jeffshoaf

I live in NC. The proofing temp is pretty consistent all year but the humidity certainly varies a lot across the seasons and even during the season so that could be a big part of the difference I'm seeing; I know I worked my way up to 65% originally but I really don't remember how that time bridge the seasons - my steadfast lack of note taking bites me again! A lot of pizza folks proof in the refrigerator but I've avoided that because I want to have a fairly consistent process across batch sizes and go from one 10 to 12 inch pizza when it's just me up to twelve 12 to 14 inch pizzas for events and I just don't have room for the bigger batches in my refrigerator. I love bread and considered milling own flour and thought about using the Vitamix to start with to see if I enjoy it before investing in a more dedicated mill, but I'm not sure I want to go down another rabbit hole. Not sure if I want to try sourcing grain either. I'm not much of a bread baker; I've had bread machines for over 30 years and used my current one regularly before I went on a diet last year. I made a semi-serious stab at making it manually a few years ago but really didn't enjoy the process much. I was planning on starting sour dough when I retired last year but time got away from me and I went on a diet so I haven't followed through.

https://www.fontanaforniusa.com/

I use the PizzaApp+ app to calculate the proportions; the dough is just Anna 00 flour, water, salt, and instant yeast. 63% hydration, 28 hour room temp ferment. The 850 degree oven temp really helps with the oven spring. When I make just one pizza, I usually use my Breville Piaziolla electric oven; it only gets to 750 degrees and the crust doesn't puff as much. Before the pandemic, I was up to 65% hydration using Anna 00 flour. I'd been using that flour because my usual grocery store stocked it; I'd stock up when it occasionally went on sale so I had a pretty good inventory of it. My cat passed away and mice got into my my flour stockpile, then the grocery store ran out of that flour. I had no luck finding 00 flour locally and shipping is pretty expensive for flour, but I tried several other types and never got the results I wanted so I've been ordering larger volumes of Anna from Amazon but I've had to lower the hydration %; I'm not sure what's changed but the dough at 65% is much more difficult to handle now than it was last year. I rebag and store in the freezer even though I have another cat now keeping the mice under control.

It's a Fontana Forni oven; they have wood-burning versions but they recommend not using wood in the gas versions due to concerns about ash blocking the gas burner ports and causing a safety issue. The burner is at the rear and is almost the full width of the oven, resulting in very even heating. I asked if they had considered making a burner cover to address that and they said others had suggested that we will but the Italian manufacturer doesn't seem interested. This is my 2nd outdoor oven; the first was convertible between wood and gas but I never used wood; the gas is just to convenient. I have piped-in natural gas so I don't have to mess with gas canisters. This one is a big upgrade from my original Pizza Party oven and the American distributor is great to work with; they're a family-owned operation with the level of customer service approaching KK's. I really wanted a brick oven but I just couldn't justify the cost, especially for one with a gas burner. It would have taken 5 to 6 hours to bring the brick oven up to temperature (and days for it to cool back down) while this stainless oven heats up in 20 to 30 minutes. heavily insulated so it's pretty fuel efficient. All-in-all, I'm happy with the oven.

I made 10 pizzas using the outdoor gas oven for family a couple of weeks ago. My niece is dating a guy who works at dominoes so had a professional doing the topping; he's about sick of dominoes pizza but he ate plenty of my pseudo-neopolitan pies. It was the first big use of this oven; baked two at a time with the inside air temp at 850 to 875 degrees F. The floor temp was in the mid to high 900s. I didn't try to time any of the bakes but assume they were in the 90 second range for each pizza. I was very happy with results!

There was quite a lot of smoke initially but it went blue pretty quickly. The wood was kiln dried so very dry; I had newspaper tucked into the log cabins and I think a good percentage of the white smoke came from that paper. I waited for it to burn down to mostly embers before starting to cook; maybe 20 to 30 minutes. I'm still learning this grill and cooking with wood and this was really too much wood and too much heat; I can manage the cooking temp by raising the gates but burned my arm from the radiant heat while flipping the burgers. I had on heat gloves but they only reach about halfway between my wrist and elbow and the burn was in the exposed area below my elbow. I guess I need to get some welding gloves with gauntlets that reach my elbow.

There has been some discussion on the merits of fire brick vs grated floors with the main advantage of a grated floor being better air flow for a better burn. I grilled a big batch of burgers and hot dogs Saturday on my brick lined grill; as you can see in the attached pics, i had no issues with getting a good burn! One i put the food on, i was very busy and forgot to take pics but the results were very popular, especially the burgers. It was most attendees first ever wood-fired burgers, tho most assumed it was the burgers instead of the cooking method. I used members mark 80/20 1/3 lb frozen burgers for Sam's Club. The hot dogs were a hit too but wienie roasts over wood fires are well within most folks' experience around here.

I've been frustrated by lots of small chunks and dust with multiple brands over the last year or so but I think that has come from shipping and handling issues - I've had the issues with Fogo, Royal oak, and cowboy (a bit further back in the past) bought locally after having good luck with each of them before, as well as jealous devil ordered from Amazon. The JD from Amazon had obviously been abused; the bag wasn't brand but it was obviously best up. I've had much better luck with the last two bags of B&B that I bought at academy sports after finding out that they stock lots of outdoor cooking stuff; was going to try sourcing from Ace hardware locally but they're more expensive than academy. Academy stocks JD too; I may give it another try at some point.

I think you misspelled "obsessives"...

I looked up the rating for the stainless steel in my Shuns and it's rated at 60-61 HRC. I would have thought the would have been a bigger difference than the 0 to 30℅ this indicates.

i almost always want wings and pizza and beef ribs!

Like many of you, i have a bit of a knife fetish that I'm trying to keep under control. Unlike many of you, I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping it under control, but I've been sorely tempted by the Almazan Kitchen Serbian chefs knife. If you're not familiar with these, wander over to YouTube and do a search for Almazan Kitchen; you'll find numerous videos of a guy in Serbia cooking out in the woods or in a rustic kitchen and using a wooden-handled knife that resembles a rustic cleaver with a rounded blade. The videos show them using the knife for everything from chopping wood to flipping and serving food to slicing and chopping ingredients. They sell these knives on their website; i don't know if this is a traditional knife in that region, but there are a lot of different manufacturers offering similarly styled knives now. Since i have two full sets of kitchen knives (a Wustof trident set I've had for close to 30 years and a newer set of Shun stainless steel), I've been resisting these Serbian knifes, but my sister recently gave me one as a late retirement gift (I retired last year but she has been in some financial difficulties and recently got some relief). They offer both stainless and carbon steel versions; mine is the carbon steel. The on-line reviews often say the knives are extremely sharp right out of the box; mine was not - at least not in comparison with my Shuns. I put a quick edge on it using a diamond stone but didn't spend a lot of time on it; that helped some but it still wasn't as sharp as shown in the videos. i took a bit more time this afternoon and dug out my Edge Pro sharpening system to bring it up to snuff. I'm happy to report that the results are impressive; i quickly brought it up to a very usable degree of sharpness that rivals the out-of-box sharpness of my Shuns - and it was much easier to get there than it is to sharpen the extremely hard stainless steel of the Shuns. I don't expect the edge to last as long on the carbon steel knife but i don't yet have a feel for it. i don't see this as being a big deal unless it dulls very quickly since it's so easy to bring back an edge. The knife handle is attractive and fairly comfortable. The blade thickness is somewhere between the widths of my Shun and Wustof chefs knives and doesn't flex. There's a slightly wider section on the spine near the handle that allows you to use your thumb or index finger to apply more pressure when needed; this feels a little odd when i use my normal knife grip and pinch the blade but it's not uncomfortable. The blade shape takes some getting used to. As mentioned earlier, the shape is similar to a traditional cleaver except the blade is rounded; i haven't used a nakiri but i think the Serbian knife probably feels like a thicker version of one except for double bevel on the Serbian knife. I have a heavy Wustof cleaver i use for chopping meat and bone but the Wustof is substantially thicker and heavier and not suitable for slicing or general kitchen use like the new knife is. While substantially lighter than the Wustof cleaver, it's noticeably heavier than my Shun and Wustof chefs knives. It feels well balanced. After sharpening, i sliced up some very ripe peaches. The knife seemed to slice through the peel and flesh of the peaches without me applying any noticeable pressure; i assume the weight of the blade applied sufficient pressure. If you've cut very ripe peaches before, you know that it's easy to mush up the flesh while cutting through the peel if the knife isn't very sharp or if you don't use enough slicing motion for the amount of applied pressure; i tried several slicing motions and didn't experience any of this mushing. While the Alzaman Kitchen videos show the knife bring used to peel fruit and veggies, i found the width of the blade uncomfortable for peeling the peach slices so i grabbed my Shun paring knife. I think I'll get more comfortable using the knife for this finer work as i get used to the width of the blade. My conclusion: While i don't think this will replace the Shuns as my kitchen workhorse knives, i think i will use it extensively for some jobs and i will make it my primary knife to take outside for use at the KK and other grills instead of my Wustofs . Since i have the optional sheath, I'll have less concern with lugging and potentially dropping other knives or having an exposed knife lying on a table or shelf outdoors. it performs well enough to replace several knives while cooking and serving outside. It's definately a nice addition to my knife arsenal and it's rustic appearance and different design will certainly be a conversation starter.

I have an edge pro that uses the same concept but has suction cups instead of the base clamp and it doesn't have the blade clamp. https://www.edgeproinc.com/

Two things that directly lead to my weight loss: I retired. When working, i had a long time between breakfast and lunch and was always very hungry at lunch so I ate too early and too much at lunch. I was then very hungry again at dinner and i are too much then as well as getting take-out too often. I'm sleeping later now which shortens the time between breakfast and lunch so I'm eating less at lunch so i have one "real" meal each day instead of two. I used Noom which helped me with portion control and better balance in my meals; it also helped with strategies for dealing with different circumstances that can lead to overeating. I have some pretty serious back and neck issues as well as severe sleep apnea; i hoped losing weight would help with bit of these but it hasn't. i do feel a bit better overall though and I'm moving better. I'm dreading having to refresh my wardrobe tho - really don't like shopping for clothes. I did make an amazing discovery - losing weight has improved my vision! I'm can now see body parts i hadn't seen in years!

I have to wear a belt because suspenders are irritating and my pants will fall down otherwise. They used to be prone to falling due to my belly pushing them down but since I've lost 40 lbs, they fall down because they're too loose; I'm not buying new pants until I'm done with the weight loss program even though it's stalled lately. i solved the belt notch issue by getting a grip6 belt: https://grip6.com/

While i like the idea of a big butchers block style cutting board, I don't really have room for one built into a cart, a place to leave a board out, or the desire to move a heavy board in and out of a storage spot. I discovered Epicurean boards a few years back and they've worked well for me. They're made of a paper-based composite and are light, hold up well to use, are easy on knives, and (maybe) best of all, dishwasher safe. While not as decorative as a nice end-grain butchers block, they're pretty attractive and available in several colors. I highly recommend them even though they seem a little expensive for such a light weight board. I've needed a new carving board with a groove to catch juices but was hoping to find one on sale but haven't had any luck. I was about to give up and pay full price for one, but while looking at the options available on the Epicurean site, i noticed a link to their outlet store. While still not inexpensive, the offerings there are at a pretty good discount. The site indicates that the items in the outlet have cosmetic blemishes that don't affect the item's performance. Anyway, i ordered a good sized grooved board last week and it was delivered yesterday. I'm happy to report that i can't find any blemishes on it at all! If you're in need of a cutting board, carving board, serving tray, pizza/bread/pastry peel, I encourage you to check them out: https://epicureanfactoryoutlet.com/

I don't think I've ever heard of bone-in brisket. I'm not a brisket fan but I've done the meat paste thing with pork Boston butts - that's one of the things that led to my prep gloves question in the banter section of the forum; salt and several types of ground pepper rubbed into all the nicks and cuts I always seem to have on my hands and fingers is not a lot of fun!

I've been watching a lot of cooking videos and shows and notice a lot of both professional and amateur cooks/chefs wearing rubber gloves to do food prep. I don't like wearing them; I find them hot and uncomfortable although I do give then serious consideration when applying rubs with my perpetually cut and knicked up hands and fingers. I understand the concerns about cross contamination but I'm careful to wash my hands often when dealing with that possibility. I just don't see the need in a home environment with fewer time constraints than found in a restaurant or catering environment. So... Do you wear gloves during prep? If so, why?

My doorbell rang again a little while ago; the same ups driver was back with my drip pan! He dug around in his truck and found it; he didn't know why the other package was mislabeled.

My door bell rang a little while ago so i peeked out the window to see who was there and saw a package on the porch; it was too narrow to be my drip pan. The package indicated that it contained mulching blades for a Toro mower; not only did i not order mulching blades for a Toro mower, i don't have a Toro mower... The original shipping label has a different recipient and address listed but a second UPS label had been attached with my name and address. The UPS driver was just going back to his truck after dropping off a package across the street so i have the package back to him. About 15 minutes later, i got an email notification that my package has been delivered. <sigh> I've reported the issue via the UPS claims site; i had to report it as a lost package since they don't have an option to report delivery of a wrong package. Hopefully, someone will get my do pan when they're expecting mower blades and put it back into the UPS system and I'll get it in a day or two. Good thing i don't plan on using it in the immediate future!

I finally ordered a double bottom drip pan for my 23" kk and it was due for delivery today but I got a notice from UPS saying it was delayed due to a train derailment... I order a lot of stuff and have occasional delays but that's a first for me!

It's less about the amount of smoke as it is the type of smoke - acrid white smoke vs, "clean" blue smoke. If you're happy with the smoke flavor you're getting now, you can use the same technique with your pending KK and get similar results, only with better moisture retention and less fuel consumption - but if you try the smoke pot, you'll probably not go back to your old method. Your food will have a good smoke flavor without a harsh flavor tone you get from the white smoke. Of course, some folks like that harsh "bite". Dennis has provided a good test method - if you get the smoked in your eyes and your eyes burn, that's the harsh white smoke. If your eyes don't burn, that's the clean blue smoke. Traditional smoking (for flavor instead of preservation) has you letting the wood burn down to embers before adding the food so that the harsh smoke and the steam has burnt off. The amount of wood used is limited to keep the temps down so for long cooks; this initial burn is often done in a separate area or burn barrel and the embers shoveled under the food. Of course, this is a lot of work and requires constant vigilance to maintain the desired cooking temperature. Offset smokers were developed to make this a bit easier; by separating the fuel from the food and throttling the amount of heat that transfers across, the wood can be burnt at a higher temperature so that all the nasty stuff gets burnt out of the smoke before the smoke touched the food. While requiring less work than burning the wood down to embers before moving to the cook, this method does require more fuel and vigilance to keep the fire fueled. Kamados are a different creature - fuel efficient and and to maintain low temps without on-going vigilance, but the fire isn't big or hot enough to burn off the nasty stuff from the resulting smoke. I believe that they're traditionally fueled with just charcoal in the far East where they were originally developed but we're trying to get the smoked flavor we love so much. The smoke pot allows us to get that clean smoke with small fires by burning the wood and forcing the resulting smoke down into the hotter fire to burn off the nasty stuff. I've been more wordy in this post than i usually am but I've been thinking a lot about this recently. I have a new Santa Maria grill and have been cooking with wood instead of charcoal and have tried cooking over the wood before it's burned down to embers and after it's burned down; while this open cooking produces less of a smoke flavor than i get with the closed kk environment, the difference is so pretty obvious.

The advantage of using a probe thermometer is that you don't have to open the lid to check on your food. A temp controller certainly isn't necessary. I have a BBQ Guru but I'm only using it so i can relax and sleep when doing an overnight cook - without it, i find myself just drowsing and constantly checking the cook temps. I have the CyberQ Cloud; I don't like that the monitoring is via the web and alerts come as texts and emails - I'd much rather have an app so that the alerts are separate than the other texts and emails i get but it works well enough that I won't spend the $$ to get something else. I think their newer controller has an app. They do have a controller that doesn't need an app or web access but i don't think it provides remote monitoring. For monitoring food and cook temps for shorter cooks, I'm currently using a Meater Block (upgraded from a Meater+); it's totally wireless which makes it more convenient since there aren't any probe cables to deal with when flipping or moving the food; of course, it requires an app. Thermoworks makes some great stuff (I have a thermopen) but i haven't dug into the details of their controllers and monitoring stuff since i have those needs covered with the Guru and Meater; others on the forum are using some of their stuff and will hopefully chime in on those.

I never wrap my butts but they almost always come apart when i take them off the kk!

It was a big fire! After letting most of the wood on the floor burn down to embers, i loaded the chickens and waited about 30 minutes before adding the skewers. After the chickens and skewers were done, grilled asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and some mixed greens in grilling baskets. It took about an hour and a half to cook everything; added 5 or 6 additional splits to the brassero during the cook so there's definitely more fuel consumption than with the kk. It was certainly hot! I have some grilling gloves with short gauntlets but i need some welding gloves or something else that covers my arms to the elbow when raking coals from under the brassero.