jclarkhpa

Not sure if they just don't stock the same stuff here on the Big Island, but I did go there a few weeks ago. They only had a couple pumps, they were both way too big, and not adjustable. I didn't want to fiddle with them trying to make them work, thinking I could get something on Amazon. I was happy to see these available through Dennis, thinking they would be exactly what I need. Just bummed the shipping would cost so much. I might try to ship them to a friend coming to visit soon and see if they could bring it with them.

I just tried to buy one, but the shipping to Hawaii was $84, or over $100. Is there a slower or less expensive way to ship it? I don't want to spend $84 to ship a $16 pump. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. About two hours before "go" time the temp was down to 150, so I put it in a neighbors oven to keep warm. I was non-stop busy with the cook or keeping up with work e-mails from 5AM until 1:30PM at which time I was driving to work to lay out the spread. I have to admit I was amazed I was able to accomplish all of it because my wife was at work and I did this all by myself. I didn't realize how helpful it is to have another pair of hands until you don't have another pair of hands. All in all, I smoked 4 pork butts, 9 racks of ribs, 8 tri-tip steaks, and a whole mess of BBQ beans. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take any pictures. I was able to bring home a little, but the maintenance guys at work kept the bulk of the leftovers for lunches next week. I was happy to provide this for them as a thanks for all the work they do year round.

Good idea, I do have a remote thermometer and will use it. Thanks for your help! Another question I have is whether I should pull it early or wait until the last minute and pull it. I thought I read an article on this forum where someone said that they pull it and then store it. Any thoughts? Thanks again, and aloha.

I should mention that the cooler has two water bottles, half full of boiling water and half of hot tap water. The rest of the space is full of towels. I want to make sure the meat is good AND safe.

Aloha, I'm doing a BBQ for our maintenance department and it starts at 1:30PM. It's now 5AM and I've got 4 pork butts on Lola. Two are at 200 degrees and the other two are reaching 190. I've got a cooler with towels ready to go, but what's the max time I can keep them in the cooler? I've got 8 hours to go before the event, I have 9 racks of ribs I still need to do plus 6 tri-tip steaks. If keeping it in the cooler for 8 hours is too long, any suggestions? Should I put in the fridge and re-heat? Any help would be appreciated.

If it's still available, I'd like to put in an order too.

You are welcome to join us in Hawaii! It would be nice to have some more KK'ers all the way out here.

Which brand did he say to buy?<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

This past weekend I just cooked 9 racks of ribs on my dark autumn 23", and I like Dennis' rib rack. It hold 8 and since the ribs from Costco come in packs of 3 I lay the last one on top. I'll add a few photos, first after an hour, second after three hours and then a close up. I didn't get the finishing shot, because the wife loves them fall off the bone so I always foil them. When they are done I cut them up and vacuum pack them and toss them in the freezer for easy dinners. I'll probably do this 2-3 more times to have enough for the school year so it's less hassle when we get home from work. When I cook for others I don't foil but that's less often. I hope the pictures show you a little bit of the tile, I love the color. I hope the photos show... Aloha, Josh

You are right, sorry for the confusion. It was late at night and I was so busy huntin and peckin the letters on my iPad I wasn't thinking about what I was saying. I shouldn't have said it went out when talking about the CI smoke pot (I probably still had the smoke tube in mind). It would have been more accurate to say that it never started smoking in the first place. Based on the comments, I think it's not sitting close enough to the lit coals. I use coco char for the low and slow cooks and stack them vertically in the basket. Perhaps I need to really push the pot down into the coals, almost screwing it in, since I think I've just been resting it on the hottest part I could find. I'll try again but if anyone has more specific suggestions about the placement and how you configure your charcoal so the pot does get the flame/heat, I'd appreciate it.<br /> Aloha.<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I've really enjoyed reading this post. I've got a small CI Lodge cook pot that I made about a year ago,based on one of the posts here and a smoke tube I purchased about 6 months ago. The problem I've run into with both is the KK doesn't have enough oxygen to keep them going. For my long cooks I typically put in my BBQ guru, and I guess the KK is so efficient that when I'm up,to,temp it will put in a puff of air every once in a while, but both the smoke tube and CI pot have always gone out. I've stopped using the pot after opening it twice and having the wood still in perfect condition. My first worry was that the holes weren't big enough but they were exactly what the original directions said from the first post a year or so ago. When I got the smoke tube and realized that it went out after 3-4 minutes in the KK, I realized it couldn't be the holes in the CI pot since the tube is full of holes. Since my temp stays rock solid for hours when I have the guru, I'm worried about weaning off and getting harder to control temps if I have a steady flow of oxygen. I'm surprised I haven't heard anyone else talk about this lack of oxygen problem with their KK's for the low and slows. Am I just doing something wrong? I'd love to get more of a smoke profile if I can figure this out. Any help would be appreciated.<br /> Aloha<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Thanks for the running commentary and showing us each step. It's great to relive my own memories of un-crating Lola through your post. Please keep it coming. By the way it was another beautiful day here in Hawaii, and I'm a bachelor tonight since the wife and daughter are camping on the beach this weekend. Any time a KK'er is going to be on the Big Island, let me know and I can fire up Lola for you. Aloha

You are right, it follows the same technique but you are keeping them in the sous vide for something like 12 hours if I remember correctly. The first time I did it I had no pressure and took my time. The last two times I was doing that along with two other meats (ribs and brisket) and so I always had to make adjustments and it never turned out as good. I keep hearing that beef ribs done right is better than brisket, but I haven't been able to consistently prove that. I am happy to keep trying both though in my experiments!<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I sometimes get the boneless beef rib package from Costco, there's four per pack, and BBQ them all at once. I used the recipe on chefsteps.com (just type BBQ beef ribs in the search field and it will come up easy) where you sous vide the ribs then smoke them. The first time I did it they were soft, juicy, and amazing. Another time they were only ho hum and a touch dry. You might want to look at that technique and give it a try.<br /> <br /> Aloha,<br /> <br /> Josh<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Aloha and Happy New Year everyone! My wife and I are going to host a BBQ on Friday and one of the things I'll be doing is Tri-Tip. I'm planning on putting it in the sous vide and then searing it. The question I have is whether I should season the tri-tip before I vacuum pack and put it in the sous vide or after? I don't want the salt to dry out the meat if there is a chance that would happen in the sous vide, but I also want it to have maximum flavor and wasn't sure if spicing it during sous vide helps. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm interested in trying this. How soft are they when done? I'd like to smoke enough to make it worthwhile, but I'm worried about storing them. How do you store them, and can they be stored one on top of the other or would they fall apart with the weight of another tomato on top? Any knowledge would be appreciated.<br /> <br /> Thanks!<br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

My wife and I were having a few friends over for dinner, and we were also wanting to vacuum pack some meat to put in the freezer so we can reheat for dinner on a weeknight when we get home late from work or are too tired to make something. So, I had three packages of St. Louis cut ribs from Costco, and each package had 3 racks inside for a total of 9 rib racks. I didn't take as many photos as I should have, but it turned out great. I'll post what I have at the end if I can figure out how to do it. I used the BBQ with Franklin rib rub, very simple. 2 parts pepper to 1 part salt, throw in some granulated garlic and granulated onion, some chili powder, and paprika. I prepped all the ribs, the Kamado was chugging along at 250 degrees, so I put 8 racks in the rib rack, and laid the 9th on top of all of them. After two hours I foiled them with just a spritz of apple cider vinegar and left them there for 2 more hours. I could have pulled them earlier, some of the ribs were overcooked where the bones fell out of the meat. However, others were just right. I also made a chipotle BBQ sauce that was really quite tasty. My wife and I are on a Whole30 diet right now for the month of July and so this BBQ sauce doesn't have the usual suspects of Ketchup or sugar. Instead it's a sweet maui onion, minced garlic, tomato paste and crushed tomatoes, homemade date paste, ground ginger, nutmeg, fish sauce, lime juice, coconut aminos, liquid smoke, dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and some chipotle peppers (I might have forgotten an ingredient or two). I wasn't expecting it to taste as good as other BBQ sauces but I was extremely surprised at how good it was. It might become our go to recipe. We originally got the recipe here: http://thehealthyfoodie.com/smoky-hot-bbq-sauce/ I cut all the ribs down and after dinner we vacuum packed the rest to put in the freezer. One other thing I should mention. I normally clean the grill using grill floss and grill wizard. However, I bought The Ringer to clean my cast iron. It's a stainless steel chainmail that helps scrub off all the grit. It's work great for that, but I also used it to clean the rib rack after using it, since I know you should only used stainless steel on stainless steel. It worked great. It's easy to clean up after. I remember getting my Grill Wizard and Grill Floss based on recommendations from this forum, so I thought it might help someone else to hear of the Ringer too. I don't know the owner of The Ringer, and I don't own stock, I just liked the product after I bought it. Here's a link to Amazon to learn more: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ringer-Cleaner-Stainless-Chainmail/dp/B00FKBR1ZG Anyway, I'll try to add the few photos I did remember to take during the whole process. Here's the ribs right when I put them on and was about to close the lid. I did use peach wood. I just finished wrapping them to go for another two hours. After eating here's the pile of vacuum packed ribs. Here's a few jars of the homemade BBQ sauce. It was good. Here's a photo of The Ringer

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I always wrap my drip pan and heat deflector in aluminum foil so they stay "clean" <br /> <br /> It is probably too late, and there might not be any necessary changes anyway, but it would help to make the final design as foil wrapping friendly as possible. <br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Aloha,<br /> <br /> I just returned from a business trip to both Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria. I arrived home a week ago. I enjoyed my time there but would have loved to see some real BBQ!! Enjoy Lagos and if you ever get to Hawaii let me know (I know it's a long flight but well worth it.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Aloha, I bought a Vacmaster VP112 last year and have liked it so far. I've used it infrequently because of my travel, but I've used it to prep for sous vide (I have both a polyscience and an anova immersion circulator), as well as package leftovers from smoking on the KK. This year I'm planning on doing more prep in advance and freezing food for dinners later in the week and month. I would still consider myself a newbie using the Vacmaster but it's done a great job on sealing. I'm a little paranoid about the seal not working, especially with liquids and marinades, and always think it doesn't look sealed enough, but so far they have all held up just fine. There was only one time when the seal didn't work and that was when I got some liquid on the seal area and so it couldn't make an effective seal. I consider that user error and have had 100% success when I do my part correctly.

Re: Steam for Bread Does anyone know if large amounts of steam can adversely affect the KK ceramic? I remember talking to a man who builds brick ovens and bakes bread at the local farmers market. He said he doesn't do steam in the brick oven because it affects the ceramic bricks and they start spawling (sp?). He felt the steam benefits didn't outweigh the long term damage he could do to his oven. I can't verify the truthfulness of his comments, and part of me thinks there shouldn't be a problem since smoke and food lets off a lot of moisture. Just not sure the steam you need for the bread is a higher concentration or something. I wanted to see if anyone else has any knowledge or experience with it. I wouldn't want anyone to start talking about issues with their KK in another year or two after doing a lot of steaming in it. Aloha, jclarkhpa 23" Dark Autumn Nebula

Re: Pulled Lamb l'll definitely give it a try, thanks for the suggestion! Josh jclarkhpa 23" Dark Autumn Nebula

Re: Pulled Lamb Hi, I'm on the Island of Hawai'i, or the Big Island. We're right next to Maui. You'll have a lot of fun there. I had some business on Oahu and flew back to Kona this afternoon. As we were coming in for a landing I looked out in the ocean and saw a whale breach, he was about 3/4 out of the water, did a turn to land on his back, and splash back down into the water. I love living here! The whales start coming late December and leave late march. If you come in Sept./Oct. you'll have good weather and less people since summer vacation is done and there's no major holidays. If you get over to the Big Island, give me a shout. I travel in the fall, so there's a chance I won't be here, but if I'm home you're welcome to a BBQ. If I can find it, I'd like to try to do the bone in and leave it like that on the table. That's a great suggestion, but the downside to living in paradise is that you can't always get everything here. I used to get a fresh slaughtered lamb each year from a rancher, but I haven't done that for a while. I should probably look him up again. I travel a lot and I remember having some great lamb in the Middle East, Africa, as well as in Europe. However, I still remember having a lamb dish in Kazakhstan that had some great spices, pull apart tender, and really juicy. It had more persian spices, like cinnamon, cardamom, etc. (these are my guesses, who knows if I'm right). I think I'll try to see if I can recreate the flavor profile. I'll probably put the lamb in the KK, cook some vegetables in our Tagine, then throw the lamb into the Tagine at the last minute after it's already cooked. I'm not sure when I'll be able to do this, but it's already fun trying to guess what spices I should use, etc. Aloha, jclarkhpa 23" Dark Autumn Nebula

I had some friends ask me to put two small briskets on the KK for them this weekend, and I jumped at the chance since I haven't been able to do anything for the past 3 weeks (Going into my busy season of the year at work). I decided to break my KK cooks into two. Low and slow on Saturday, then hot and fast with some tri-tips Sunday evening. I wasn't sure what to cook, and was tempted to keep working on my rib experiments. However, I decided to try something new. I was inspired by talisker63's post on Lamb Souvlaki and so went to the local market Saturday morning to see what I could find. I was able to get a boneless leg of lamb and decided to try it. Since it was boneless I had to tie it up with butcher string and put a quick rub on it. I used Dennis' suggestion about starting with a handful of charcoal, putting some wood on and letting it clear up, then put the rest of the charcoal in. I then threw on my heat diverter and my drip pan. I put on my lamb plus two small briskets. I was really trying to not foil it and get through the stall without doing anything, but I didn't want to stay up long after midnight and so I finally decided to foil. Around 10PM (started around 10AM) I pulled the meat off the KK and everything was around 190-195 degrees. I foiled the brisket and gave it to my friends and I let my lamb rest for an hour. After cutting the twine I saw the meat was tender and easy to pull apart. Here's a few photos of the pulled meat. It was absolutely delicious. It had a very mild flavor and was juicy. Today I cooked the wife and I breakfast burritos with scrambled eggs (with a hint of chipotle pepper seasoning), pulled lamb, tomatoes, and avocado. Very good. I have a little time this afternoon for a nap before I am going to crank the KK back up and cook some tri tip. Aloha, jclarkhpa 23" Dark Autumn Nebula