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After waiting like 14 weeks for the cabinets, then another month for the countertop, the transformation is completed! Not really a full outdoor kitchen but it has electrical and a fridge. I didn’t even want to get started with what plumbing would have added to the cost. I tell you, contractor prices are astronomical. I am done spending! Except meat and fuel [emoji2]. Very happy with the results though and looking forward to entertaining. Unfortunately it’s done just in time for the rainy winter here in the PNW. But that’s why I had an under deck rain system installed. Hoping to maximize the year round use of the KK. Also going to be a lot better with countertop space and cabinet storage. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Funny you noticed that. We live on a very steep slope here close to Puget Sound. (which made unloading the KK very scary!). The short fence was actually a concern to me when they brought up the ground just a bit to level the area some. I thought might look odd to have a bit of a short fence. But it is actually really nice. It's easy to see over the fence to the west where we get beautiful sunsets over the Olympic Mts and Puget Sound but with the neighbors being so much lower, both parties still get privacy from it. The deck above enhances that view even more. That is all new as well.

homemade cured salmon and bagels. i would have smoked it on the kk with the cold smoker, but life got in the way and there's a typhoon outside so i couldn't do it. still tastes wonderful. if you want to cure/smoke your own salmon, there is almost no $ saved because a half salmon is just as expensive as one already smoked.. homemade bagels of course..

So...here is the result of my latest chilli experiment. We visited my cousin in NYC earlier in the year. He introduced me to a beautiful chilli oil called Akabanga from Rwanda. I fell in love instantly. It comes in a 20ml bottle with a dropper and you apply 4-5 drops to your food. No more. It's hot but not too hot. Delicious. Given I was growing a lot of chillis myself I figured I really ought to figure out how to make it. The only clue that I could find to how it was made was on this website: https://www.afrolink.co.uk/product-page/akabanga-chilli-oil-product-of-rwanda. It says The recipe consists of 80 percent yellow chilli pepper (scotch bonnet) extract and 20 percent olive oil. Hmm, how do you get an extract of chilli peppers? I found this site that explained how to extract pure capsaicin from chillis: https://italianchilli.com/en/content/22-how-to-extract-pure-capsaicin-from-chillies Yes, I know that capsaicin is murderously potent and has to be treated with respect but I could not resist the challenge. Started with some 95 proof alcohol that we bought in Italy in order to make limoncello. (Drop all your preconceptions, home made limoncello using Amalfi lemons is a revelation.) Per the recipe, I whizzed a load of chillies, mixed them in with the alcohol and let stand for three days. I then strained through a 250 micron and then 50 micron bag. They said to wait for the alcohol to evaporate. I soon realised that was going to take too long. I consulted some websites and found one that explained how to evaporate alcohol from tinctures of cannabis. Simple solution. I put the bowl in my water bath and heated the water up to 81C, just above the boiling temperature for alcohol. Here it is, starting to coagulate as the temperature rose. I now have this sticky residue. It is hard to believe that this is the fearsome capsaicin. It smells lovely and sweet, not hot at all. That said, I stuck a toothpick in and tasted the liquid off the end of the toothpick. It was very hot. Not to be messed with. I am planning to dissolve this extract in oil (1:15 is the only measure I have been able to find online so far) and then dispense it from little 15 ml bottles with a pipette. To build the flavour profile I'll use extra virgin olive oil flavoured by slow cooking onions, garlic and peppers in it this morning. All of that said, there is no way that a factory in a village in Rwanda went to these lengths to make chilli oil! This lady from Cameroon has a much more down to earth method which I will try with my next harvest of chillis.

Glad to see all this hot sauce fermenting! To be clear, I never claimed that Kahm yeast is dangerous. No one should be afraid of Kahm yeast, nor should they discard a batch where it appears. I claimed that I can taste the difference, and I prefer ferments where there is no visible Kahm yeast. This could be a coincidence: No Kahm yeast could be a side effect of the technique that lead to my best ferments, not a determining cause. Still, I've tossed too many ferments of cabbage and such, recognizing I can do better buying at the farmers market, to shake this association.

Gorgeous, and with that kitchen you will be able to do year round cooking on your KK.

Job well done, you and your guests should feel very comfortable in that setting. Speaking of settings, I had to look twice noticing the fence line and your neighbors roof line, the topograhy adds to your privacy and is easy on the eye's when looking at a distance. Having a roof over your head is always a plus, enjoy your work.

While I obviously have carboy airlocks in my brewing room, I use these membranes for the Mason jars in making my pepper mash. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H7GI7V8/ You can see the pink tip of it in the picture that I posted. It's funny, but they look just like nipples - LOL. I sanitize everything that will come into contact with the mash with StarSan, which I use all the time in my brewing. It's a no-rinse sanitizer that kills just about anything with a couple of minutes of contact. I agree that the white stuff is NOT mold, but Kahm yeast. I should be more precise so as to not scare folks off from trying this. Plus, you mix the mash with a lot of vinegar to make the hot sauce, which drives the pH down to where no other preservatives are needed. I've never had a bottle of my hot sauce "go bad." Your best judge of whether it has turned on you, is your nose. It's very sensitive to the off smells when something has gone bad. Evolution got us here.

Did a pork belly last week, cured it then smoked on the KK Sunday and sliced it Mon. Today was the taste test. The morning of the smoke was perfect. I have 20 of these piles, 7 strips per pile. Taste test. Double espresso coming up.

I cut the belly into two pieces to make it more manageable for me. I have 20 of these stacks of 7 slices per stack. Yummy.

I just looked back at the photo of my chilli haul back in October 2018. Ha! I now have a polytunnel and grow my chillis in the ground. I harvested about half of the peppers last week and this is what I got: I've been having fun processing that lot. Made a few jars of peri peri sauce with the peri peri peppers. My next batch of wings is going to be divine. I smoked the peachy chillis in the KK using my smoke pot. Sorry, no on KK pix but here they are after the event. They are now in a mason jar with vinegar over them in the fridge, ready to be added to all sorts of nice dishes. I also mixed an large number of the red chillis - some of them are ripened Padrons, others Devils Rib and the rest are mushroom pepper - in with a pile of tomatoes, onions and garlic and smoked them in the KK for six hours. Beginning. End, at about midnight Blended and ready to go into jars. It is pretty hot. Will go in jars in the freezer. To be brought out to go on patatas bravas alongside some cooling mayonnaise. That said, I do have quite a lot so I need to think of some other use for this potent sauce!