits and rafters ready to repaint and fit new guttering, and I'm a bit cream crackered need to eat and do my duo lingo, so it'll be a bit later..... Cheers RD

Here...we...go! IMG_0012.MOV

No secret there - a 16, a 23 and a 32. As for fatigue? It is not possible to be fatigued while you are waiting for a KK, or three. Dennis sent me photos of the finished KKs in September and I have been sneaking a look at them now and again to remind myself of what is coming my way. You can't buy love but you can sure buy KK happiness!

I smoked a 20lb turkey. Made some creamed spinach & kale, sweet potatoe mashed, Yukon gold Parmesan/sour cream/chives mashed potatoes, homemade stufffing. all ready to be reheated in oven To finish I’m making Bread pudding Thanksgiving is my favorite meal. I’ll eat this for at least 4-5 days. It’s just my family and wife’s parents to but I can’t help myself. I love thanksgiving! Turkey just got pulled

Off to a good start @AJR. I'm prepped and ready to start cooking in about another hour. I'm just doing a boneless turkey breast and some legs this year, since it's just me (and Kipper).

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!! that looks pretty tasty Aussie, have a great day

The top lambics are from Belgium, made by monks in actual monasteries, some even cloistered. You go up to the gate, ring the bell, place your order and money on a "lazy Susan" in the gate, spin it around. Magically, it spins back with your beer. You never see or talk to the monk on the other side.

Yes, I am very excited. No, I have not thought about the first cook at all. I just received a lovely selection of rubs from @tony b and will certainly plan one of them into my first cook. We have just had the announcement of tiers to follow our current lockdown. We had been in tier 1 for months but are now in tier 2. No friends indoors but you can meet in a group of up to six outdoors. The KKs will provide a perfect excuse to gather in the garden. Yes. It is. 🤭

I had a productive day yesterday. Rotisserie chicken on the KK Whilst I was brewing 70l of Red IPA Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You are looking through the window, the temptation to open the door of the sweet-shop and step inside will get harder and harder to resist.... I'm not a betting man but ....

Doing my first turkey today. 4.8lb bone-in breast. I-D-10-T error and didn't brine overnight, so we pivoted at 10am and rather than lighting the KK I made a quick brine (salt/water/pickle juice/brown sugar). Just the two of us so no guests to accommodate. I bought a 2 cup (yes - cup) cast iron pot and put 2 holes in the bottom - going to fill it w/pecan chips. Using cocochar. Not sure if I'll throw the pot in at initial light. Probably wait a bit since it is so small. I'll be using a 1/2 basket in the 21. About to light after I post this, heat soak for 1.5 hours or so, and hopefully cook some bird at 350 until the internal is 165. Blue Plate mayo to bind the Meat Church Holy Cow seasoning.

Tekobo thank you for reminding me of this lambic beer. I was once part of a club where we would match food, beer, and cigars.( bit of a wank really) I did however, enjoy an open fermented beer- lambic beer- and I thought it was Austrian. For 20 years I forgot the term. Never forgot the experience. Given I forgot the term” Lambic”, I haven’t been able to source this beer since. I’ll seek it out now. BTW my daughter devoured blue cheese from the age of 3. Always thought this was astounding as she is a fussy eater now. Also BTW, look out for Monteith’s green apple cider. It’s a Kiwi cider that tastes like Granny Smith apples.... very refreshing on a hot summers day. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am preparing for the arrival of my KKs. House has been painted, space cleared on shelves and this weekend we will do a winter tidy of the garden to make space now that the scaffolding for the painting is down. @sovsroc's post reminded me about the challenge with getting KKs off the pallet when an extra pallet is inserted under the one that the KK is packed on in Indonesia. I have written to agent to see if the extra pallet can be removed before delivery. He is looking into it. I have been avoiding tracking my vessel..up to now. I wanted to avoid stress and I thought it would be great to get the email, out of the blue, to tell me that my KKs have finally arrived in the UK. However, I couldn't resist and I looked up the tracking for the vessel day before yesterday. It is the MOL Treasure and even in a couple of days, the ETA to Rotterdam has slipped by half a day. Patience is indeed a virtue.

Sorry, I am of no help there. I don't drink beer. That said, I had an interesting experience in a pub a couple of years ago, age 50. I tried all their ciders and didn't like them. The bar man asked me what I like to eat. I said blue steak and blue cheese. He offered me a lambic beer. He was so right. It is the only beer I have ever liked.

18 lb. bird, cooked at between 325 and 375, took 3 hours on the dot. Cooked it on the grate over a sheet pan full of onions/carrots/celery that I pulled out about 90 minutes into the cook and used to fortify turkey stock for the gravy. Darn near perfect.

That's my holiday destination for 2021 sorted then, a religious retreat with a twist .... or a spin (sorry). ' Wild ' yeasts - both of them. Also seek out "Gueze" - it's a blend of new (c. 1 yr ) and old (more than that). There are still fermentable sugars in the New Lambic - fermentation continues after they are mixed. The beer is put typically into champagne style bottles where the secondary fermentation provides the fizz. I think there is a bottle of it in the middle of the top shelf of beers in my photo. As no one has pressed my "off" switch and Mrs Rock Dock is knitting a Xmas jumper in front of the fire - I have a little story about Gueze. I started making cider and beer about 6 or 7 years ago. In the North of England there is a lab which acts as a kind of historic (and current) yeast library - you can get yeasts from many of the now sadly defunct British breweries, including current ones if you ask nicely . You get a test tube with a little agar slope with a few colonies of yeast on, from which it is fairly simple to propagate enough yeast to brew a batch of beer. So I made a large batch of generic beer, divided it into six fermentors and added a different yeast to five of them. I then took some wild yeast from cider that I'd made - i.e. those that were on the surface of the apples from which the cider was made. The difference in the flavours of the beers was astounding. When it came to the wild yeast beer - it tasted almost like cider, I thought it was off and tipped the whole fermentor full down the drain. Anybody still awake ?? Fast forward a few years and we are in a bar - The Little Bear in Brugges, Belgium. A bunch of us from the village had gone over for a few days break. My friend suggested that we should taste some Gueze - it was not cheap. One friend screwed up his face and couldn't drink it , I immediately had an overwhelming sense of deja taste - the wild beer that I had so naively tipped down the drain. Of course I liked it. Another experiment a couple of years later, making a totally locally sourced beer. Hang in there @tekobo, there's a bottle with your name on ! I got a sack of barley from a farmer in the village and malted it at home. You basically wet the barley, get lots of containers, spread it a few inches deep and keep turning it every few hours and after a few days it develops little rootlets and tiny shoots. This means that the grain has produced enzymes which have the potential to break down the starch stored in the grain (unfermentable) into fermentable sugars. At this point you have to rather sadly kill all these tiny seedlings to stop them growing further and you then have your malt from which you can make beer. You do this by kilning - or in my case putting it in the oven at a temperature which kills the plant but doesn't denature the enzyme. Having spent the day doing this I left the last batch to 'kiln' in the oven overnight. The next morning the oven was a complete mess and there was a dark sticky goo on the floor around the oven. At that point Mrs RD had difficulty understanding the science of malting. A big clean up followed during which I leant on the oven door and broke the spring loaded mechanism. The oven / range company had been taken over, production had stopped and there were no spares available. The range has two ovens and it was only the smaller oven that the door wouldn't close. I couldn't therefore see why Mrs RD was making such a fuss. Even when I got it to almost close with some Gaffa-tape and it looked pretty good to my eye, there was no let up. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I used this home made malt, water from the culvert flowing through the garden, hops from the garden and wild yeast from the apple trees to make this wild beer. It tastes a bit like Gueze, certainly inspires curiosity and best of all has an aroma of blue cheese. So, if you come down to clean out the garage @tekobo , there is something for you to drink.

That is so kind @RokDok - This forum is full of so many kind and interesting, as well as intelligent people - its a pleasure to be involved even though I don't have a KK

Waiting with baited breath!

Glad to be of help. I might seek out a lambic beer, or two, here too.

Yes, that was for a spatchcocked turkey but at a lower temp (300). 350 should shorten it up a bit.

I'm happy to be back. When we talked on the phone the other day, I mentioned part of this newest round of PT (it's an at home computer based program) is setting goals. My first love was always cooking. Started at age 7 and was the hardest thing to give up. So it's been one of my goals to get back into life by starting back cooking and maybe starting next spring...LOL...yard work. And to be more precise, you, Majestik and myself were the forums first admins....setting it up from scratch with PHPBB. I do not miss that crap nowadays. Being an admin is a completely thankless job...LOL. So thanks to the current admins for keeping things pretty close to how we originally set it up (and adding all the nice new features with the new forum software). Also, cool new Website.

Hope all is safe and in good health. Here is my contribution to a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family.

Now you're talking. Geuze is my favourite style and this is my go to beer: https://beerconnoisseur.com/beer/oude-geuze-boon My father in law is a beer aficionado and pointed me in the direction of this. I don't drink huge amounts of beer but there are some situations where only a beer will do.

There are two drinking experiences which stand out in my life which offered two of the most traumatic hangovers known to man. The first involved cider. The second involved cider. The first, I was a student and started drinking at lunch after lectures and managed to cause a traffic jam because I decided to cycle back home to my res. I was on the local radio (traffic helicopter also known as 'The Flying Fox') as I'd been drunkenly weaving up a steep hill in Oxford and caused a massive traffic tail back because I wouldn't let anyone past. Oxford is a cyclist city but congests very easily. The Police officer who encouraged me to get out the way was very playful and kept chasing me about until I was given a lift home. I woke up around 7pm the following evening and couldn't lift my head from my pillow. The second time. A suitable amount of time having lapsed between incident 1 and this incident, we had been drinking something called 'Old Pig Squeal' in Devon. Their slogan was 'It'll separate the men from the boys and the tankards from their handles'. Cider is dangerous.

Thanks for the tips, Steve. Three hours on the dot from putting it on the grate to 165 in the breast. It probably got closer to 400 at the grate for some of the cook, but it was fantastic. Moist and delicious. Gravy from the drippings was on point as well. I highly recommend the turkey bath and ranchero seasoning from All Things BBQ.

Best turkey yet...considering it was my first. Turned out great, got rave reviews. KK wins again. Don’t mind the missing leg, it didn’t make it to the table...

The UK has just had new COVID-19 tiers announced. The lowest infection rate areas are allowed the greatest freedom (Tier 1) which is about 1% of the population. Tier 2 allows you to go to the pub but you have to have a meal with a drink. Tier 3 is the toughest lockdown. So to translate: Tier 1: Pints Tier2: Pints with chips Tier 3: No pints So depending on where @RokDokis on the Tier system, I think we'll be ok to help out.

Rok you are living an interesting life. I once sat with a friend in his garden shed on the edge of The Forest of Dean where he had tapped a 50 gal oak keg of home made cider. 2 pints later i struggled to walk in a straight line. Good to hear the backyard scrumpy remains alive and well. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Twins Troble. They must have gotten separated at birth. H.T.

MEATER+ MEATER® | Wireless Smart Meat Thermometer | For BBQ & Kitchen Cooking Only thing out there that will work on a rotisserie. There's an ambient thermometer on the end of the meat probe, so you get both temperatures displayed in the app.

3! Wow...... but there are 7 days in a week! Now it’s all about the tile/ pebble colour choice. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Exciting times indeed tekobo! I can’t wait to see what you eventually with, when they arrive! What’s the first cook for both of them going to be? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Steve, was that for an unspatchcocked turkey? AJR has spatchcock the turkey. Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk

I watched a malcom Reed video and it took him about 3.5 hours at 300 to bring to 165 in the breast. This was for an 18 lb bird. At 2 3/4 hours, he was at 147 if you are aiming for a lower breast temp. Lots of variables there but maybe a good starting point. Cooking at 400 to 450 looks like it could cut that time in half. I'm planning on cooking my 14.5 lb turkey spatchcocked at 350 and figuring about 2 hours or so plus 30 minutes to rest.

Tekobo can you and Braai help rokdoc our with his oversupply of beer? He’s making me thirsty. 35c (95f) predicted here on Wednesday and 80% humidity..... here comes Christmas. If you can put a couple of days together like this you will clean that garage out in hurry. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks, Basher, just as long as that snow is in the form of grated cheese on my plate.

Used some lean ground pork to make meatballs. Planned to make the pasta too but just couldn't squeeze it in. The sauce was a previously made mushroom sauce. 16 meatballs just like this one are ready for the KK. Plated.

Inspired, I did a rib-eye cap steak from CostCo last night. Direct, lower grate, mesquite chunks, rubbed with Dizzy Pig Raising the Steaks. Plated with a huge baked potato loaded with Peruvian green sauce, sauteed shrooms and creamed spinach. Chimichurri for the steak, too. Side salad and dinner rolls.

Piling on here - I'm 64 years old and I've NEVER owned a gas grill. With a charcoal chimney, you could get up and going in 10 -15 minutes for basic grilling. (I've switched over to a MAPP gas torch and air blower to start mine for a bit more control.) I just plan for about 30 minutes lead time to do my prep work in the kitchen and the KK is usually ready (or close enough for government work), depending upon target dome temperature. The notable exception is pizza - which takes hours to heat soak the KK and pizza stone to 450F. But, a gasser can't cook a pizza like a wood-fired oven - the KK IS a wood-fired oven. Cleaning out the ash is not a biggie. If I'm ambitious, I'll haul out the shop vac (with drywall filter) and can be done in 30 secs - easy, peasy. If I'm lazy (usually!), I'll just clean it out with a metal scoop. Takes maybe 3 minutes. @tekobo - the 42" KK actually has TWO springs for the lid! Dennis overengineering things again! You know, the KK makes a great chili pepper roaster, too! I just fabricated a cage with wire fabric (1/4") and insert it into the rotisserie basket. Key - use the half-moon of the rotisserie basket to your advantage and leave the ends of wire cage half open to make loading and unloading the peppers easy. Been using this thing for years now. Oh, the other trick - cut the stems off so that they don't get caught in the wire mesh.

Hey all! I’ve been fairly inactive on the forum recently, had my hands full! This new little one arrived yesterday, meet little Miss Adi Lou McMillan Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good fences DJ make good neighbors and that is a fence for the ages. Bad neighbors make good fertilizer. I've been vacationing in and around the Vail Co area this week and met a woman walking her Corgi dog. She told me the poor little guy was experiencing some pain in his advanced years and she decided to take a trip down to the local hemp store to purchase some dog chews. Looked like a real mellow dog now with a great pace. Good to see your recovery is on the mend.

HAHAHA....I had to chop back a few elephant ears just to use the KK. The grown in look is because I've barely been able to take care of keeping the grass cut. Still haven't worked my way back up to using the weed eater again. Maybe soon, but there are just some things that hurt my back much worse than others. Pushing the mower doesn't lay me up for days, but I'll pay hell the rest of the week had I broke out the weed eater. I'm actually surprised the ivy hasn't completely taken over my backyard in my absence. But thanks, I'm not one for fancy presentation, just good food. Spinach is one of the few greens I absolutely hate. Those on the plate are curly mustard greens. I'll eat turnips and collards too. Not real fond of kale, but just can't seem to acquire the taste for spinach The bi-corn was just what was available as I usually go for the silver queen (sweetest). Most of the farmers I know had a bad year with rain coming in way too late. So no idea if it was local or not. Either way, it was really good and still sweet. If you've not had pressure cooked corn or greens, you're missing out big time. I usually take a small ham hock (settled for a few scraps of country ham on hand), pressure cook it down with half an onion for 10 minutes. Then the greens and the corn both only take 4 minutes at pressure. I was lazy and just layered the steam trays, greens on bottom and corn in top tray and cooked them both at the same time....LOL...lazy but it worked. Veggies retain so much more of their natural flavor and nutrients by not cooking them to death. So many people I see cook greens half the day to get them soft and by then they have a dull green look instead of bright. To me the pressure cooked corn is also sweeter. Here's what my backyard looked like back when I could take care of it properly. Now it's an unruly small jungle.

Man I forgot how good it is having home cooked meals. Guess doing it is like riding a bike as it's all coming back in a delicious way. Mustards and bi-corn were great pressure cooked sides. Gotta love 4 minutes side items...LOL.

Was snowing pretty good when I went to bed last night and woke up this morning to about 2 inches of wet slushy mess. Fortunately, the pavements were just wet mostly. Dull, dreary and gray with misty foggy dampness all day. YUCK!