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Since I'm usually cooking for just myself, it seems to be overkill for a lot of my meals especially since I have the 23" KK, a Weber kettle, and a gas grill and all of those are upstairs on my deck and convenient to the kitchen, but it's been great for the bigger events. I'm still learning how to cook with wood -- I tend to use to much wood and build too big of a fire (like the August one); I over compensated on this cook and used too little. The grill is under my deck with the brassero hanging out from under the deck but the bottom of the deck is 12' up. I've considered putting some metal roofing or other metal over it to help deflect the heat but I think I'm ok without it. I'm mostly happy with the grill; my only real quibble is the brassero. On their website and videos, The brassero hangs on the back of the grill with no legs leaving the floor totally open and making it easy to pull embers out and position them, but my brassero is on legs and stands on the floor. It's also more enclosed than shown on the website/videos. It functions fine but I really liked the original and it irritates me that they didn't mention it during our discussions and haven't noted the difference on the website. I called and discussed it with then after I received mine and they said they made the change because others had complained about the original design scratching up the back of the grill; they offered to work up some brackets that I could mount to the brassero and hang it. As you can see in one of the pics above, I cut some fire bricks in half and raised the brassero some which makes it a bit easier to access embers underneath and that helped some. My big issue now is that I have too many things I want to try on all of my grills (plus I have pizza ovens as well) and I'm on a diet! Cooking for one tends towards having leftovers too so one cook can sometimes feed me for days - the last pork butt I fixed in my KK fed me for a week. I'm planning on spatchcocking and roasting a whole chicken Saturday in the KK and trying out the new cold smoker that was delivered yesterday; that's 3 or 4 meals before my next cooking adventure.

Did another small cookb using oak on the big grill last Saturday. I didn't make too big of a fire this time but did have to add wood during the session. I'm still experimenting with different sear techniques and used the griddle for the sear this time. Cooked all the sides on the grill as well, including baking a couple of potatoes in the embers. Very tasty!

Looks like the Komodo Gods were smiling and sending good vibes my way. Someone changed their mind on a 32" and now my name is on it. Best of all, it's leaving on the October shipment! I may buy a Powerball ticket with that kind of luck. I know the first question on your mind is "Hey Poochie, can I pay for it?" No thanks, but I appreciate it. And speaking of Dennis, he said he'd send a free Bambino to anyone who correctly guesses the color. Just pay $3500 shipping and handling charge. Time to clear a spot in my outdoor building for the new arrival. Someone who owns the double drip pan, please tell me about it. I don't have it on my list of accessories yet.

The cold smoker was delivered yesterday and I'm planning on using it Saturday with a spatchcocked chicken. Since the chicken is a relatively short, cook, I can monitor the cold smoker pretty closely for that -- I tend to put butts in the KK around 8 or 9 pm and let then go overnight and I wouldn't be able to sleep worrying about the cold smoker if that was my first use! I picked up some apple chips for the chicken but will used hickory for the butt.

Welcome. You don’t need one with a KK. Just use a drip pan or foil to catch drippings. Enjoy

Nice cook Jeff, see you and the grill are getting along "just fine". I noticed the fire of Aug 24 the roaring inferno and it made think if I did that I wouldn't have a roof left. My roof is 9-10 ft so a controlled fire with splits and lump or charcoal have to suffice until some expansion improvements come around. By the looks of it you appear to be all settled in with the pit, is it all that you expected?

The bar within walking distance from my house stocks Pliny. Good stuff! Always takes a little longer walking home!!

That’s a great looking meal 😁

Grandma and grandpa were sitting in their rockers on the porch. All of a sudden grandma slaps grandpa so hard he falls off his rocker. “What was that for, grandma?” Grandma: “ That’s for 50 years of bad sex” Grandpa gets back on his rocker then proceeds to slap grandma off hers. ‘What was that for, grandpa?” Grandpa: “That’s for knowing the difference!”

This choice beef tenderloin cooked rare with a compound butter is quite honestly the best steak I’ve ever had. Washed it down with some Pliny, what a lunch! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pizza again. Typical kitchen sink style, 500° KK dome, 485° baking steel, 6 - 6.5 minutes. Per previous comment, note deflector(!) in use under the baking steel on upper grate.

What a great spread, Troble.

Apparently I did not eat enough Mexican food last week although to be fair I did not have one carne asada taco…..my wife had family in from Peru today so I made carne asada tacos. Flour tortillas, salsa rojo, salsa verde, guacamole, refried beans, cotija cheese and homemade marinated carne cooked over mesquite wood

I think the key to that statement is “left out” in this case we are talking about food wrapped in foil inside of a cooler. I would think holding in that environment the timeline would be extended more than a few hours ?

So I have been busy grilling and a lot of remiss with posting. A couple weeks ago I had a friend over who wanted shrimp for dinner so I decided to make paella. Mind you I have never made paella before but I have eaten my share. So I researched and research and found a procedure on Naked Whiz's site. What I found most helpful was Naked Whiz provided the pillars or the important things to pay attention to and the basic procedure this was brilliant since I rarely follow recipes. So again I am not going to plagiarize from Naked Whiz if you want the procedure go to the link above I am going to share my experience, ingredients and what I learned. I wanted to buy the sofrito but could not find anything to my satisfaction however, I did find a recipe on Pinterest that seemed like it was the real deal and I was not wrong. I cooked Heidi's recipe the night before and it provided amazing depth of flavor and I will make it again as a base for many recipes not just paella. I used canned whole San Marzano style tomatoes without the juice. For the liquid I used chicken bone broth by Kettle and Fire with 32 oz of clam juice in the bottle. I made sure this was warmed and ready to add. My ingredients included: 1 lb shrimp soaked 30 minutes in a salt brine 0.6 lb salmon soaked 30 minutes in a salt brine 3 lobster tails soaked 30 minutes in a salt brine 1/2 lb Basque style Chorizo, not my first choice, I would have preferred Spanish style and yes I mixed meats. For veggies I used 1 cup frozen peas Tops from one bunch of asparagus par boiled in the liquid Photo below shows the ingredients ready to go. Everything I read said to have your ingredients prepped and ready to go and it paid off in spades. I got the grill to 550 degrees and away I went. Saute chorizo, warmed the sofrito, browned the rice in the sofrito, added saffron, then added the liquid and cooked for about 30 minutes, added the vegetables and mixed into the rice. Then I added the seafood on top and cooked for about 10 minutes and the results were amazing as demonstrated by the beauty shown in the photo below. The rice was creamy the flavor profile was complex and balanced. Frankly, I have thought about this meal everyday since I have made it. What I learned was this dish is beautiful to look at, amazing flavor, fairly simple to make. I will definitely make this again and thanks to Naked Whiz for the procedure and all the tips. While I have a pork butt smoking as I write this I really want some more paella!

I've had the same issue with the last few butts I smoked - very tender and moist with a great smoked ring but very little smoke flavor. I actually smoked one last week in the KK but didn't post pics because I was so aggravated with the lack of smoke flavor. I've cooked ribs and beef that had a nice smoke flavor, but they were relatively short cooks (4 to 6 hours vs. 12 to 16 hours for the butts) I've tried both with and without using a smoke pot as well as using a heavy rub and a light dusting of SPG. I've had success in the past; the only thing I can think of is where I bought the butts - I've been taking my mother to the grocery store and, since she doesn't like my preferred store and I don't like her preferred store, we've been going to a compromise store that has a different brand of pork products. The labels on at least some of the butts from this store have had a blurb indicating that they may have been injected with a brine solution - I'm wondering if that is at least part of the issue. I've ordered the KK cold smoker; its scheduled for delivery Monday and will use that for my next attempt. The compromise grocery store had butts on sale for $0.99/lb and I couldn't resist that price and bought the limit of 2.

Ha ha ha ha. We'll turn you into a multi KK house yet.... Our friends raved about @RokDok's beer. Most of the stash he had brought for The Husband to enjoy was happily consumed by the unplanned guests who dropped in on Saturday night. And before @DennisLinkletter rocks up to tell us off for showing him pics of uncooked food on KKs, here are the pics I took later on of the cook on the 23. I had to move one of the chooks down a level and that got @RokDok thinking that I might need another KK with even more space. Good thinking BatMan? I can just taste those fat soaked potatoes...

Thanks Tekobo. I cooked a rotisserie chicken a few weeks ago and Mrs RD said that, altho it was OK, it was nowhere near as good as cooked by her in the oven indoors. When I mentioned this to Tekobo a gauntlet whizzed past my ear. So, chicken the first way was "Pollo al Matone" - Chicken in a brick - T had bought some brined chicken, spatchcocked one, seasoned it and placed it it a shallow terracotta dish with a loose (very loose) lid which compressed the chicken. The second way was simply placing a trussed chicken ( one that she had brought over from Italy ) - into a small metallic baking tray, and placed these into her 23", thus : Note - over direct heat but high up. Two other chicken ( ready brined too) were rotisseried indirectly on the 32" with the foil wrapped single bottomed tray beneath. Meanwhile, the double bottomed drip tray was in the kitchen over a moderate heat on the stove and par-boiled potatoes were tossed in goose fat. The single bottomed tray was removed and the double bottomed tray with the potatoes were put in under the chicken to cook and crisp. , Finally the chicken were given a direct blast over the direct heat to brown up Meanwhile Sharkey was in the kitchen reducing some stock and wine for a delicious gravy and the runner beans that had been picked earlier were boiled. The chicken in the 23" were simply delicious - moist and lots of juices in the terra-cotta. The rotisserie chicken was moist and delicious - potatoes yummy and crisp - of course accompanied by appropriate beverage. We didn't eat four chicken - Tekobo had prepared an extra one for a friend nearby whose husband was unwell and so they too had a delicious meal. Mrs RD was converted, and it was my turn to be grilled as to why I hadn't achieved results like this.A kind of peace was restored when I suggested it was because I didn't have enough KKs.

It seems pics are mandatory. I will be pleased to post some of my upcoming creations in the middle of my snowy backyard. As an appetizer here is a pic of my last batch of Montreal style smoked meat (brined brisket)