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i woke up 4:30am to autolyse this dough. no effing way i'm opening a bakery to work 4:30am...😂

Found out last night that the father in law was coming round for dinner today. Ducked out at 8pm and bought a 2kg pork shoulder and a small cabbage. Home made rub, 8.5hrs at 250 with Apple wood chunks (bit hotter when wrapped to get it sorted), made some coleslaw. Dinner sorted, everyone happy (like always with the KK).

You can open the bakery, just pay someone else to actually do the early morning work lol

My favorite kind of problem solving is to figure out who has a similar but harder problem, and to appropriate their solution. For my most recent batch of masa, I recognized that my basic wet grinder is tuned for wet dosa and idli batter, so I ground masa that wet, drying it later in my convection oven's dehydrate cycle. It was wonderful being able to run the wet grinder unattended. However, the skins formed drying the masa never dissolved away while kneading, and I still ended up adding masa harina, in fact overcorrecting. The second night I mixed back in some water, for more tender tortillas. Huh! @tekobo and I keep debating by messages whether to buy Masienda's Molinito. I finally saw one at an artisanal Mexican restaurant in Oakland, CA. It isn't that big, though I worry about cleanup. The ladies in the kitchen were fascinated by my interest, marveling that I made masa for friends but didn't own a restaurant. Back at my table, there was unanimous agreement that my tortillas were better, clearly same Masienda corn. Two possible explanations: It could be that the original metate is indeed the best way to grind nixtamal, and one pass through even a state-of-the-art spinning mill is no match for careful use of a wet grinder? Or I now recognize, they make their masa too dry. One ends up with the tortilla equivalent to hippy bread: It screams artisanal for those who might otherwise miss it, but is far from delicate. I can see this choice being one of convenience in a busy Mexican restaurant kitchen, just like the pervasive choice to undercook tortillas by my tastes: They need to get product out. Just as North Carolina BBQ joints have managed to convince customers that ropey, overcooked pulled pork is the breed standard, taco joints have managed to condition their customers to accept undercooked tortillas. Easy to work with masa, same story? My most delicate tortillas from wetter masa are more challenging to transfer from the press to the griddle. So perhaps the Molinito is a suitable solution, and the differences are all in execution. I went down a rabbit hole after reading some vendor responses on my wet grinder: The basic model is less suitable for nut butters. They make a higher end model for chocolate refining. Chocolate refining is hard. Ding! Ding! Ding! Diamond Custom Machines has a division Melangers dedicated to chocolate refiners. They answer their phones, if you want to discuss any of this with them. They surmise that these machines would also excel at masa; they're tuned for more viscous mixtures. They import their home models from India, made by the wet grinder manufacturer Premier. They upgrade their top home model with their own stainless steel retrofit, swapping out plastic parts for better tension control and stirring. This model has a better motor drive system than the basic wet grinder, and can be left running all day, as chocolate can require. The basic geometry, stone wheels and container, is identical to the base model I own. Perhaps masa will still need tending. I do keep staring at the stirring system, wondering if I could improve it for masa, and perhaps they have. Certainly a better motor drive, stirring system, and tension control, could help. I took one for the team and ordered one. I'll report back. I'll either move the basic wet grinder to my New York kitchen, or rehome it to someone just starting out.

Dude, you seriously need to consider opening a bakery!

I don't think this really happened. Isn't that the saying around here, no pixs didn't happen.

You may want to listen to Tony, he knows what he is talking about 👍 Too much charcoal will not lead to waste or make it harder to maintain temps. The opposite is true, without enough charcoal you will battle temps and make this harder than it needs to be. And here are a few pics I took when building a fire for a low and slow, it was a 20 pound pork shoulder that took about 18 hours to cook. I never once had to touch the lump during this cook, hope it helps.

So my son is home after his 6 year commitment with the US Navy. He sees my new KK grills and notices that I like looking at the KK forum and sends me this link to the YouTube video. While I’m not someone that watches Family Guy I think this video is hilarious and very spot on funny for this forum. I hope you all think so too! Cheers, Paul