Leaderboard

I blame @Basher The Husband and I made good on my promise to go and visit @RokDoklast weekend. We got the full RD and Mrs RD experience in the space of 36 hours: 1. One full evening of cider tasting - loved them all. Just my style, dry. 2. Wood fired oven pizza - yum! RD kept them coming and we ended on a sweet pizza with Nuttella. 3. Got drawn down a rabbithole - if The Husband hadn't restrained me, a really expensive apple mill and hydraulic press combo would be heading our way about now. I still have the links.... 4. Watched RD drumming at a gig - super fun. We got to be roadies and groupies all in one arvo. 5. More cider, wild beer and stout - The Husband declared RD's special black stout stupendous. His elderflower wine was also delicious. 6. Cooked on RD's KK - yay! Fun fun fun. We had marbled port, followed by chicken schawarma and we were just plating up the perfectly cooked steaks when... 7. RD and Mrs RD were called away for medical emergency - the neighbouring pub needed help with someone who had collapsed. Ambulance service was a shambles. I put the food straight back into the KK and dialled temp right back. We finally ate the steaks about two hours late. Tasty nonetheless and good to hear that the patient is now back home. 8. Came away with a new baking stone for my 32 - RD received an extra baking stone that was marked as a "second". He kindly gave it to me because I didn't order one of my own and need one for my big bread cooks. Hurrah. We had a blast. It was lovely to meet RD and Mrs RD. I read back over the rest of this post and laughed again about their trials and tribulations with choosing a sofa. I can confirm that they still have not chosen a new one. I did not test the existing sofa for comfort but I am guessing must be too comfortable to force them to make the change. It was hilarious being introduced to friends as "someone I met on the internet" and we laughed a lot when the RDs told us that the oldest RokDokette was horrified that they were entertaining us. She thought we would be scammers, looking to empty her parents' house out. Tee hee. If you get the chance to visit a KKer you think you might like, my advice is: don't hesitate, do it!

If the 32" behaves similarly to my 23", your top vent was too open for the target temp that you were shooting for. On mine, 250F is about 1/8 turn off the seat. The bottom vents don't really control temperature, as long as you're not starving the fire of enough air to keep burning. Agree with @Syzygies - The double drip pan from Dennis would be the way to go if you want to keep the drippings. As long as your guest were enjoying the meat, you did a proper job! We've all had to learn from someone who went before us. That's one of the best things about this Forum - members willingness to share what they know and their "failures" as well.

I've had the good fortune to meet a couple of folks from here in person, but haven't gotten to cook with anyone yet. It would be fun, I have no doubts! @Jon B. and I have been conspiring for years for him to come over to cook with me when he visits his sister here in town. Maybe one day?

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.

Meet my new grill/smoker. A smoker this bad ass needs a good name. Since I’m the #FreedivingBbqGuy I figured Big Blue would be a great name! It’s big, it’s blue, and big blue is a famous freediving movie that inspired many of my students to become freedivers. All hail BIG BLUE 😳🔥💨🍻

Cooked a brisket from a local farm on Saturday, cook went pretty well as I am learning my vent settings and configurations. I started with a full basket of Fogo black bag, and started it in one spot. With my KJ, I leave the lid open for about 10 minutes to make sure I have a good fire going, then close the lid and close down the vents. I did the same thing on the KK, and couldn't believe how quickly the charcoal caught and the fire I had going. I closed and sealed the lid, shut the cap down all the way and then opened it up about 3/4 turn. I opened the bottom left vent about 90 degrees and set the right vent on the pencil sized hole. About 5 minutes later the dome was reading 400, I knew the fire needed to be choked down more. I closed the left bottom vent completely and set the right to the pencil-sized hole. About 30 minutes later I was at 250, so I added some pecan chunks to the fire, when I could smell the pecan, I put the brisket on and the temp was at 265. After 3 hours, I went to check (pic below) and the temp was about 265, a little higher than I wanted but nothing to be concerned about. Opening the lid, my sunglasses fogged up from the moisture, never had that happen before, and I could see condensation on the gasket. The aroma was incredible, I thought I had smelled "good smoke" before when it was thin and blue, but the intensity of the pecan and beef from the kk was a totally different level. A few hours later I went to take a temp reading as I knew it was nearing the stall, and the grill temp was up to 300. I wrapped the brisket, closed the cap down all the way and opened it up about 1/3 turn and set the lower vent to the smallest opening. Two hours later I went to probe and the temp was up to 330, again I wasn't worried as the brisket was wrapped, but I was surprised the temp had continued to increase. I could still smell the pecan, so I thought maybe another chunk had caught fire and thus the temp increase. When I removed the brisket, the grill temp was about 340, so I shut the cap, the lid and the bottom vent. I let the brisket rest about 90 minutes (people were getting hungry), and then sliced it. After smelling the meat all afternoon, people were grabbing slices as quickly as I could cut them. The flat, which I have always used for sandwiches or tacos, was really tasty, not dry at all, I actually put a couple pieces on my plate. The point was melt in your mouth heaven, my hopes of making burnt ends disappeared as quickly as the slices I was cutting. Thankfully I didn't cut it all and I do have some for leftovers. Overall, I was impressed with the way the KK performed, and I'm guessing the top cap is going to be my key to nailing my temperature. The other thing, I had put the lower rack in and put the drip tray on that. I then put a foil pan in the drip tray hoping to collect some of the rendered fat from the brisket. Everything in the pan was burnt, there was not even any juice remaining. What is a better way to set up the pan to collect juices and fat without burning? And thanks for all the posts so far, I doubt my brisket would have turned out as good as it did if I hadn't researched everyone else's cooks first!

Nice cook! [emoji482] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Additionally, the design of the firebox is such that ALL of the air passes over the coals, which is not the case in other kamados. So even if the kk wasn’t truly insulated, it simply needs less air volume to maintain a given temperature because all the air entering the grill is fueling the fire. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The high insulation and the way the air is driven through the charcoal basket leads to: 1. Predictable temps - this is key. I have cooked everything from low n slow, rotisserie chicken, a whole pig, little tofu skewers to souffle in the KK and I can rely on the temperatures holding to within +/-10C of target temp for the whole of the cook (if I don't fiddle unnecessarily with the vents ). 2. Versatility - if you have the 32 you have a great multi-tool. All the grates that come as standard give you a massive range of things that you can cook at different levels and direct or indirect. 3. Ease of lighting/saving fuel - I cook so much more often on my KKs because I can get them up and running fast and because, when I shut off the vents, the charcoal is snuffed out quickly and available for future use. More cooking = more practice = better food. 4. Lots of fun - I have never owned a BGE and I imagine you can have lots of fun cooking on one of those too. I am just glad that I did not waste time and money on the intermediate step of owning a BGE. Have fun!

What drip pan? KK sells a double bottom drip pan, to lessen this effect. While one never needs to use a "water pan", a brisket might survive having some water in the drip pan, which might last enough of the cook. This is an experimental question. I've found that enough salt to properly brine or dry rub my meats makes the drippings too salty to use. Forced to choose, I like the effect of the salt on the meat, and I give up on the drippings.

Sounds great! How much did your brisket weigh? Also curious, how many hours were you cooking?

@tony b, Is "leaf lard" some sort of brewer's secret additive?

@jonj - take that Caesar salad to the next level - grill the romaine lettuce. Cut the head in half lengthwise, brush on some EVOO and place cut side down to grill until a light char develops. You will like the results!

Yes, I remember them well. Miss them a lot! I learned a great deal from their posts back in the day!

Tonight- brioche burgers with brisket burnt ends, BBQ sauce, home made dill pickle, bit of salad. Heaven.

I've had a couple of homebrews made with spruce tips instead of hops. Very nice change of pace. This was a wort rally with the brewery, so the base beer was one of their recipes that I had kettle soured and made into a German Gose. I did the one-off mango version, as well. The mango took 1st place and the standard Gose took 3rd place in Best in Show. So, I was pretty proud of that.