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Have been lurking for a while. Got on the wait list for a metallic bronze 32” about a year ago, just as COVID was heating up. Tile factory closed, which really put a damper summer 2020 BBQ plans as my cheap propane grill sprung a leak. Anyway, with bated breath she has finally arrived, and I’ll come out of the shadows now. It’s so beautiful. Well done, Dennis! I was so excited that I actually started the burn in yesterday afternoon and wrapped up around midnight. Was planning on doing a roti chicken on the way up, but I think I’m missing a part. Decided to improvise and did a few pizzas at 550 instead as our maiden voyage. The dough was freshly made by my SIL, who has a PhD in food science and is an amazing baker. Used sour dough starter and instant yeast. Whatever she made only took an hour to rise and was awesome with perfect crust. I’m not a baker so [emoji2373]. Lillian’s 1hr pizza dough: 1 c sour dough starter 2.5 c 00 flour 2 tsp instant yeast 1 tsp salt 2 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp sugar 1 cup water Looking forward to many more! This place is such a trove of good things, I’m having trouble picking where to start. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They sell pork tenderloins in a two pack at my local butcher shop, Iowa Meat Farms. Yesterday was more asian inspired today is more traditional French I made a pork tenderloin with a garlic, salt, rosemary & thyme paste/crust. Cooked indirect at 350 with pecan woods then seared abs finished in the cast iron pan with a little kerry gold Irish butter served with roasted fingerling potatoes with garlic powder, truffle salt, black pepper, olive oil, rosemary and Parmesan cheese and roasted Brussels sprouts with red onion, garlic, applewood smoked bacon abs balsamic vinegar glaze

I know a lot of you guys are obsessed with unique cooking apparatuses like myself, even better when they go in the Kamado. I’m sure you guys will appreciate the Bricknic. These are clay vessels shaped like bricks, I believe they are relatively new to the market and are advertised for cooking on open fires. I believe these will be especially well suited for cooking easy side dishes and deserts alongside your main dish in the Kamado. For foods that you don’t want to take on a major smoke profile. I also imagine the Bricknic will require you to tend to the side dish less, just throw whatever you want cooked inside and set it on the coals or a grate and then focus on your main proteins. They advertise cooking vegetable medleys, potatoes, meats, cakes, etc. in them, the sky is the limit. I plan on doing cookie bakes, Mac and cheese, asparagus, etc. My family seems excited about them too, we also plan on cooking s’more bakes on our propane fire that is built into our outdoor table. [emoji482]KK friends

If you go and love it so much Jonj then decide to never comeback....who gets the wine cellar? Nah, you wouldn't make it 20 hrs, not after I saw that cellar. Parting would be such sweet sorrow.

It is very cold outside but sunny. In fact I'm taking my torch to get the lock on the mailbox open as soon as I post this. In spite of the cold I was determined to grill some pork burger.

Pizza night on the beast yeah! IMG_1481.mov IMG_1485.MOV

This was the next day at Inskip Point looking across at Fraser Island- the worlds largest sand island. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would start with just sitting and looking at your new KK. It's a beaut. Congratulations.

Welcome to the Obsession, cab! Lovely KK and nicely done pizza during the break-in. You're off to the races now! Keep posting pics of your cooks.

Welcome cab, that looks great. I’m looking forward to seeing more of your cooks- and your SIL input. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Two cups of pellets is a lot of smoke! More then most meats need. Pellets are compressed wood so you have the most volume with these. I added a sink strainer (stainless steel) from Home Depot to ensure the pellets don’t block the holes. All of these pellets fit in the 475ml with the strainer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, but they don't also have my Rambo toys!

My wife said “I wouldn’t mind seeing that.” Just a 20+ hour plane ride away... Beautiful photos and beaches!

Most of us have dishwashers for this...

Just wanted to share this. Celebrating a birthday with some friends in a place called Rainbow Beach. Population about 1200 people, and beaches like this. It’s south from a world heritage park called Fraser Island. A really beautiful place to visit. The sand here is so fine and when placed in a tall jar with water, it settles in the colours of a rainbow. Although we don’t get snow in our part of the world, Mac, Jon, I do like seeing your photos and try to imagine how different that must be to what I am experiencing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Your new Kamado is stunning! Congrats! Thanks for sharing the pizza dough recipe, I would love more recipes from Lillian in the future. I will try this dough and let you know how it turns out. [emoji482] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Some visual context: Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the information. Just ordered the 475 ml MSR.

@Troble, I'm coming Sweetheart, set the table.

What a stunning KK and that pizza is not far behind. Thanks for posting the recipe.

The KK is glistening in the pic, wonderful setting & a nice pizza, congratulations.

It's a good precaution to cover the holes, but as I found with the solid pieces unnecessary. I do burn pellets in my home and actually I'm just finishing my 5th ton of those little critters from burning them in my Harmon stove. I realize from observation that within the confines of the Harmon burn pot the ash can restrict airflow, once the fuel is consumed the ash being so fine covers the holes and slows the fire. So yah, the drain net is a good idea for pellets, however wood chunks and chips maintain there form throughout the burn and I think it's something you can leave out for there application. From the pics you gave looking off your deck I didn't see many trees, maybe a lone cactus in the distance. Here in the Northeast wood is abundant, especially when a grandson has tree business to remove them, so filling a little pot or even the offset stick burner is not a concern with all kinds of smoke profiles. Think of it as fire management, think we covered the bases grasshopper.

With the cover on it's 2 1/2 in ht x 4 1/2 in dia. It is a small pot that works for some time, you can control that by the amount and the pot is on Amazon.

Lovely looking buns Mac. I may have purchased one of these this week?? https://skippygrainmills.com.au/schnitzer-vario-stainless-steel-hopper.html Found it on Gumtree. It’s harder than it should be sourcing whole grains here.... considering we are one of the worlds largest supplier of wheat and other cereals. Fishing this weekend so may dust it off next weekend. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Made some burger buns yesterday and today had a late night cheese and chili snack, for lunch it was a grilled chicken sandwich.

So I have been busy grilling and a lot of remiss with posting. A couple weeks ago I had a friend over who wanted shrimp for dinner so I decided to make paella. Mind you I have never made paella before but I have eaten my share. So I researched and research and found a procedure on Naked Whiz's site. What I found most helpful was Naked Whiz provided the pillars or the important things to pay attention to and the basic procedure this was brilliant since I rarely follow recipes. So again I am not going to plagiarize from Naked Whiz if you want the procedure go to the link above I am going to share my experience, ingredients and what I learned. I wanted to buy the sofrito but could not find anything to my satisfaction however, I did find a recipe on Pinterest that seemed like it was the real deal and I was not wrong. I cooked Heidi's recipe the night before and it provided amazing depth of flavor and I will make it again as a base for many recipes not just paella. I used canned whole San Marzano style tomatoes without the juice. For the liquid I used chicken bone broth by Kettle and Fire with 32 oz of clam juice in the bottle. I made sure this was warmed and ready to add. My ingredients included: 1 lb shrimp soaked 30 minutes in a salt brine 0.6 lb salmon soaked 30 minutes in a salt brine 3 lobster tails soaked 30 minutes in a salt brine 1/2 lb Basque style Chorizo, not my first choice, I would have preferred Spanish style and yes I mixed meats. For veggies I used 1 cup frozen peas Tops from one bunch of asparagus par boiled in the liquid Photo below shows the ingredients ready to go. Everything I read said to have your ingredients prepped and ready to go and it paid off in spades. I got the grill to 550 degrees and away I went. Saute chorizo, warmed the sofrito, browned the rice in the sofrito, added saffron, then added the liquid and cooked for about 30 minutes, added the vegetables and mixed into the rice. Then I added the seafood on top and cooked for about 10 minutes and the results were amazing as demonstrated by the beauty shown in the photo below. The rice was creamy the flavor profile was complex and balanced. Frankly, I have thought about this meal everyday since I have made it. What I learned was this dish is beautiful to look at, amazing flavor, fairly simple to make. I will definitely make this again and thanks to Naked Whiz for the procedure and all the tips. While I have a pork butt smoking as I write this I really want some more paella!

I'm just curious if anyone out here has found an easily available shallow tray / tub that accommodates the grates for the 32" BB for cleaning? Being a homebrewer I'm familiar with Five Star PBW and use this for cleaning but am having a hard time finding a suitable dedicated shallow tray for soaking and cleaning grates. Any help / links to available trays is appreciated. Thanks, Paul

Got yah! That'll do the trick.

Have drill will have smoke pot.

Beautiful

@Syzygies- what beautiful tortilla! Super lovely puff. @PVPAUL it was one of your earlier posts, as you know, that got me into making tortilla for the first time. Thank you for generously sharing your family recipe. Your little tips were very helpful. You said not to add too much flour at the rolling stage and that your family used to use lard in place of oil. I find that using animal fat in my flour tortillas seems to make them less likely to stick and I don't need to flour my rolling surface much, if at all. You also said about cooking the tacos over direct flame and I have found that to be a good technique when I want a quick puff and slight char. Thanks a lot. I look forward to seeing how you get on with the Masienda products. Mine will probably arrive in April and I will have a go with the Premier grinder then. @SilverSuzieQue look forward to seeing your blue tortillas in all their glory.

Excellent dinner.

Nice idea for the strainer with pellets. Will look into it.

Wow. By an extreme coincidence, I held this exact washing machine drain pan in my hands yesterday, at a local Lowes. It's flimsy. You'll return it. Our compost bins are no longer made, and falling apart after two generations of Harbor Freight straps. We rejected every purpose-built compost bin, and finally decided on seven industrial stackable containers: Global Industrial™ Straight Wall Container Solid - Stackable NRSO2422-14 - 24 x 22-1/2 x 14-1/2 I'll be cutting out most of the bottoms, and hoping for the best. They arrived yesterday, and needed lids. I checked out and rejected this drain pan, before reverting to $8 squares of cheap plywood, for now. Here is the original forum post on using a water heater drain pan to clean grates: Water Heater Pan (2010) That pan of course broke, being plastic. Here I switch to metal, beat up now but going strong. Water Heater Pan (2015) Yesterday's lid search did get me to review the category, and in another coincidence cement mixing tubs caught my eye. Though plastic they'd last a long time as Komodo grate cleaning pans, if one found a good size. It isn't rocket science, however, to plug the hole in a water heater drain pan. You're already in a hardware store, already in an inventive mood. Figure something out! Though of late I always use my pressure washer. The pan protects my yard. I'm asking myself why I don't take the plug back out. Pooled water only gets in the way. Here's my trusty water heater pan (Honey smells barbecue!): Here's the old compost heap: Here's a bottom bin for one of the new stacks. I'll cut out more of the bottom for other levels: It's hard to listen to "What If?" by the author of XKCD without calculating exactly how many holes I need to aerate the new stacks. And Laurie wouldn't have it any other way; this is her turf. What If?

I love everything about this post. Thank you buddy. I bought two different sizes, one of them being the 1.6L as I use 3x3 chunks from Fruita Wood quite often. 😊👍

Been digging mine so much I ordered a 2nd 475 ml. Just in case I need to add more smoke later in a cook or if I have two Kamado’s going at once. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ha, yes tyrus. One of my friends also packed his own knife. [emoji23] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pork tenderloin marinated in soy sauce, honey, brown sugar, salt, garlic powder, ginger and siracha cooked indirect at 325 then seared in the cast iron pan to finish accompanied with a stir fry “salad” of carrots, zucchini, sweet onion, red/yellow/orange bell pepper, garlic, fresh ginger, enoki mushrooms & Serrano pepper w/momofoku savory seasoning cilantro & fresh squeezed lime juice white rice

Been too long since I did a paella. Time to change that.

I would say a tight seal would be more appropriate. The top lid fits into the base by approx 1/4" and is a good seal. The clamp holds the lid tightly against the base lip, there is no wiggle between the inserted lid and the base wall. All in all I find the seal to be good and judging by the length of time this little unit puts out smoke I would have to say the seal is workable. Forrest mentioned that his pot ran and produced good smoke for a long time and I would have to concur with his assessment. The smoke was slow and steady and there were no off flavors associated with the meat except it penetrated deeply, but that could have been for several reasons. The size is just right and the $16 price a no brainer. Unfortunately the pot was buried so any leakage or observation wasn't seen. In the beginning the quality of smoke was poor however it cleared and produced good smoke thereafter. Lastly I would say to you, go for it, attach the screw and wing nut and see what you get.......don't leave a good thought collecting dust on the bench. What's the worst that could happen, safety goggles. That's all she wrote

Decided to try to emulate the master @tony b and I did a bone in pork chop with dizzy dust. Cooked indirect and finished over fire on main grate at 350 over coco char and apple wood made some really nice roasted carrots glazed with olive oil, honey & momofoku savory seasoning served alongside roasted haricot verts with garlic powder, salt, black pepper and bread crumbs served with J vineyards Pinot Noir. Wife loved it. Said it was super tasty, but “light”. Happy wife, happy Troy 😀

Some chicken lollipops. I buried my MSR smoker pot underneath the coals since I was cooking at a much higher temp to get my chicken skin crispy how I like it. The MSR pot produced awesome smoke underneath the coals where it is not as hot. Accompanied by the best rice I have ever made in the Kamado-San from Toiro. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Peri peri chicken tonight. I hadn’t made this recipe for a long time, but I’m really glad I got back onto it as it’s delicious! The brine ingredients and the peri peri sauce all go together so well! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looking forward to your new tortilla cook.

Well, I’m pretty impressed with my little 475 ml MSR smoker pot on my first cook. I’ve heard one of the down sides to the traditional Dutch Oven smoke pot is it doesn’t handle hotter temperatures well. One of the advantages of the small size of the MSR is you can bury it in the charcoal. The temperature at the bottom of the fire basket is much cooler then the top, sometimes several hundred degrees cooler. I cooked some chicken at 400 degrees. To start I placed the MSR at the bottom of the basket and then buried it in charcoal. I then lit some charcoal on top with my torch. I allowed the grill to come up to temp over the course of an hour. The bottom of the fire box basket takes awhile to heat up, I know this because I have run temp probes during cooks at the bottom of the basket for testing purposes. This works out perfect because the thicker white smoke that started coming from the smoker pot thinned out once I got the Kamado Joe up to 375 degrees. Placing the smoker pot underneath the coals requires a lot more heat and time to come up to temp, you just have to preheat the smoke pot from the beginning of firing the grill up. The smoke pot maintained a nice thin level of smoke through the entire cook at 400 degrees the pot was filled with 2 cups of B&B Competition blend pellets. I think this method might be the best way to adapt the smoke pot to hotter cooking temperatures (bury it at the bottom of the charcoal). As a bonus it shoots the smoke way down to the lower vent ensuring the smoke has to go up through the burning charcoal purifying (in theory it burns off volatile organic compounds in the smoke before it reaches your food). Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi @Forrest. I regularly use pellets in my smoke pot. I also use apple chips, made by putting apple tree branches through a chipper. As you will see from the photo below, I avoid the issue of blocking the holes by sprinkling the chips/pellets in to avoid the holes. It will be interesting to know how much wood others use. I only ever use the amount you see in the pot here and last time I thought I had over smoked the chicken that I cooked. I know that you have expressed concern about the smoke pot blocking the fire. I use it deliberately as a shield sometimes. Here it is, sitting a little high because I didn't bother fiddling with the coals underneath for this photo, in my 16TT. I put the grate over the top and it cooks just fine. The advantage of an enamel exterior is that it is easy to clean when you get around to it. Have fun experimenting!

I used the largest one - 1.6 liters - since that was the closest size to the 2 qt cast iron pot most folks seem to be using. I placed it on top of the charcoal just before loading the meat. I didn't put it on earlier since i didn't have a feel for how long the smoke would last and it started smoking almost immediately; the cook was about 1.25 hours and it was still smoking. Dome temp was around 300 degrees F. I want really thinking about using this on a high temp cook, but now I'm thinking.... I wonder if the sear grate is closed enough to the charcoal to get the nasty stuff to burn off? If you're doing a reverse sear, you could put the smoke pot on the seer grate and slow roast/smoke the meat, then take off the pot, open up the air flow to get the temp up, then sear without exposing the pot to the sear temps. My KK is a 23 inch ultimate, Terra blue tiles since they're the bestest.

Unfortunately, the challenge to those of us with older KKs is that you can't run Dennis' smoker and the Guru fan at the same time - it's a shared port. Of course, Dennis solved this problem with the later models with separate ports. He's willing to ship the parts to folks with older KKs to drill that separate smoker port, but I'm waaaay too nervous about doing something like that to my KK. Others have done it successfully - I just won't be one of them.

Not to forget when your grate has finished soaking a special tool to scrub the still stuck on mess away is needed. This I use for cleaning my cast iron when relatively good efficiency. Using a new scrubby green pad is also good but it fades and wears the longer it's used so I found this with the scrubby doing an excellent job. On Amazon under Cast iron cleaning as a chain mail