jdbower

Salvaging or Sacrilege? I found the ends of the cut much better than the more rare center of the cut - I would say erring on the side of medium would be a big benefit. I have to confess, my wife wanted chili and the leftover tri-tip was diced, lightly pan fried with garlic and ground beef, and dumped into the chili pot with the rest of the ingredients. It adds a very nice flavor to the chili and being more well done (as well as diced) takes care of my texture issues. So is this an acceptable use for the cut or a sin tantamount to ketchup on a fillet mignon?

That's actually quite the interesting question. I'm sure there are regional differences, but there may also be differences depending on what part of speech "BBQ" is. For me (growing up in NJ with parents from PA farmland and the greater Cleveland area): "A BBQ" was any family get together that happens outdoors. I think it's assumed that something will also be cooked outdoors but I think a few exceptions were made. "BBQ" the food group was seldom used but often relegated to the pulled meat variety with sauce. At a BBQ, ironically, BBQ was rarely served at my house. "BBQ" as a verb wasn't used much either. One grilled. And it's what I still call grilling, high temperature cooking over a flame. I suppose the open pit cooking of chicken including a BBQ sauce baste that we did on the farm could have been called BBQing. Now I consider BBQing to be cooking anything from about 250-350F over charcoal (usually with smoke, but the sauce is definitely optional). Grilling is 400F and above and should be charcoal, but I'll allow gas in a pinch (350-400F is ambiguous and can go either way). Anything less than 250F or so is smoking. Not really hard and fast definitions, but they work for me

It's the root of all civilization, of course! An interesting article theorizes that it was the ability to cook food that was the driving distinguishing feature that allowed humans to become the dominant species. I guess that makes a KK the pinnacle of civilization, then

Re: While posting this morning I realized I was late for wor I love it! They look great!

I was hoping you'd say something like that You wouldn't happen to have a source for that, would you? 1400 degree protection would come in handy for a lot of things.

The 1 hour was from memory (a few days after the fact) I took a look at the timestamps of some pictures and it looks like it was 42 minutes from the time I put the steak on the grill to the time it came off, that includes the time it would have taken for the grill to get back up to temp once I closed the lid. Temp going on was slightly above fridge temps, maybe 40-45F or so. I'll try a non-marinaded version next time and I may try slicing it before cooking. Good idea about some size indication on the cut, I'll have to add that next time. For the picture details here's what I did. First set up a tripod or another fixed support, you'll want two or more pictures with exactly the same framing. Take one picture exposing for the flames, most cameras will do this automatically if you disable the flash. Then take one exposing for the meat, again the easiest way may be just to enable the flash. For those of you with cameras that support it you can also look into something called "spot metering" - I may explore that option the next time around but I was getting hungry. You can also just adjust the exposure or use something called "bracketing" which will take a sequence of shots from underexposed through overexposed. I used Photoshop CS3 Extended but I'm sure many other (cheaper!) programs that support layers have similar functions. Load the shot exposed for the flames into the program. Then load the shot exposed for the meat. Use the Lasso tool on the meat shot to select just the meat, get close to the edges of the meat but it's not critical to be 100% exact. Copy the meat and paste it into the shot exposed for the flames. This should appear as another layer and it will have a weird look to it as it'll be a sharp cutoff between the two images. Adjust the layer's opacity until you get the look you want, this will allow the edges to blur together and help the layers to blend properly. In this image I used about 67% opacity.

Meat: Chicken Brine: ~18 hours in Kosher salt Fuel: Cowboy Smoke: None Method: Indirect, Main Grill, Roadside baste Rotisserie: No Pit Temp: 350 Pull Temp: 160 Time: About 3 hours Draft Control: Stoker + StokerLog I was too lazy to change out the charcoal, but 350 could go either way when it comes to lump vs. extruded. No smoke this time, but my wife is addicted to this roadside baste. This time I tried red wine vinegar, but the verdict was that, while delicious, she prefers the apple cider I used on a turkey breast. Maybe one of these days I'll actually try the white vinegar that the recipe recommends Needless to say it was delicious and experimenting with vinegars just means I need to make it over and over and over again!

And I was thinking he had issues in the past with too many BUIs - BBQing Under the Influence.

The marinade may have played a factor. I tend to like my steaks buttery-smooth (fillet mignon, prime rib) or firm and seasoned like a sirloin with a nice rub. The tri-tip was kind of a combination of the two, not quite tender and not quite firm. Rather than being "steaky" with a more uniform consistency it was more clear I was eating a muscle - if that makes any sense. I think it would have been a bit better had I let it cook a little longer and gotten it more on the medium side of medium rare. I'm certainly open to trying another one as a change of pace and next time maybe I'll try to find one that hasn't been marinaded to compare.

Looks like they'll be tasty! Out of curiosity, what do you use that rubber tubing out of your Polder port for?

Meat: Morton's of Omaha Tri-Tip from Costco Brine: Pre-marinaded with papaya enzymes among other things Fuel: Cowboy Smoke: None Method: Direct, Lower Grill Rotisserie: No Pit Temp: 450-550 Pull Temp: 135 Time: About 40 minutes Draft Control: Manual I found a pre-marinaded Tri-Tip at Costco so I figured I'd give it a shot. Building a high temp fire at night really shows an impressive glow from underneath the KK: I also experimented with some HDR photography. I used my tripod (a nice Gitzo CF model with a Markins M20 head) and took one picture exposing for the flames which left the meat very dark, then I took another and popped the flash which muted the inferno in the KK but showed the meat nicely. Then I combined them in post: The results were tender and juicy with a strong beefy flavor to it, but next time around I may add a rub to the meat. I ended up measuring the temps at the thin end of the cut which made the part we ate fresh from the grill a perfect temperature but left the rest of the meat slightly underdone so it should be perfect when reheated. All-in-all it's not my favorite cut of meat from a texture standpoint but it was still very good. I also need to bring in my tripod for the finished shots, there's not much in focus handheld at F1.4

For those interested the Stoker bulkhead adapter outside diameter measures 1.25" however there is a retaining clip that extends to 1.4". This clip can compress significantly and can easily be removed if needed. I'm hoping that the inside diameter of the Guru inducer tube measures between 1.3" and 1.4" so it can be a universal solution, otherwise I'm sure Rock can easily find a slightly smaller bulkhead adapter. Since it would make it easy for Guru users to upgrade ( ) to a Stoker without investing in a new blower mounting scheme I'm sure Rock would see a business case.

Think the smaller Guru port will still accept the bulkhead adapter from the Stoker? My guess is yes, but if you like I can take some measurements for you.

With cookers that look like that, in that setting, and food that tastes, well, like Chris Lilly cooked it on a KK you may want to make sure there's a credit card reader and the latest shipment from Indonesia at the party! Welcome aboard Chris and congratulations Dennis.

That he does! Happy birthday and enjoy your new grinders!

It was unseasonably warm today so I decided to grill up some Costco Brats. I dumped the KKEC into a metal bucket I bought for just such a purpose and loaded the old girl up with lump (Cowboy, it was all I could find on a short notice but it gets the job done). I did debate long and hard about whether or not to just fill up the 19.5" with lump, but I just can't bring myself to get her dirty yet. Longer term I think I'll keep lump in the 19.5" and KKEC in the 23" but for now the little one remains pure. I felt a little naked without the Stoker but it's not like grilling is hard. Fire hot. Apply food. Food hot. Getting the Cowboy up to 500F or so was easier than getting the KKEC to 350 and I got to hear that familiar tinkle as it caught fire. I cooked on the main grill rotating frequently, next time I may try the sear grill. I pricked my brats with the Thermapen to let the juices out - I like them a little dried out but the wife doesn't. They came out great: Nice crispy skin and pretty flavorful (Kayem, a local brand). A little Guldens spicy brown mustard and they really hit the spot. This is the first meal that I can't say was significantly better on the KK than on my old Weber Kettle (no real magic to high temp grilling of brats), but I can honestly say that I enjoyed cooking it a lot more.

Wow! Thanks Syzygies! We've got an Indian food store nearby (still searching for a decent Chinese store, but hopefully an H-Mart will open in Burlington, MA soon) and having some good Tandoori Chicken at a restaurant was one of the last straws that convinced the wife that a KK would be a good investment. Thanks for the pointers on how to deliver, looks delicious.

I'm guessing there's some interesting postdoc work in thermodynamics if you want to find the ideal location, but splitting the difference sounds good to me. If you've got an oblong meat shape I'd also put the probe along the long edge - this will give you more space between the side of the meat and the side of the cooker.

I think the best answer is "whatever works for you". IMO the pit temperature isn't all that important in absolute terms, it's how the meat comes out that matters. As long as you're consistent in your measurements you should be mostly consistent in the outcome, so if you find a combination of pit and/or dome temps that work for you I wouldn't sweat which one is more accurate. A few thoughts: What you're seeing is close to what I see, my pit temp is usually lower than my dome temp when cooking indirect but I don't think the change is as dramatic as yours, I'll have to pay more attention next time but I'd guess that it's closer to FM's 10-20 degrees. The closer your pit probe is to the meat the colder it will read. This will have an interesting effect of gradually decreasing the temperature over the life of the cook as the meat gets hotter. Conversely, if you put the pit probe too far away from the meat you may catch the thermals coming around the heat deflector and it'll read too hot. You may also want to calibrate both thermometers if you haven't done so. I calibrated my dome thermometer in boiling water before I used it (but haven't checked to see if it's still OK after being in subfreezing weather much of the time). I never bothered to check my Stoker probes for accuracy, but my end results have been fine so even if they're off it doesn't bother me. BBQ Guru sells a probe tree that can hold multiple pit probes. This could be an interesting way to check the temperature at various levels in the grill but I don't know how the Stoker reacts to multiple pit probes tied to the same blower.

I'm guessing it'll be OK to leave it out, but the amount is about right for a single cook. With frequent slatherings during the cook I'm usually left with only a small amount at the end - which I add to the leftovers to help to keep them moist even when I just pick straight from the fridge. I usually make it just before the cook as well, that way I can select a vinegar type based on mood. Dissolving speed hasn't been an issue - there's a lot of liquid so a few shakes in a Tupperware container before I pour it into the bottle and it's good. You'll need to shake before applying anyway since the oil will separate. I use olive oil so I learned from the first go around that you should bring it in between uses - olive oil tends to congeal at the low temperatures we've got outside.

Experimenting with a quick reference scorecard for the cook: Meat: Turkey Breast Brine: Salt, sugar, apple cider vinegar for ~24 hours Fuel: KK Extruded Coconut Smoke: Applewood Smoke Pellets Method: Indirect, Main Grill, with basting Rotisserie: No Pit Temp: 325 Final Temp: 160 Time: About 3 hours Draft Control: Stoker I've always been curious about the "turkey breast" in the meat section, but I've never had to opportunity to actually try it. My wife and I are a good match, she likes dark meat and I like white meat but this has always made getting a breast of turkey a difficult thing. I decided to throw caution to the wind and get one because a whole turkey is a bit hard for the two of us to finish. I brined it in a stockpot in the fridge with salt, a little sugar, and some apple cider vinegar for about 24 hours. I then made some of LarryR's Roadside baste (although it makes it sound like I found the turkey on the side of the road with tire marks down the middle...). Last time I substituted the white vinegar for balsamic which was not bad substitution (although it does change the flavor a lot). This time I decided on an apple cider vinegar to complement the smoke. I also experimented with a flavor injector a few places in the breast because the recipe makes just a little more than my old soy sauce bottle can hold. Since the last cook I did manage to attach the wheels on my home-made (or at least home-modified) cart a bit better, a hole saw, a 2x4, and a 3lb sledge did the trick. I basted with the roadside sauce every 20-30 minutes or so but didn't bother to turn the turkey. I was a bit worried about the results since not only would this need to sell the wife on KK-style white meat, but it was also competing against the rotisserie style chicken I did last time. The results were highly successful. The apple cider vinegar gave it a much different flavor than the balsamic I used last time, a bit more subtle which let the natural turkey flavors out more. The breast was very juicy, even to my wife's standards. While it was definitely sufficiently moist and tender for her, she still misses the "greasiness" of the dark meat which is something (thankfully!) the KK can't really help with. I guess we'll have to alternate between turkey breast and whole chicken - compromising doesn't seem like much of a compromise to me I'm not sure about the flavor injector. I may need to experiment a bit more with technique, but other than a few dark streaks I didn't notice much. I'll have to practice with my technique with a syringe I guess. Granted this baste was designed for external use only, but I like vinegar enough I put the last of the bottle over the carved leftovers. One thing that's hard to get used to is seeing pinkness in my poultry. There's the initial shock of seeing bright pink after the first slice and wondering what went wrong and how you're going to keep the juices in while it finishes cooking. And then you realize that the pink is on the OUTSIDE of the meat which means it's a smoke ring and not underdone.

Re: Roadside Chicken Having tried this twice, I feel the need to emphasize this point.

Think of it this way. When you cook meat you've got a high outside temperature in the cooker (enough to boil water). Cooking is the art of allowing that outside temperature to raise the internal temperature to a certain point. The colder the inside temperature starts the more the outside is exposed to high temperatures and the outer parts tend to be much more well done than the inner parts. By letting the meat warm up outside the cooker you're not exposing it to temperatures that will actually cook it, so this warm up time is "free" and is more even than if it were in the cooker. On the flip side, leaving meat out at room temperature does a few things. It exposes it to bacteria and insects, it causes the blood to oxidize and harden, and the cold slows down the decomposition process. Warming the meat in a sealed container fixes the first two, and the last one shouldn't be a huge issue for just a few hours. I usually only warm my "dry" large meat chunks for a short period of time, but it's still cold when it goes on the grill. However, I do tend to add some hot water to my brines before I'm ready to start to raise the temperature so my "wet" meat tends to be closer to room temp. In either case, I haven't cooked anything absolutely huge so I don't think a 5lb roast would see that much difference. As another consideration, Pittsburgh-ians likes their "black-and-blue" steaks which are burned on the outside and tar-tar on the inside so there is something to be said for not doing this.

I had to chew three Tums just reading that - it looks like a bacon-lovers dream!