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Oh yes! Olive wood smoke works well with chicken!

Hello all KKrs. It has been a while since I've posted but not for lack of cooking. Did my first beef cheeks this weekend for the purposes of a good old barbacoa taco. Smoked at 260ish for 4 hours with only an S&P rub, leaning heavily on the fresh ground pepper. I made an adobo with guajillo and ancho chilis, onion, garlic, fresh graded cinnamon, dried mexican oregano, salt, and white vinegar, and water. Since I couldn't find wagyu beef cheek and took whatever was available at the store (I assume choice), I added about 1/2 a cup of wagyu tallow to the dutch oven as it started heating alongside the cheeks the last 30 minutes of the cheek smoke. Put the cheeks in the adobo in the KK after 4 hours. I realized 3 hours into the adobo braise I'd forgot to put the lid on the dutch oven so the sauce had cooked down a lot. I added a couple of cups of water, put the lid on, then continued the braise in the KK for another 1.5 hours, 4.5 total. Then shred the meat, scoop off some of the extra fat from the adobo, return meat to broth. Before serving I'd put the meat in a bowl and mash with a spoon to get the liquid to the surface, returning the liquid to the pot and leavingn the meat flatted in the bowl. Finished off with a fresh roasted tomatillo salsa that was fiery from the serano. Canned charro beans from HEB (they're fantastic - just add some S&P while heating). Smokey, rich with fat, spicy (not hot) from the adobo sauce - it is perfection on a corn tortilla Lunch is going to kick-ass for the next few days!

ok, but i will help as long as i am on the top of the stairs and it will take more than beer and pizza for me to show up...😅 400kg stair climber 👇👇 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcPJ43p0G4g

Yeah, i looked at the cooker on the Amazon UK site after replying and couldn't figure out how the lid locked for pressure cooking, plus the listed max temperature was lower than recommended for pressure canning. I searched for that brand on the Amazon USA site and couldn't find it. The beans I canned in the instant pot were just dried beans and water - i didn't add any seasoning or oil at all and waited until i unsealed and heated up to eat before seasoning. They were really clear right after canning but clouded up as they cooled. Seeing the pics, I remember that there were 3 jars of pinto beans and one jar of navy (white) beans.

I found the video below which includes a couple of UK homesteaders' helpful description of the traditional approach to canning which does not address concerns about botulism. They also have a recommendation for a canner to import from the US. They do say that items with significant amounts of oil will create problems in the pressure canner, including interfering with the seal. So it is back to the drawing board for my recipe for beans in oil but this exploration has led me to understand that shop bought shelf stable veggies in oil generally also include some vinegar to lower the PH and reduce/remove risk of botulism. If I never make or sell a thing I will have learned a lot from the process of trying!

May I ask, what is the rack? I want one!

Great lookin chicken with perfect color but almost out done by such clean grates you have. And you say,,,better to cook with my dear.

thanks for the advice guys; I'll suggest the mechanical stair climber or straps and leave it to the guys doing the lifting here. I will get some photos or video and report here how it was done. OH&S doesn't really exist here for the movers so I am sure however they do it will be similar to how we would do it ourselves with the wives shaking their heads at us

Looks good @David Chang. Certainly much lighter than my Famag so no need to give it permanent space on a counter as I have had to.

@tekobo i just ordered the wilfa probaker on the way from the uk. people tell me it does not produce too much heat and can handle high hydration and pannetone so it's good enough. i was considering sunmix 6 but the model i wanted was 3x the price of wilfa and i have to import it or wait a looong time.

So... the good news is that this piece of kit works. It has significant capacity and you can stack the bottles two high if you wish. I had just one layer for this experiment. The less good news is that it is not a pressure canner and will therefore only heat water to 100C, not hot enough to kill the bacteria that cause botulism. So, it is great for acidic foods but not for my test case of broad beans in oil. The other factor I have to consider is the impact on taste and texture. The jar on the left in the picture below was not processed in the canner while the one on the right was. Will try a taste test soon. The weird thing is that pressure canning does not appear to be a "thing" here in the UK or the rest of Europe and so the kit is not readily available. Maybe there is a different approach to reducing the risk of botulism. More research required. Like you @jeffshoaf, I was looking forward to making some tomato passata and processing the jars in this piece of kit. I am not so sure now that that will make them shelf stable. That said, they will be fine in the fridge for months once processed in this way.

I obviously forgot to follow up on this thread! I did get the instant pot that i mentioned above. It does work - I successfully canned homemade beef stock and pinto beans in pint jars and retort canned onions and peaches in retort bags. All sealed well and was stored in my kitchen cabinets; all of the stuff that i canned in jars was consumed while i had limited mobility after foot surgery. I've tried one of the bags of onions; they were vidalia (or something similar) sweet onions and were caramelized more than what i usually am for when cooking but I guess that's to be expected. They were successfully preserved. I honestly forgot about the peaches and the remaining onions until @tekobo revived this thread... I need to try some of the peaches for ice cream in the Creami! If y'all recall, one of my goals for canning was growing and canning tomatoes since I used a lot of store-bought canned tomatoes for sauces, soups, pizza, etc. I stumbled on a raised garden bed on clearance last fall and intended to get at least tomatoes and peppers started in the spring but that all fell thru - my sister totaled her car and borrowed my pickup truck until she got the insurance settlement and replaced her car, and then my mother moved into an independent living residence and that ate up a lot of time. So no readily available produce to try. And i haven't tried to buy enough to try canning due to getting her house ready to sell. Anyway, the instant pot model that reaches canning pressures does work and it's easy to use, but the size is a big limitation - it'll comfortably fit 4 pint jars at a time or six 8 oz retort bags (maybe more retort bags if you arrange them carefully). Those are pretty small batches even with the faster pressurization this model instant pot features, so fine for occasional use with small batches but really not suitable for much volume. It is a really nice pressure cooker though, and has relegated my OG instant pot to backup and pot luck duty. I'll be checking on availability in the USA for the canner @tekobo linked and wait on her review!

i have not used one. i have seen them in restaurants that use them with gas. they use gas because for wok cooking, charcoal is a slow performer. i've tried wok cooking with charcoal on a vortex. i had to add charcoal every 10 min and it burned the stainless steel coating off my grate. the cooking time was much slower compared to using a gas stove. boiling water was very slow. for grilling food, it's ok.

Yesterday, I attended the Advanced Sourdough Workshop with Tara Jensen (author of Flour Power). It was very informative and fun, and with only 8 “students,” there was plenty of time to talk turkey (red) and various techniques. Came home with a loaf of grits bread which I baked immediately since it proofed on the drive home. The grits are Anson Mill coarse grits, which you can see are VERY coarse. Her website is https://www.tara-jensen.com and she offers virtual as well as in-person workshops.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between cats and dogs. My cats sit and watch me scrub all that bbq goodness off my grates and then demand their own food. Latest battle is Sindbad deciding that he no longer likes pheasant and will only eat home minced raw chicken thighs. When I die I want to come back as a cat!

No olive wood here but I have used grape vine too. I lay some in the middle of the lump and it catches gradually throughout a long cook. I typically add it for long cooks like pork butts along with peach wood. If you add a lot it smells really nice in the yard , I think it smells like a really really light version of apple😁

I think you are right about the olive wood that we chipped @Tyrus. I will keep shaking the bucket and it should be dry quite quickly. As you can see from the picture above, the wood that we harvested is a relatively small haul. Just one cook's worth I reckon. I was going to throw away the leafy twigs on the right but I am wondering if they would do well on the fire once dried. I love the idea of food flavoured with a wonderful, gentle Mediterranean smell.

I know it is sacrilege but I can't get on with shrimp and grits even though my Texan friend swears they are delicious. Grits bread may well be the way to go with my grits supply.