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Not deterred by the pending snow, fired up the KK to do some jerk chicken on pimento wood, of course! And because it was the Ides of March, plated with a Caesar salad to go with the pineapple salsa. Glad that I got this cook in, because this is what I woke up to this morning.

What I love is everyone seems to have slightly different failures (in other words, not a design flaw but a random assembly error) and everyone says "Dennis sent me a replacement part" - the worst I've had on my KK was a wooden knob that fell off during a move and after a runaway fire and I also got a replacement. Compare that to the MexiK sites where all the tiles fall off and people need to fix it themselves because the manufacturer is useless and you see the real reason a KK is a great investment.

Finally got around to using a few slices off of piece of KD walnut. I was impressed at the amount of smoke and how long it provided a smoke for. It wasn't white smoke or a creosote laden smoke but an abundant amount yet light on the nose. I feel it worked well, however due to the issue with my latch falling off in my hand I lost track of this experiment by trying to save my cook from failure. But yah, it appears a go with some minor tweaking. Good candidate for the SS smoke pot, that I will try when my new latch is installed.

Finally, a use for exercise equipment other than as a clothes rack!

Pimento wood...musta been a special occasion, no secret how you value it's importance and scarcity. The snow, better you than me, I've seen enough....looking forward to spring. Nice plate by the way.

As I stood by my KK talking with Dennis and I looked for those spot welds, there were none. Apparently it came down to the year of manufacture, that's all, other than that removal with a Dremel cutting wheel would make easy work of any tack weld as you stated. Looking at your break, I'd call that an oddity. For moi, it's pretty straight forward to install, remove the two cap nuts and replace. Weird how it happened though, I opened to take a temp on the meat and the latch stayed in my hand. I said, "this ain't good." So I posted this for those unaware to be mindful of the possibilities, reassure them it's only a speedbump. That's all Folks

Well at least the pork came out great !!!!!! Great job improvising.

It may indeed be a California thing. Juglans californica, the California black walnut, is a distinct species from the black walnut found in the eastern U.S. The nuts are small and difficult to crack, and the meats are small, bitter, and generally not worth the trouble of extraction. I tried making nocino from unripe California black walnuts, and it was terrible. It wouldn't surprise me that the wood produces a noxious smoke when burned.

Probably just a California thing, but when I buy black walnut from the lumber yard I get sent Material Data Safety Sheets (MSDS) warning of inhaling the smoke.

No warning on mine either, just "plink" and I was holding the handle in my hand. You're correct, Dennis told me that mine had the cosmetic welds after looking at the picture I sent him. He was surprised by this failure; had never seen one do this before. Later years didn't have those welds. Once removed, the cap nuts came right off, and it was an easy repair.

I actually had the upper latch handle break on my KK. I could still latch the lid using pliers. Dennis sent a replacement and instructions on how to replace the whole upper latch assembly. There are some "cosmetic" welds that need to be ground out to remove the old one. The Dremel came in very handy for that task. All is well now.

Maybe I'll try my next paella with linguica instead! Reckon the kids may well like some cacoila as well... good suggestions!

I like it, just like camping. You have enough there for a few meals. Do they make a linguica to go with that chorizo? Have you tried cacoila, a marinated pork, great for sandwiches and cooks well in the KK?

Sunday nights are non-stop activity around here, as with two school aged kids who are busy with many activities during the week it’s sometimes the only night to get any cooking done… So the KK was busy managing a chicken, chorizo, Roma tomato and green bean paella- while inside a bolognaise sauce was made, as well as choc chip cookies and brownies for the lunch boxes (and banana bread which didn’t make it into the final photo as it was still in the oven!)

@Tyrus No worries at all. Agreed, with a KK where air flow is controlled, the combustion is slow, and you want a lighter smoke profile --KD seems like a smart choice. For an offset smoker it might make a bigger difference vs. air dried wood. I used to run a home built water smoker and tried soaking wood chunks overnight to prevent flare ups. It didn't seem to make a difference. I cut a chunk open to see what it looked like and the water barely penetrated the surface. Sorry to hear about your dog. Losing a pet is tough. We just lost 2 cats in the last year. One cat was named Napoleon and had a lot of dog-like behaviors, so that's where that came from. When I created the account I thought Sarah & I might share it so picked a name for both of us. You can call me Eric. Cheers