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Collar butt injected and bathed in mango juice Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

In KK Bread Making Tips and Tricks, @Pequod posted about his new Brød & Taylor Sourdough Home, a temperature controlled chamber for ideally maintaining a sourdough culture. That is a long and interesting thread, that devolves into speculation about my cannabis use and so forth. The Komodo Kamado forum has great advice from some very serious cooks, and sometimes that advice draws in visitors who decide to stay and buy a Komodo Kamado, and become valued compatriots. So I thought it would be worthwhile to start a new thread focused on the Sourdough Home. I bought one immediately. The short-term payoff is being able to feed one's starter less frequently without inducing a refrigerator coma, then get it nice and warm for making bread. My first bread this way was a technical flop but the best tasting bread I've made in years. This makes it clear that the long-term payoff is learning to bake with better controls. Sure, people have made wine for centuries before electronics, but they had access to stable temperature caves, and they adapted their methods to reliable conditions. Modern wine is arguably better, in part because one can control conditions precisely. I'm convinced that one can learn to make astounding bread by learning how to use the Sourdough Home to control conditions. The Sourdough Home is not silent, and even in sleep mode a brighter light source than all of my other LEDs combined. If you live in a studio apartment, you'll likely end up pitching it out the window. An internet search reveals that a 3/4 liter "743 Weck Mold Jar" with a wooden lid is an ideal starter container (Amazon). Remove the silicone lid seal, so gases can escape. I like mine. After briefly searching for a bread proofing chamber, I realized that dough for my single loaves should fit in the Sourdough Home itself, if I could find the right container. I got lucky, and found the Airscape Glass Coffee Canister (Medium 7-Inch) with a two quart capacity. It exactly fits the Sourdough Home, with a similar wooden lid and a silicone seal one removes. It looks like a matched pair with the Weck starter jar, as shown in the photos. I've never had much luck with refrigerator dough rises, but the Sourdough Home allows for intermediate bulk proofing temperatures. My goal now is to adapt the idea of Desem bread (as detailed for example in The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book; we already grind our own flour) to the possibilities of this equipment.

I promise you really, really need smell-o-vision for this one. I ordered 10kg of cubed goat meat and cooked a Nigerian stew on the stove and these two, low and slow, on my 23 and 32 respectively. The first is a Guyanese goat curry from Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible that I have made many times before and the second is a new to me curry goat by Andi Oliver whose family come from Antigua. It is from her Pepperpot Diaries book and contains lots of whole spices and some dark chocolate. I look forward to trying the latter for dinner today. And yes, that large pot is difficult to carry when it is fully loaded and hot!

That's an interesting idea with the Airscape container. I'd thought of doing something similar for pizza dough, which would benefit from long, slow ferments at above-fridge temperatures. I've also considered something like this with a bit more capacity: Amazon.com: Cooluli 20 Liter Mini Fridge with Temperature Control - Black: Home & Kitchen I don't know anything about that particular model, but it's an example of a portable, adjustable fridge. @tekobo - see what I did there? I saw @Syzygies container and raised him a fridge!

Always good to benefit from your research @Syzygies but I see what you have done here. You have upped the ante. @Pequod suggests one cool thing to buy and you find another two to add to the list. Well done. Let's see if anyone bites. I think I have a sure fire way of swerving this purchase. I have made a promise that I won't even consider getting a Sourdough Home until @C6Bill gets one. I think I'm safe.

@Syzygies thanks for the info. i think my dual zone wine fridge can replicate these temps adjustable from 5-18c. it's handy to keep prefrements at different temps and bulk fermentation at higher than normal fridge temps, but i've always kept my starter in the normal fridge.

what is your keep temp for once a week feedings and what is the warmup temp?

I've made countless experiments over the years, including attempts to adopt ideas that have worked for others. I keep coming back to cast iron. One can find arbitrarily small cast iron pots with effort. The most common mode of failure I've experienced is a breach, where either the lid displaces or a space opens between the lid and pot. Now convection burns the wood in the way we're trying to avoid. Thin steel deforms easily. An unsecured cast iron lid usually stays on, but smoke pots can tip as the fire shifts. I don't care how small the chances are here, I would find it unacceptable to lose a cook, particularly if it's for an event where others are depending on my BBQ. The flour paste seal for a cast iron lid is easy once one establishes a routine, and reminds me of the romance of using questionable pots in Moroccan cooking. I've never actually seen my three 1/8" holes clog, even though my wood could be in contact with the holes. A single hole would probably work, but one never wants to build a bomb, and three holes is not a liability. Do the holes need to face down? This was based on watching how one makes charcoal, where the exhaust becomes a self-sustaining flame at temperatures well above low & slow. Dunno how important "down" is, but down is better than up, and I have to point the holes some way. (I came up with the smoke pot idea after some ill-advised experiments at making charcoal...) If I had investors for a state-of-the-art BBQ restaurant in Manhattan, I'd design a method of heating wood in external chambers, and feeding the gas produced to a modified standard gas oven. I'm surprised that no one has tried this. Usually when people are unhappy with smoke pots, they're having trouble getting them going. I like starting my fires with a weed burner propane torch. For low & slow one wants a fire in one spot, so the fire doesn't run away. If one lights that spot under a smoke pot, one can arrange to get the smoke pot going too. This is fire tending, not fundamentally different from any other form of fire tending. One learns with practice. I don't give up. Alternatives? A mandatory PSA is required here, not all metals belong in a smoker. Galvanized metals in particular off-gas toxins one doesn't want near food. Never break with tradition without understanding what one is doing. Long ago, others followed my smoke pot experiments by building "pipe bombs", stainless steel threaded pipes with caps, with multiple holes along the bottom edge. These were expensive, but avoided the flour paste lid sealing ritual. For a bento box one would want a smaller pipe, bringing down the expense. Could one use other metals? See above. Texas oil rigger BBQ recycled job-site drums. I'd just go with stainless steel, to be sure. With several holes and ordinary wood as filler, I can't imagine sufficient pressure building to create a bomb. On the other hand, in math we observe that lack of imagination isn't a proof of anything. A reasonable design principle is that you can never design something not to break, but you can and should design how it breaks. Would pipe caps really need to screw on, or could one rig something that slid together, perhaps with enough overlap that there was no need for flour paste? Try multiple ideas, with care!

Thanks @MacKenzie The ragu di corte turned out super tasty.

Low and slow sauce making on the 32. The first is a simple beef ragu that I cooked for eight hours and the second is some soffritto that cooked for four hours. The latter came off the KK at close to midnight, too late for me to care about taking any more pics! And yes, there is a lot of olive oil in that soffritto. It takes on an amazing flavour from the vegetables and imparts a lovely unctuousness to the ragu di corte that I will be making next.

Had some family over for dinner tonight. Cranked out a Bistecca Fiorentina for the adults (each steak around 900gram)… sausages and burgers for the kids. Made some home made chips, salad, some no-knead bread… amazing. Everyone happy.

I was inspired by @remi cook of my Peruvian polo a la brass so decided to make it tonight. Never disappoints @tony bi ate at a good Peruvian place yesterday and struck up a conversation with the chef who asked me where I sourced ingredients in San Diego…told him I grow my aji Amarillo and we got to discussing the Peruvian green sauce…the real stuff used a herb called Huacatay and I purchase a plant yesterday https://thegrowers-exchange.com/products/huacatay?variant=40098478522449&currency=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&utm_campaign=gs-2019-12-19&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj-iu7pTDhQMV0MzCBB1mJQ-HEAQYASABEgLDnfD_BwE I am going to make it my mission to nail down the authentic version of this sauce this year. The jalapeño substitute is fine but the real deal is so much better. This chef used jarred Huacatay but he asked me to bring him the real stuff along with my fresh aji Amarillo which I’ve already started growing this week….stay tuned for updates but I’m gonna figure this out this year….going to Peru for two week over Christmas so I will get this “Peruvian crack” recipe nailed down this year

Early anniversary dinner, screw going out. 8 times out of ten I’m thinking I could have made something better at home. Only thing is the cleanup, I’m exhausted! Those oysters were monstrous and delicious. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Flat iron, carrots, air fryer potatoes

Couple of racks of baby back pork ribs. 225F for first 2hrs. 275F last 2 hrs. Pulled glazed and wrapped in foil. KK smoke worked great and used my rechargeable pump . Yeah, someone will see in this cook setup, I used the stones for indirect deflectors. They are far enough away from firebox on lower grate, I have not noticed any difference compared to foil and pan. Will do some beef ribs and a 7hr cook and try the foil and pan at 300F and see if there is any difference. IMG_1986.mov

Did some drumsticks on the KK this evening and I bought an order of fries from a fast food place when I was in town this afternoon. Heated the fries up in the air fryer. They were good but not as good as when fresh from the fast food place but better than frozen fries. This one is for you, Tony.

Rotisserie lamb, dirty rice, Mediterranean salad, tadziiki

My parents are visiting us and the kids from interstate. Whipped up @Troble’s Polla a la Brasa on the Roti, with pickles, coleslaw, roasted smashed potatoes, salad and green sauce. A big hit as always! IMG_8326.MOV