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Making my first ribs in the BB32 today, so far so good, going 4 hours naked and 1 hour wrapped at 275 degrees. They are all about 3.8 pounds per rack. This is how they looked prior to wrapping. Now the waiting for them to finish and then rest for a bit. I’m not going to sauce these ones, I don’t think they will need it. I’ll add a plated pic later 😁 and the finished product, I could have gone another 30 minutes but overall I am really happy with the results 😁

A few months ago I finally bought a ThermoWorks Signals / Billows setup. Needing to clear the freezer of a 19 pound package of pork butt (which was taking up a lot of space) and having house guests to help eat it, I decided to try an overnight cook using the controller / fan to check it out. After three days of thawing, I separated and trimmed the two bone-in butts. I marinaded one overnight with Wicker's Marinade, then rubbed with Wicker's dry rub. The other I rubbed with a 50-50 mix of KC Butt Spice and Bad Byron's Butt Rub, using duck fat as a binder. Butt Number Two (number one was very similar in size and fat content): KC Butt Spice/Bad Byron's Butt Rub over duck fat binder: Both were refrigerated until placed into the KK23, set at 225° and heat soaked for 1.5 hours. The double drip pan was used and smoke wood was a mix of cherry and apple wood chunks. The meat (33.5°F) was added to the KK at 8:00 pm (which was under a tarp as we were expected to have 2 - 4 inches of rain over to coming 24 hours). Adding 19 lbs of cold pork to pulled the smoker temperature down to about 140° and it took about 1.5 hours to get back to 225° with the Billows fan (I had choked it down for the KK using the accessory damper since the Billows cfm is ridiculously high for a KK). Billows fit into the KK Guru port using the Billows accessory snout: Billows damper setting I used to tame the cfm (via inspection mirror), which turned out about right: Since dinner was not to be until 23 hours later, I decided to not wrap the butts at the stall, but to instead see how the KK/Signals/Billows setup worked for a long cook (without any intervention on my part). Plus, I didn't want to get up at 0' Dark Thirty to wrap them. Butts at 45 minutes in: Left (green probe) is Wicker's Marinade; Right (yellow probe + toothpick) is KC/BB dry rub The Billows overshot the 225° setting in the initial push to return the KK to temperature by only 10°, then was within 5° of the set 225° temperature throughout the 19.5 hours of the cook. I was very impressed with the consistency. Here is the graph at 9:00 am, 13 hours into the cook (the slight dip in pit temp at 6:00 am was to check the results after the overnight smoke): Temperature readings at 13 hours: The butts continued to leisurely accrue internal temperature throughout the day, reaching high 190°s by around 2:00 pm, at which time I bumped the set temp up to 250° to get a bit more temperature differential to push the butts to 203°, which was to be my pull target. The Wicker's butt reached 204° at 3:10 pm (19 hours in the smoker) while the KC/BB butt reached 203° at 3:30 pm (19.5 hours). They were wrapped in foil and a towel, then placed in a cooler for a three hour rest until dinner. I didn't get any photos of the finished butts in the KK as it was pouring rain then and the activity was a bit frantic. Here are the results. Left is KC/Bad Byron Rub; Right is Wicker's Marinade & Rub: Partially chunked up / pre-pulled. Notice the internal color difference between the dry rub (left) and marinade (right - more intense and deeper into the meat) versions. Bark was about the same on both. These are not the entire butts; just the amount for dinner (19 lbs of pork butt is A LOT of pork butt...). Plated at 7:00 pm, 23 hours after the meat was placed into the KK: In summary, I found the KK/Signals/Billows combination to be very satisfactory. It was my first use of a controller & fan combination and while I probably won't use it often, I will likely use it for future brisket and pork butt overnight cooks. I will probably do the normal butcher paper wrap to cut down the time in the future as well (I typically do so but wanted to experiment with the new gear). There was no lack of moisture in the pork without the butcher paper crutch. I was impressed with the low temperature variation of the Signals / Billows combination after the system stabilized. With the large cfm of the Billows, I was concerned it might repeatedly overshoot the set temperature but this was not the case. Other than the first return to temperature after the cold meat was added to the KK, the temperature variation was 5° or less. I set the Billows diffuser to almost closed, and fortunately it seemed to be about right. The KK was miserly with the use of its charcoal (FOGO Super Premium - large chunks). I started with a full basket and 1.5 hour heat soak, then a 19.5 hour cook at 225°, followed by a run up to 350° for 2.5 hours waiting to grill the corn and mushroom. At the end, I still have over one-half basket of charcoal left. As I have mentioned before, I am not a huge fan of pulled pork but this certainly was a moist and tasty result. Between the marinade and dry rub versions, I preferred the marinade version. As for the guests, the preference was evenly split between the two butts among the carnivores (the vegetarian had no opinion about the pork, but pronounced the EVO/Balsamic grilled portobello to be superior).

Put some ribs on today for my first cook. The ones in the middle Texas style, the ones on the left and right Georgia style.

Happy Birthday !!!!!!!

Ribs turned out well Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

@Basher you have a special friendship indeed there, mate! Cherish it for as long as you both are breathing!

Hi, Happy to say that I am a proud owner of a used KK23 which I acquired late last year. However, the grill needed some serious TLC and with me being in college, repairs and cooking were to be delayed. Having finished my degree, I spent the spring getting the KK running again and started doing small test cooks using what I think is called the upper grate (actually sitting down in the firebox). Being used, the KK was missing a couple of important items, namely the main and lower sear grates. I thought about purchasing the grates, but I have another grill I can cook normal things on like burgers and steaks. So, I decided to setup the KK for rotisserie cooking. I purchased the roto kit from Dennis and had my first real cook on Saturday. I have turned three chickens since. Each one better than the last. At least my fan club thinks so 🙂. Thanks, DannyG

Jonj, you just made me want to do a pork butt with the Billows. Dinner looks lovely as does the pulled pork.

@jonj, that is a LOT of pork. Glad the cook went well and thank you for the blow by blow account of how the kit performed. As always, I am tempted by the prospect of shiny new things but I know I am unlikely to really need this as I do not do long low and slows very often. I will bow deeply in gratitude for this expose and step smartly away from the “add to cart” button.

I have a Signals and have been enjoying it a lot. I think they’ve managed to get the earlier software bugs worked out. My daughter and son in law law gave me a Billows for Father’s Day. I’m looking forward to trying it. Thanks for the play by play Jon. Helps to know what to expect. Oh, and your cook looks wonderful.

High-quality insulation reduces airflow which creates better barbecue. Charcoal always burns at the maximum volume for the allowed airflow, if you can burn less fuel to maintain your cooking temperature, you will have less airflow, less evaporation, and Bingo.. more retained moisture in your meat. And that's better barbecue. And commonsense would dictate that less airflow gives the vapor that's released from the charcoal more retention time therefore more opportunity to condense on your food. Condensation of course is how the vapor is transferred to the food. So less airflow not only gives you more retained moisture but more smoke flavor. And that's better barbecue.

Me too, a lot of build up for Meh… I think it’s interesting that they didn’t retire the classic and replace it with the MK4, but my guess is there is not enough differentiation between the new model and the MK4. Regards

Thermapen One. I’m a little underwhelmed at that price point. You? I’ve also accumulated many of their products over the years: a Mk4 and a classic Thermapen, ThermoPop, Smoke Remote, ChefAlarm, some silicone trivets, spatulas, lots of different size probes, and a bunch of the new probe spools. I just added a lovely purple Mini-Dash during the sale at the beginning of the week. Guess I just like getting that little bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans, 🤪.

Here is some pictures of my 21” Supreme setup. As you can see the 21 is no joke, you can cook a lot of food on this KK. Hopefully this gives you a better idea of it’s size/capacity. I just threw on: -Double Bottom Drip Pan lowest grate -10lbs of cubed pork belly on main grate -2 whole spare ribs trimmed on top grate Running smoke with the small 475 ml MSR smoke Pot, but as you can see you can fit a pretty good amount of wood sufficient for most cooks in this little guy. With this smoke pot you never run the risk of it snuffing out the fire because of its small size. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I sort of guessed that. After I had worked out that PNG was not a type of graphics file but a place called Papua New Guinea. Great to have friends like that. May you both live a long, adventure filled life.

Thank you all for the well wishes. Tekobo I was born in PNG and my dad worked for johnnies dad. Johnny has a several years on me and he use to look after me as a baby. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Where do I start with this post? Today I turned 50, raised the bat, and saluted the many friends I’ve made along the way. Yesterday, I received this gift from friends. And yesterday, the same friend who paid for my KK found this. A gift from the gods. We quickly made plans to call some mates together to celebrate this combination and share in the maiden Parilla voyage. And ate this. This is definitely the tastiest road kill I have ever eaten. Maybe because I don’t often eat road kill, nor do my friends- apart from some friends being tricked into eating road killed guinea fowls when we were kids while their parents ate prime steak. What can I say other than times were tough back then. Times may not be so tough now and I am certain there are some readers thinking ROAD KILL, that’s outrageous. So it must be said, that all consumers were made aware of what they were consuming and where it came from with full disclosure of providence. [emoji848] and, all agreed that the numerous risks were checked and passed scrutiny. We couldn’t waste the opportunity provided before our eyes. We grazed from 1pm until 10pm and kept tossing new fuel on the fire in between tasting plates with different rubs and spices. This was a wonderful occasion to be remembered for many reasons and certainly an experience I will cherish. This mate changed my nappies in PNG, purchased my KK and provided this delicious food on my 50th. That’s a lot of water under this bridge and an unbreakable friendship along the way. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pork belly burnt ends, St. Louis spare ribs, rib tips, Donabe cooked rice, steamed artichokes, and of course a nice Helles for the hot day. [emoji482] KK fans Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk