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Hey all! Just been catching up on the thread, there’s some insanely good cooks been happening! There isn’t a single thing that I don’t want to try Cooked a couple of pizzas tonight, it was a really quick dough, so results as expected, but they didn’t look too bad. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got him loaded up yesterday with: Choice boneless ribeye - 19.7 lbs for 30 days Sirloin tip - 12.24 lbs for 21 days The sirloin tip was really wide on one end so i had to cut it into two chunks; I'll probably cut one chunk up into steaks and cook the other as a roast. I also discovered that it's very stressful trying to truss up meat when there's a nosy almost 9 month old kitten in the room - gotta be very careful with the twine!

Happy SB hangover all. A few cooks from the past couple of weeks. Tri-Tip: Excellent as always. This is my new favorite protein to grill. We sliced super thin, toasted some "French" brioche hamburger buns that were spread with Duke's mayo (instead of butter for toasting on the griddle), drizzle some garlic & wine butter, sliced onions and pickles, then a drizzle of BBQ sauce - sandwich heaven. The BBQ sauce was "Lillie's Carolina BBQ sauce". I'm ignorant as to its authenticity but my wife and I both like it. Not too sweet, lots of twang. Ribeye: Prime grade from Costco. My wife bought me 6 Snake River Farms prime Wagyu for Christmas. I wanted to cook some other thick prime before diving into those to confirm I know what in the Hades I'm doing. It was awesome. I'll probably try one of the SRF's next. Greenbeans: Needed to clean out pantry so I made up a recipe - sautéed some diced white onion in oil, put 1 TBSP of tomato paste in pan and fry for a bit, add 1 can drained French cut green beans, 1/3 can of cream of mushroom/chicken combo, and 1/3 cup of Cacique Mexican sour cream. Sprinkle your favorite rub or just use S&P. Bring to a simmer then let it cook for a while until it thickens. It's low brow but really good. Sautéed flame bells and onions - standard sauté in a skillet w/oil. I like to put a shake of Maggi seasoning a few minutes before done. This adds a great umami pop to the veggies. Superbowl - leftover Fogo super premium, Cocochar, and post oak. Pork belly burnt ends - great as always. I used Byron's Butt Rub. For the final 45 minutes I tossed in the aforementioned Lillie's with some more Byron's. Smoked wings - I used Ploughboys Yardbird seasoning. Once done I tossed in a sauce that was a mixture of Frank's and some of the garlic/wine butter. Smoked queso - 8oz white American from the deli (ask for a 1" slice - much easier to cube or shred than if they give thin slices), 4 oz cream cheese, handful of medium Tillamook cheddar, 2/3 can of cream of chicken/mushrom (2/3 because that was my leftover from the green beans seen next to the ribeye), 505 Southwestern roasted green chili, 1/2 can of diced tomatoes, 1/2 pack of Cacique pork chorizo, BBQ Bros Carolina rub sprinkled on top. Garlic butter recipe - I don't think I've posted this in the forums. Right this down. Email yourself. Etch it in stone. I have it tattooed on my belly. This is a game change. If you are familiar with Pappacitos or Uncle Julios, this is the butter they server with fajitas. We order it as an appetizer and dip flour tortillas in it. Honestly I can sit at the bar, drink margaritas, and eat this with tortillas as my meal. ****I halve the #'s below, i.e., 8oz instead of 1lb. Final step of nuking until it froths is critical**** 1lb butter 1lb margarine 1 big heaping tablespoon granule chicken bouillon (I use the paste that comes in a jar and you refrigerate after opening). ***since I cut everything you see in half I just use a true tablespoon, not heaping, but this + the wine are the secrets**** 2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic (fresh is better but can use fresh chopped in jars) 1 cup white wine (Chardonnay is best) Get butter and margarine room temp. Mix all but the wine together(can use an electric mixer). This will be a peanut butter texture. Slowly blend in the wine. Empty, tube style, onto saran wrap and roll up. This freezes well and sections can be cut off for use. GREAT on all meats for dipping or basting. When you get ready to use, cut off sections (the smaller the sections the better it nukes). Put in bowl to nuke. Nuke 10 seconds at a time until you see it froth. Stop and serve there as if you allow to go further, the butter will separate.

I’m liking the way you think Jeff, I too have the 23”kk and have been looking for a Parrilla style grill. We don’t have the same selection here and I am yet to see value for $$. You have 30 days to find one before that rib fillet comes due!! [emoji16] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@tony b, four hours in now. It's around zero here at the moment and quite windy. I found that with even with the top just off and the left vent open a quarter of a circle ( ie half open) the oven went quickly to 250 F +, So I closed the left vent and opened up the right vent on the smallest hole. With the top open just an eighth the temperature dropped to 150 F. I left the top on one eighth open and slowly went up on hole size on the bottom vent which gave me control between 150 and 245 F. So that gives me some low and slow temperatures. With the top at one eighth and the left vent at half open it went to 392 F There is clearly a bit of windchill here, so with the lower vent fully open and the top 1/4 open it is sitting happily at 630 F. I've got a tiny bit of bubbling from a couple of pinholes, and a few hairline cracks in the grout, but that's about it at the moment. Adult beverages on standby at the moment - it's Mrs RD's birthday - we'll celebrate the end of the cure in a few hours and put on some duck breasts. Cheers RD

Looking good Jeff. I’ll be counting down the days before you eat this. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey folks - I'm intrigued by the Santa Maria style grills and know that several of you have them. I'm having trouble finding much info on techniques for using and comparisons to other types of grills, so I was hoping y'all could provide some input and/or links. I have a 23" KK which will still be my go-to for low and slow cooks and a big Weber summit natural gas grill for quick convenient cooks, both on my deck where they're convenient to the kitchen and monitoring, plus a Weber kettle and a solo fire pit ( good for wienie roasts) down by the pool for pool parties. Most of the deck is roofed and screened in and is good for more formal sit around the table type meals. I've found the kettle good for hamburgers for up to 8 or so people but becomes an aggravation with more people. The pool is downstairs and inconvenient to the kitchen, so I'm thinking a Santa Maria would be good near the pool and i could bring the kettle up on the deck to supplement the KK and gas grills. I think the Santa Maria would be good for handling larger volumes of food for larger parties but still good for smaller gatherings as well without running up and down the stairs, plus open the door for different types of techniques and types of food. I've been considering two grills from Arizona outfitters: I first considered the Scottsdale (AZ BBQ Scottsdale) thinking that the lid would be good for things that like to roast (whole chickens, beef and pork roasts, etc.) while still having the flexibility to grill burgers, chicken wings, etc. but it's hard to beat the KK for roasting. Also, the lid limits the height you can raise the grates They also have a nice looking Santa Maria with fire brick lined fire box and windbreak on YouTube, but i can't find it on their website: Brick lined Santa Maria. This one also has a brasserror for keeping fresh embers ready, but I'm not sure whether if I'd use that much of would stick with lump charcoal. They have several versions without the firebrick and brasserro. They have a bolt-on and stand-alone boxes with brasserros as well, but I'm thinking a wheelbarrow with a simple iron or steel rack would work as well ( but not look as nice). The manufacturer is very open to doing customizations. So, any thoughts and/or suggestions? If you have or have used one of these types of grills, what do you like and dislike about them? Any changes you'd make to the one you have if you could? Do you stick with lump or do you use wood? It's a brasserros worth having? Any links to sites with discussion of techniques for this type of grill? Thanks!

Now there's a big kitty! Good looking piece of kit and lovely meat @jeffshoaf. I hope you like the results in X days' time.

Thoughts or suggestions - get one if you have the space and the inclination to try something different. What do you like or dislike - I love the V shaped grate bars and the fat collection tray. Great for grilling fatty meats without flare ups. I like also the finer control that you have for grilling delicate foods and the active participation in fire management, adjusting the distance between the fire and the food and just generally playing around. I also like the plancha style option for grilling things like baby squid and other seafood. Could probably do breakfast eggs too but I have not tried. Any changes I would make to mine if I could - we used to have one with a cover and I think that made it more versatile. The Argentinians use these grills for larger hunks of meat using a lid and I struggled to cook a large porchetta on a spit without a cover. That said, I would probably do that in my new 32 now. The brand I bought had the option to have two sections on separate wheels i.e. you could have one side higher than the other. That option introduced a central post that reduced the continuous grilling area. On balance I think I made the right choice but it could be helpful to be able to have food at different levels. Finally, I did not have space for a separate fire box. If you do have the space I would go for a fire box to the side that allows you to create embers to keep the fire topped up. You can build the fire in the base of the parilla grill but it is difficult to replenish during a long cook. I use my 16 to do that work now and I was very happy with the 16's performance as a, very expensive, chimney. Do you stick with lump or do you use wood - I use lump because wood smokes too much for where I live. I don't know what a brasserros is... Links - this is the UK company I bought mine from: https://www.oxgrills.co.uk. Sorry, I bought it for The Husband not for me, Freudian slip! Worth a look just to see the various designs they have built to give you ideas about what you might want to specify. They appear to mostly be bought by chefs so they have all sorts of different modifications to suit them.

Gronkowski...................................Polish for touchdown!

That depends as to what your cooking. If your spinning no grill grates are necessary and you can monitor the fire and tend to it without much effort. Long cooks, short cooks it's all based on what the goals are as too the meat. There are times your doing a small cook and you will only need one grill grate, if you need to raise the surface area I believe they all are capable without much effort to make the adjustments. You know, cooking on one these puts you and your guests more into the cook, have a drink and enjoy the time while you entertain your guest.

I've seen Ballistic bbq and know the one your referring to, the brassero is to the rear....a matter of preference side or rear. I don't have the brassero, my grill (Hooray Grill) has a stationary pit base that sits above another base which is angled to catch any amount of grease flowing to a can. There are no refractory brick however the firebox is lined with a steel spacer liner or in essence double walled. These two youtube gents are thorough and knowledgeable, cut to the chase and make it interesting, you'll see. Ballisticbbq down yonder in San Diego is a promoter and gets paid to bring some products forward, these guys, not so much. Troble, Sam the cooking guy and Ballisticbbq all in SanDiego..........a trifecta. Don't fret basher, you just ain't found it yet. It'll come, sure as the sun is gonna come up tommorrow.

Happy birthday Mrs. RD!

I have the AzBBQ Tuscan, which is the Scottsdale minus the cover. If I were to do it over, I would have ordered the Scottsdale. Regarding the brick lined model, just email the company with that link included, I am sure they'd be happy to build one.

Since a lot of the nicer ones are built to order and all of them ship via LTL common carriers, it's probably too late to get one within 30 days! I'm thinking the first steak from that ribeye will go on the gas grill since that is the most neutral cooking method and adds the last outside influence on the taste so i can get good feedback on the effect of aging. It has a sear burner so the technique is very straightforward. The 2nd will probably be on the KK. A small roast in the oven or low and slow on the KK (depending on the weather) will most likely be the 3rd.

The bottom vents shouldn't have that much influence over the dome temperature. The top vent is the controller. How windy is it? If it's fairly windy, you can get what's called "vacuum drag" across the top vent, which pulls more air out of the KK than normally would flow out for that same vent setting in calm conditions. Good luck with the rest of the burn-in and enjoy those Birthday adult beverages with the Mrs!

Jeff, give these two guys a try on Youtube, Dski grills and TRENDKILLrBBQ. Dski has an assortment of grills he cooks on showing use of each grill with always an interesting presentation meal. He owns a Sunterra 48 Santa Maria and shows you how to cook on it or at least enough for you to see if this is for you. The same goes for TRENDKILLr, and actually he just manufactured his own design as a daily cooker. Check out their archives and find the Santa Maria grill cooks, they're both pretty thorough and I hope it lessens the confusion and gives you a bit of direction. If not, at least it'll be entertaining.

Agreed!

I applaud @tekobo for her tenacity in staying up that late to watch the game!

Experience was a big factor in the QB dept, having someone that's been there so many times can't be denied. The kid has nothing to be embarrassed about in his performance, he took some hard hits and got right back up. The unfortunate side of things for him was Tampa's defense, the rush and pass coverage took him out of his game...a sight really unseen until yesterday. No doubt his future looks bright, that is when Brady retires. He'll be my favorite then, and I will look forward to that day as I continue to cook on my KC Santa Maria grill.

You are right Troble, I’ll be easing back off that double cream. Mac, that’s a cracking crust. Did you change up the recipe?...... just a little? Sirloin tonight- this is what Archie(son) should have cooked last week when he pulled out the rib on bone instead. Anyway, he helped with this. These were cooked over half a fist of carambola wood and also some tea tree smoke as I put the steaks in. Tea tree is recommended if you can get your hands on it. Inhaling the smoke was delish. And finished I’ve found an excellent leather craftsman who fixed a couple of pairs of my favourite, dog chewed leather boots. I was so impressed with his work that I asked him to tailor a leather knife roll for me and he has my knives- hence the sharpened baccarat black samurai knife. I’ve been looking for some straight edged steak knives rather than the usual serrated edge and these were on sale for $14aus each( under $10US) so I purchased 8. Close up. For the newbies, that fire was lit with the top open two full turns, then closed back to 1 full turn for 45 minutes while I went to the gym. The top rack was flipped upside down so was as close to fire as possible. Dome read 200c( 390f) when I returned. Steaks were taken out of the fridge as the fire was lit so pretty close to room temp. Bottom vent was open 1/6 turn plus 2nd largest circle and did not change. BTW, I’m still a newbie.[emoji14] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Game pizza.

Wow! That's awesome. I am really looking forward to seeing how you get on. I have found it to be such an interesting exploration of how time changes the nature of meat and fish.

It's here! Now i gotta get some beef...