wilburpan

You got me. The problem is, I wasn’t good at negotiating a good rate for my commission. As a result, I’ll hit my break-even point on Smaug when I sell 500,000 grills for Dennis. (In case there are any humor-impaired folks out there, I paid full price for Smaug. No discounts.) That was a red flag for me. If you want to know who the true customers of an operation are, look to see who benefits from their policies and who doesn’t. The “no customer service discussion rule†benefits grill companies, and hinders potential customers.

ck, any Asian grocery stores by you? That's where I get our whole ducks and chickens.

Over on KG, I’ve been on the receiving end of a “That guy has more money than brains†attitude on occasion when talking about Smaug. That’s human nature, I guess, exacerbated by the fact that since I went straight for a KK grill as my first kamado grill, that was definitely an outlier in terms of how folks get into this realm of cooking. KG has a bit of an issue in that the management there has a clear affiliation with KJ the company, and maybe that gives cover to folks piling on people who like other brands of grills. In addition, there have been instances where I’ve been convinced that the actions taken by management there were not in the best interests of the members.

Very nice!

The expression on your face says it all. Congratulations!

Was there a particular thread over on KG that prompted this?

Nice looking sausage! And this is coming from someone who’s not a big fan of sausage made from poultry.

I haven’t had a whole lot of experience trying out other kamado grills, but here’s another data point to support this. One time, we had friends over for pulled pork. One of our friends brought over some marinated shrimp. After the pork was done, I opened up the vents to get Smaug up to a pretty hot temperature, and cooked the shrimp. Our friend commented that she couldn’t believe the nice smoky flavor that was added just from cooking the shrimp on Smaug. She’s made this at home and brought the same shrimp to other cookouts, and she said that the shrimp cooked on Smaug was just better because of the smokiness.

Collecting drippings to use as a sauce is a time-honored technique when roasting a piece of meat or poultry in an oven. The keys in making this successful are: (1) make sure that the roasting pan is thick enough so that the drippings don’t scorch, and ( pour off any accumulated fat. When you’re done with the roasting process, you can take the meat out of the pan, pour off the fat, put the roasting pan on the stove over medium heat, sauté some minced onions/garlic/leeks/shallots in the pan using the residual fat or with some butter, and deglaze the pan with whatever you would like (wine, stock, water). That will make a nice sauce. If you collect the drippings from a low and slow cook, you could do the same thing, if there was a way to keep the drippings from scorching. There are a few things that have steered me away from doing this. First, with the types of meat that I’ve been cooking, managing the amount of fat that collects in the drip pan is problematic. Second, I’ve found that the low and slows that I’ve done result in meat that is so flavorful and moist that I don’t need much help in the way of sauce. Third, controlling the scorching has been an issue for me. Every time I’ve tried using the drip pan that came with Smaug, there’s been some scorching, and cleaning that stuff off has been a bear. Finally, I make a BBQ sauce that works well on its own. I think that if I added drippings to the sauce, that could add some flavor, but it’s not worth the effort. Overall, I just use the deflector plate and no drip pan. Before CC has a coronary , I do keep Smaug pretty clean despite this method. Gunk does collect on the deflector plate over the course of a cook, but after I’m done, I’ll typically take the main grate and deflector out, open up all the vents to let the fire get ripping hot to clean out the inside a bit, put the grate back on to burn off the gunk, and finally put the deflector plate upside down to scorch the gunk. Then I’ll scrape off the carbonized residue from the deflector with a paint scraper, and use Grillfloss on the grate. I had mentioned before that I haven’t really tried adding smoking woods to low and slow cooks yet, relying on whatever the charcoal provided. It occurs to me that some smoke flavor could be coming from drippings burning on the deflector plate as the cook goes on.

Definitely! Especially the bit about how IT is a guide to let you know when to start probing.

Believe it or not, I have yet to try using wood chunks for smoking on any of my cooks. Any smokiness in my cooks so far was generated by the charcoal itself, or from drippings hitting the hot parts of the grill during a cook. I do woodworking as a hobby, so I have loads of scrap cherry, maple, and white oak, and one day I’ll give smoking woods a try. Up to now I’ve been concentrating on my technique before adding in another variable.

Looking forward to progress updates! The dark meat parts of a duck are underrated for cooking. When we were in China last year, in Beijing we made a habit of stopping by this hole in the wall dumpling place by our hotel for breakfast, and my younger son always had a duck drumstick for breakfast.

That looks amazing! Your brisket looks a lot more pink/red in the middle compared to the ones I’ve made. Is that a byproduct of the brining process?

Those look terrific! I’m a firm believer in the idea that sausage should be made from pork, and only pork, and this post has convinced me that chicken is a viable alternative.

This weekend I wanted to try my hand at a whole packer brisket again. We had some friends over to help us eat it. I knew this would be a bit of an adventure when I got the brisket from our local butcher. He gave me a brisket that was 21 lbs. I took it, as it was the only one that they had. This brisket was larger than the other ones I’ve cooked by at least 8 lbs. Here it is, with a ruler for scale. My plan was to make this brisket Texas style, following Aaron Franklin’s method. I made a rub with a 50/50 mix of black pepper ground with a mortar and pestle and kosher salt. There’s about 1/2 cup total in this jar. Just to give another perspective on this brisket, check out how thick the point end is. The jar is is 5-1/4†tall. Here’s how I trimmed the brisket. I got as much of the fat off the bottom as I could, and trimmed the fat cap side so that it was about 1/4†thick across the top. I also excavated the big chunk of fat that sits between the flat and the point as much as I could from both sides. Scooping that fat out brought the thickness of the brisket at that end down so that the flat and point ends were closer in thickness. I sliced off the long edges to clean up the shape of the brisket. One side had a gray, dry appearance, which you can see at the top center of the picture, and I tossed it. The pieced I trimmed from the other side looked nice (it’s at the right side of the picture), so I saved it. I lightly covered the brisket with olive oil, and sprinkled the rub on all sides. I had lit Smaug earlier in the evening with a basket full of Royal Oak, and he seemed to want to be a little above 200ºF. I put the brisket on a little before midnight. I stayed up for about an hour and a half to keep an eye on the temperature, which remained stable, and then went to bed. Things got interesting when I woke up. The morning was pretty chilly, and the thermometer read 180ºF. I opened up the vents, and Smaug settled in at 250ºF. I also applied rub to the good piece I had trimmed, and put that piece into Smaug as well. At noon, 12 hours into the cook, I bumped the temperature up to 275ºF. I hit an IT of 195ºF at the 16 hour mark. The brisket was probe tender all over, and I decided it was done. I already had taken out the small piece of trimmed brisket edge, and gave it to the kids to eat, since they were getting antsy. I don’t have any pictures of the small piece, but I figured that’s okay, because I know you all want to see what the whole brisket looked like. Here it is. Here’s what the flat looked like, sliced. This is the point end. I messed up a little slicing this part. The slices were a bit too thick. Slices of the flat and point, ready for serving. And my plate. Here are a few things I picked up from this cook. First, although I’ve read that great things happen to a brisket at an IT of 203ºF, I think an IT of 195ºF works better for me. The last brisket I made I shot for an IT of 203ºF, and although it was very tasty, it was a bit on the dry side. Maybe it’s because I don’t bother with wrapping. This brisket was about as good as I think I could make it — great flavor and really moist. Second, slicing is important. As I mentioned, the point slices were a bit on the thick side, and although they were really tasty, I think they would have been better if they were sliced a bit thinner. Third, I think one of the big factors in how well this brisket turned out was the trimming step. As I was trimming it, I was thinking about what the issues were in cooking a brisket. You have two muscles, one leaner than the other, and the leaner one is more exposed to the heat. Although my goal in trimming out as much of the fat between the flat and point was to decrease the amount of fat rendering needed in that part of the brisket, the added benefit of making the brisket more uniform in thickness probably helped in how this brisket turned out. I didn’t make burnt ends because I’m really not sure how to go about making them, and more importantly, since I’ve never had burnt ends before, I have no idea how they should taste. Luckily, I’ll be in Kansas City in a couple of weeks, and I plan on rectifying that situation. Finally, I have to give credit to Smaug for helping me pull off this cook. I was really nervous about this brisket because it was so big. Our friends, who are from the South and who have been to Texas on many occasions, said that this was better than any brisket they ever had in Texas. I keep hearing that brisket is the hardest thing to smoke. This is only my third brisket cook, and they all have turned out great. New Jersey isn’t known for its BBQ, but I can’t think of any BBQ place around here that I would rather go to for brisket. I may have to make a pilgrimage to Franklin BBQ. I’ve said this before, but I’d like to repeat that prior to getting Smaug, I had zero experience with low and slow BBQ’ing. In order to get the results that I did, I have to believe that the ability of a KK grill to hold and maintain temperatures and their increased efficiency over other grills has something to do with this. The only other explanation is that I’m some sort of BBQ genius, in which case you all should listen to me when I say that having a KK grill is completely worth it.

Looks great! I haven’t tried beef ribs yet, since I really love pork ribs. But it will be on the list. I take that back — I’ve grilled kalbi for Korean BBQ, but that’s a much different approach.

Those look great! And I agree — they must taste way better than store buns.

Unfortunately, that is true about decreased access to information about customer service issues. That’s one thing that has impressed me about Dennis — I have found him to be completely upfront about and open to discussing issues regarding KK grills, whether it’s here or via email.

Congrats! Where in Chicago are you? I grew up in the area.

Oh, NICE.

Congratulations! 10 lbs.? Make sure you get his mom a nice present.

When I was gathering information on kamado grills in general, I started hearing about cracked fireboxes. I wondered if that was a possibility with a KK grill. Do a search for “firebox†on this forum. There are zero mentions of a cracked firebox in a KK grill, and this forum goes back 9 years. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to crack a KK firebox, but the likelihood has got to be really small.

I have, but mainly in conjunction with using the rotisserie with chicken and duck. I’ll set up the basket splitter so that the heat is hitting the bird on one side. I’m not sure how necessary it is, but it’s gotten me great results so far. But yes, you can use a basket splitter for setting up two zone cooking like the D&C system on a KJ grill. Pretty much. I’ve used a thermometer for bigger pieces of meat: pork butt, brisket, leg of lamb, prime rib roast, roasting whole birds. Ribs get the bend test. Yup. By the way, the KK baking stone is to regular baking stones what a KK grill is to regular kamado grills. There’s a drip pan available that’s shaped to match the interior curves of a KK grill. The double lined part refers to the bottom of the drip pan having a double layer of stainless steel, with an air gap between them. This prevents drippings from scorching. “IFâ€. Good one. I know you almost believe that when you say it.

Did you find that the injection made some parts of the pork taste different from the rest? If the reason for injection is because a marinade doesn’t deeply penetrate the meat, then there’s not much reason to believe the liquid injection would penetrate much beyond where the needle was.

Haha! We had the same situation with the pulled pork we made this weekend. We had our neighbors over for dinner, and my wife asked them if they wanted to take home some leftovers. She then handed me a container, which I filled with pulled pork. When I was having lunch the next day, I commented on how little pulled pork was left over. She said, “Well, why did you give our neighbors so much last night?†I said, “Why did you give me such a big container?†We need to work on our game plan for the next time we have guests over.