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Hurrah! I've got my foccacia mojo back. I realised that while I use bread flour in the UK, the flour available in Italian supermarkets is "flour for bread". I am guessing the latter has less gluten and so when I went for a long 12 hour rise my dough just collapsed into a wet puddle. Until I find other, better flour I have restricted the initial proof to one hour and got good results on my 16 KK. Cooking tips - you need a hot dome and a pizza stone to get the desirable crunch on the base and light crisp on the top. I let the KK dome heat soak for an hour with nothing in the KK and then I added in the grate and stepping stone shield. A pizza stone would have been better and I will get one for next time. In the meantime, we all enjoyed this with our chicken dinner last night. IMG_4929.MOV

I usually cook paella inside, but when I’ve got some time it is so much nicer on the KK. It was a beautiful autumn evening here, and kids were sorted- so it was the perfect time to cook tonight’s paella on the KK with some post oak for smoke. Originally paella was cooked on a pan over fire, so it feels right. Simple one tonight with chorizo, chicken, Roma tomatoes and green beans/ flavoured with saffron, paprika, stock and rosemary from our garden. Spicy pimenton in the adult one. I also love cooking the whole thing outside as you set up your ‘mise en place’ and then just relax. I’m smokey as all hell though, so need a shower. Nevertheless it was so so good- worth the extra effort.

Aha! Finally found the MSR poster. It was @Forrest. Linked here to keep all pot smokers in synch.

Great looking paella @remi! I love paella but don't think I dare try and make some for our Italian friends. They love food but the Venetians think that Tuscan food is foreign let alone trying to impose an import from Spain!

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone! Nice day here, I should be grilling something, but I've thawed out some al pastor that I stashed in the freezer from the last time I made it. So, margaritas and al pastor tacos on the deck for dinner tonight! 🥟 🍹

We raise our own beef, pork & chicken, so some sort of meat is almost always on the menu. We also live in the middle of nowhere and love pizza, so I'm usually making that once a week, along with baking all sorts of breads. With that has come an accumulation of assorted outdoor cooking appliances that includes two gas grills, two vertical smokers, an offset smoker, a pig roaster, a BBQ pit, and a cold smoke shack. While sitting out back enjoying my morning coffee the other day, I was suddenly reminded of an old Frank Lloyd Wright quote that sticks in my head; that "many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions", and while far from being wealthy, let's just say that I had an epiphany at that moment, as a comfortably retired janitor. I had already primed wife number last that we might be able to include some sort of pizza oven in a planned addition and backyard makeover this year, but the outdoor kitchen part of the project was growing out of control. Her sister had purchased one of those egg things, that I immediately dismissed as ridiculously small and impractical, but she enjoys cooking with it, so I sensed a bit of sibling rivalry a brewin'. Our assorted cooking gear was mostly older stuff that was not particularly efficient, nor especially fun to cook with, so I was already secretly planning on replacing a smoker or three, as well as a roaster, but here's the thing. A value line offset smoker for my brisket, by the time I mod it out and upgrade some particulars, was gonna run close to a grand, and if I wanted something much larger or more efficient, I was very quickly going to be looking at spending several thousand dollars for something that was still gonna run me ragged when I smoke. The small pig roaster is an older eye sore, but it works, and here again, any sort of acceptable replacement is more good money after bad in terms of still taking up space for a fairly singular use appliance. The big ass gas grill has pretty much always been nothing special beyond being a convenient way to cook outside of the kitchen, 'cuz I mean, what's so special about gas cooked meal, the grill marks? And then there's the pizza oven. Building it is within my skill set, but the older I get, the more stingy I've been getting with my time. The alternative of course is to just buy one, but here again, anything that'll do a decent job on a 16" pie is going to start at another thousand dollars and up, so where does this leave me? "Look honey, that new Old Country offset smoker is gonna be two grand with crating and shipping from Texas" (we're in Delaware) "And a decent pizza oven is gonna be another $1,000, for something that's gonna look kinda cheap and just sits on a counter". "Carl's Hot Box pig roaster is another $1,500 by the time we add all of the doodads and have it shipped," (a friend makes and sells them) "And a decent sized ceramic Kamado Joe is three grand, plus almost another $1,000 for a rotisserie, a pizza cooking attachment, and assorted geegaws. All of that for grill space that can only hold one brisket or a single large pizza." "That's over $8,500 to basically do little more than we can do already, but wait!" "We (this is part of the psychological warfare, where I turn 'Me' into 'We') can buy this here Komodo Kamado Big Bad that can cook twice as much food with a whole lot less hassle, AND you get to pick from all of these amazing colors and finishes, AND it'll save us over a thousand dollars!". "Best of all, it's a whole lot nicer than that silly egg thing that your sister bought at Lowes. You know, the one that's exactly like a million others on patios all over the country..." "The garden club girls are gonna die!" "I can sell all of this other crap while we're at it." "How can we not buy this?!" Yeah, this is not a luxe item, this is just common sense (or at least that's how I'm trying to sell it). lol Not a want, but a need. lol Anywho, looking forward to ordering one up later this spring, but first I have to build a place to put it. :)

@tony b this stainless steel comes up clean very easily in the dishwasher and also with a short soak in soapy water. PBW is worth the soaking time and cost when it comes to getting grill grates nice and clean but I don't find that I need it for things like rotisserie forks.

For today's Desem bread I made a proofing cradle from wood. I'm at the limit where my dough will sploof out into flat bread. A classic proofing basket is already wider than the wood frames I've been using for years. My frames had no bottom, but now I want to finish proofing in the fridge. For flavor, and as a bonus so the loaf better holds its shape. So now I needed a bottom. There are gaps by the four corners (which is fine for a proofing basket) so that wood expansion doesn't crack the box. Wood responds to changes in humidity by expanding across the grain. The poster child here is a beginner woodworker who makes cutting boards for gifts, and mixes end and side grains. Their boards crack. If one studies drawer construction, the bottoms float to avoid this issue. I prefer a chunkier solid proofing cradle, for thermal mass. You'd think my design would be everywhere, but I've never seen it before. In the same spirit as my artistic tirade above, this box uses my favorite cheater joinery. One shouldn't glue end grain without further support. People who understand wood believe that a hand cut dovetail joint displays the pinnacle of craftsmanship, even though box joints are stronger. People who make box joints tend to use jigs, then they look like every commercial box you've ever seen. What I do is plan and dry assemble my joinery using cabinet screws, then glue using the screws for clamping. Once the glue dries, I remove (and reuse) the cabinet screws, and replace them with Miller dowels. I then sand further and finish with Tried & True Original Wood Finish polymerized linseed oil and beeswax, which is food safe. My box is shown sunning in our yard, so the bread won't taste like linseed oil. This is dead simple joinery that I'd recommend to any casual woodworker. My friends who don't judge art by difficulty, or who are simply oblivious to measuring difficulty for wood joinery, love this style of construction.

Just noticed this new piece of gear, interesting but it won't replace a KK. Could be fun to play with though. https://www.fourneauoven.com/products/fourneau-wood-fired-grill-16-deluxe

Everyone is chasing something Mr Natural, it's an itch that comes around every once in a while and you have to act on it. I have the 23KK myself and if I were to do it again I would prefer the 32 because of the true two zone cooking as your leaning towards, it's the better choice for checking all the boxes. Actually I have two other Kamado's, a Weber Summit and a Goldens Cast Iron...both eliminate the two zone issue, have a trailered Lang offset, a Santa Maria and a Gateway drum. I like choices and tinkering around for a challenge. The KK is a quality piece, it's easy to maintain, set it and forget it, built like a tank and pleasing to the eyes. If you pull the trigger it'll be all you need and it will be there for years on end, however it's not going to do a whole hog so I'd hold on to that pig roaster. You know there's nothing wrong with having one of everything when it comes to BBQ, variety is the spice of life. Keep us posted, so many colors and choice of tiles....................

He does, just north of Napa Valley. They've just had crazy weather all year now. Torrential rains and lots of snow.

36°F and snowing here. Brought my theremeters in. Good looking cook!