jdbower

If you're a Costco member (and who isn't on this board?) look for their Formaggio marinaded fresh mozzarella. It comes in a 40oz plastic tub and is marinaded in largely vegetable and olive oil. Not only are they the perfect size for dropping on a pizza and they last much longer, but they're also a bit more firm in texture than good fresh mozz (which I doubt you can even buy in a store!). This means they take a little longer to melt - a boon for you but a bane for me as I like them a little browned and crispy!

Re: Pallet Share While this stuff is, of course, fairly new some similar stuff from another company lasts for many years as long as you keep it dry. I wouldn't be surprised if it was essentially the same stuff after 3-5 years as long as you keep it away from moisture.

You don't need to soak the wood for a KK, you can either use large chunks or, if you have chips, you can use a smoke pot. A smoke pot is essentially any metal contraption that restricts the oxygen, you want to "cook" the smoke out of the wood but not burn it. And afterwords you get nice chunks of lump.

Since DJ's too lazy to look 5 threads down... viewtopic.php?t=2929

Sadly nothing on the grill today, I'm using the wok to stir-fry some kielbasa, potatoes and onions over egg noodles with a side of steamed corn. I love this wok, instantly hot but still very controllable heat - I've got a low simmer going now.

My thoughts (the publishable ones) are that cooking hers before the pizza stone is fully soaked will give her the softer crust. As long as I'm adding more heat to the stone via the fire than the pizza is subtracting the stone should be hotter the second time around. Of course, much experimentation is in order and chances are there will be some considerable elapsed time between removing pizza #1 and installing pizza #2 to further heat the surface of the stone.

I've been taking baby steps with pizzas. Last week I did a frozen rising crust pizza just as an experiment. I kept the temps about the same as the oven and cooked for about the same amount of time just to see if there was a difference. Other than a slightly smokey taste to the pepperoni and a hint at the crust there really wasn't much - and that was cooking at 400F for close to half an hour. I should have let the pizza stone heat soak a bit longer, the crust was a bit soft to me but the wife likes soft crust. Needless to say this was "pizza" rather than pizza : Yesterday I did a Costco take-and-bake pizza. A bit of a step up and I added some marinated fresh mozzarella and some tomatoes to half. This time I went up to between 500 and 600F and cooked for less time. There was a minor issue in that the pizza stone that comes with the 23" is slightly too small for the Costco 16" pizza, something I didn't think about until after I had started the 19.5" up. The dome temps were a bit tougher to maintain with the large pizza covering the entire grill and the underside of the direct-cooked edges of the crust came out "cajun style" - but it was only the outer 1/2" or so. Other than a rogue tomato making a break for the charcoal it was still delicious and remarkably evenly cooked. A hot pizza stone got the crust crispier and drizzling on a little hot pepper oil afterwords sealed the deal. Next time I'll probably make smaller individual pizzas from scratch and do the wife's first to maintain a softer crust before the pizza stone has a chance to heat up for mine. The nice thing about individual pizzas is that I can make mine with tuna and onion - a surprisingly tasty combination.

Very nice (both the cooker and the car!), although it looks like Dennis is now shipping the lids separately. Interesting, mine came all in a single unit. Here's the album, and below are the pictures.

Congrats! Just in time for the holiday weekend There is a bit of a waiting period before you can post images, but if you like you can PM me and I'd be happy to post them for you.

Congrats! Just in time for the holiday weekend here in the States! I was just joking with my wife that we need to go out and buy meat so I can have the first official cook of the year, despite the ham I had on 2 January.

Today Dave was featured in an ABC7 segment found here: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=6820652 This is at least his third appearance, with one at New Years (sorry, they couldn't get the KK into the studio and didn't want to brave the winter Chicago weather ): http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=6576638 And another a year ago in May 2008: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=6151633 Nice work all around, nice to have a local celebrity here!

I'm most surprised by the number of people who don't seem to use sauce at all - they've got the most votes. Vinegar on pulled meats and molasses on chicken and ribs I think we agree on (I had forgotten about ribs, but a nice dry rub is also pretty good - especially when eating in public without a raincoat ). Steak poses an interesting question. I've used balsamic marinades which turned out very well, but that doesn't count as a sauce. For a tender steak (barring au jus on a prime rib) I don't like any sauces at all, but Legal Seafood has a horseradish butter that they use on their fillet mignon that I may try to make sometime. For the steaks with a more firm texture sometimes I do like pushing them up to a more medium doneness and using some steak sauce. These cuts are also good with a rub for a little extra flavor, but now I'm wondering if the proper molasses BBQ sauce caramelized on them during the cook would also complement them for a change of pace. Of course these are usually the cuts that I buy on sale so they frequently need a little help over a nice premium cut.

Re: Newbie Questions I'm sure there are a lot of variables with this (pork or beef? Short or spare?), but you may be better off searching the forum for pictures of ribs. I'll let others who've loaded up their cooker answer this one. Having both, I'd say they're close. I keep my high temp cooks on the 19.5" these days but that's just because I have lump in there and use the 23" for low-and-slows. The 19.5" will heat up a bit faster because it's smaller and lighter, but I think the airflow is a bit better in the 23" so that helps even things out. I can measure, but the sear grills are about the same height.

When it comes to BBQ, which one is king in your book? Both the Eastern vinegar-based BBQs and the thicker tomato-based sweeter sauces are tasty in their own way, but I've got to lean towards a nice vinegar sauce on some pulled meat as my favorite (at least this week!). However I can also appreciate a thicker sauce on chicken or in some beans. While on a conference call with some fine people from Kansas City a while ago the subject of BBQ came up and I was rather dismayed at how polarized they were against vinegar-based sauces. Is this a sacred thing in the heart of BBQ country or were these people an anomaly and most like all things cooked low and slow regardless of the sauce consistency? I do wonder about one thing; most of the thicker sauces have a distinct flavor of molasses, but what do they do with the rest of the mole?

Just as a reminder for Sanny, arm hair and eyebrows do not make good smokewoods! I tend to do a lot more poultry and find that apple and hickory work well adding a bit of sweetness in the process. Mesquite seems a bit sharper but holds up well against pork and beef. But I guess it all depends on the audience, for example the better the cut of beef the less flavoring I like to use. A sirloin usually gets a dusting of a rub (but generally cooks fast enough not to be able to use smoke), but a thick and juicy fillet mignon or rib roast goes au naturale onto KKEC.

KKEC does take a while to come up to temperatures above ~300F or so but having power draft (Stoker/Guru) does help. For low-and-slows I use KKEC, but for higher temps I do what FM does and use the local varieties of lump. Wally World by me doesn't sell much other than binder-filled briquettes, but Lowes sells Cowboy and the grocery stores sell some more premium brands. Frankly for high temp cooks I'm not sure I can tell the difference other than Cowboy has a bit more of that rather relaxing tinging sound when it lights.

Re: Rosemary Chicken I don't know that "subcutaneous space" has even been used on this forum before

And it's now also on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/watch/72718/nbc-tod ... -4,vclip,1 If you've got an XBox 360 or PS3 you can use PlayOn to watch it over and over again on your TV with PlayOn.

I'm curious about the number unique IP hits for the next few days - hopefully you've garnered a bunch more well-deserved attention and admiration!

I got both at the same time, I have the 23" set up with Dennis' extruded coconut charcoal for low temp (<350F or so) cooks and the 19.5" set up with hardwood lump for high temp grilling. This allows me to do things like this weekend when I imagined (was too busy to take pictures so it didn't happen!) that I had a turkey going at 325F in the 23" while I was cooking porterhouses at 500F in the 19.5". For shipping I'd shoot Dennis an email for a new quote - they change frequently and sometimes dramatically. It will also vary if you need a liftgate (I have a forklift so I could save a bit on that). I special ordered mine and they took roughly a month or so to get to me if I remember correctly. If you find ones you like in the warehouse in CA you can probably get them in a week or two. You can check out the threads here to see if any colors look interesting to you.

Sorry, this cooker's already been claimed by a lucky owner!

Welcome! The only real answer, of course, is that you should buy one of each! I have both the 19.5" and the 23", but if I could only choose one it would be the 23". The 19.5" is still a great unit and has two benefits. One is that it's a bit cheaper, the other is that it's a bit smaller if you need to keep it on a balcony or small patio. You can also see some more comparisons here, and feel free to ask me about any details I'm missing. And if you want to make a trip to Framingham I'd be happy to show you them in person. As for the model, really there's only one that's actively being made and that's the Gen II OTB. Most people think as you do, why skimp on a few hundred when you're already dropping the dough on the best grill out there. There are a few supremes in the inventory list if you want to save a bit and get a rapid shipment, the reality is that they both cook food about the same so it's just a matter of settling for the best of the best instead of the best of the best of the best.

Nah, Dennis uses Macs and they don't always work right so there was a duplicate post you responded to. I've merged the topics.