wilburpan

You figured out something here but didn't realize it. There is nothing magic about 205 degrees, 195 degrees, or 2,058,232 degrees. It's a matter of giving the heat enough time to break down the connective tissue and that's going to vary based on the size, shape, age, and other variables of each individual cook. A thermometer can't measure that...but a probe can. Temps are just a guide for knowing when to start probing. Once it probes like butter, the cooking is done no matter what the number on the thermometer says.

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

Wilburpan you are a brisket genius for sure. That turned out excellent to say the least. Do you use any smoking wood when you cook your briskets?

That looks great,Wilbur. I'm also curious if you added some wood chunks to the Royal Oak.

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.

Also, now there is really no longer a way to know what other common customer service issues are happening. So I just decided to neutralize the problem altogether by getting the most over engineered grill in the world. lol.  

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.

Thanks so much for the write up. Mine is in transit now as I type. Can't wait to do my review!!

 

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.

Bosch mentioned a splitter basket.  I assume that would be a firebox splitter basket and would be used similar to what the KJ Big Joe has, except I've used the KJ Big Joe splitter exactly once when looking to do some two zone cooking.

 

Do you guys use the splitter?

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.

While I've gotten away from using constant temperature monitoring for the most part, it is nice that the KK has built in channels to allow to run the probes through.  Nice touch.  I'll still use a probe for the big cuts of meat (port, brisket), but for the every day stuff, nah.  I'm getting the approximate timing all figured out.  I assume the same will be said for when I cook on a KK....uh, IF I ever have the joy of cooking on a KK.

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.

The baking stone - I suppose that is used for pizza, bread, anything that you are looking to "bake", would that be correct?  So no individual pizza stone is needed?

Yup. By the way, the KK baking stone is to regular baking stones what a KK grill is to regular kamado grills.

What is this double lined drip pan business?

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.

I assume the same will be said for when I cook on a KK....uh, IF I ever have the joy of cooking on a KK.

“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.

Welcome! It’s a lot of fun here. You’re going to have a great time with your new KK grill.

On 9/9/2015 at 1:00 AM, bosco said:

buddy what a great post!!

 

I only wished that I listened to you a year ago... and I wouldn't be waiting for mine to be made!!!

 

It is a truism that the only bad thing anyone says after buying a KK grill is that they wish they had done it sooner.

(I'm remembering our discussion from a while ago about the USD/CAD dollar exchange rate. Not so much of a concern after all, right?   )

Nice! I see that you put the butts on one side of your KK 32â€. Did you use the basket splitter as well?

This is what Smaug looked like when he arrived last October.



Since then, I've been getting a lot of use out of him. I was going to wait until a full year went by to write this, but I think that now's as good a time as any to share my experience with him.

There's plenty of information available on the Komodo Kamado website as to what you get out of a KK grill that you don't from the ceramic grill companies (BGE, Primo, KJ, etc.). For me, here are the salient points.

• Made of refractory cement instead of ceramic. Heat deflector and baking stones are also refractory cement instead of ceramic.
• Better insulation, which means that you can maintain temperature with less air flow, which means less moisture loss during cooking, which means that your meat will lose less moisture during the cooking process.
• Better insulation also means that you don't have to worry as much about burns if you touch the outside of the grill during a cook. Without exaggeration, I can touch the outside of my KK 23" with the thermometer above 600ºF without fear of a burn.
• Tiled on the outside instead of glazed ceramic.
• Food grade silicone gasket, which is more durable than a felt gasket, and not prone to failure from dripping sauce on it.
• 3/8" stainless steel rod grills instead of 1/4" rod.
• Stainless steel hardware all over.
• Stainless steel charcoal basket instead of ceramic firebox.
• Firebox is a two piece design instead of one piece, which reduces the chance of it cracking from heat.
• Design of firebox forces all air through the charcoal, unlike other brands where the air can circulate around the firebox, reducing efficiency.
• Superior hinge and latch mechanism to other brands.
• Incorporation of hinge into the body and lid means never having to worry about a lid falling off or having to maintain band tightness.
• Easier to open, even with a heavier lid.
• Bottom vent truly airtight.
• Vent cap design prevents rain from getting into grill and is rust proof.
• Vent cap design also prevents change in setting when opening grill.
• Set up for rotisserie cooking out of the box. No need to wait for a rotisserie add on that’s still not on the market.

It's true that a KK grill is more expensive than the KJ/BGE/Primo grills for sure, but it's still in line with and even less expensive than many high-end stainless steel gas grills, and I would argue that it is more durable and more flexible than a high-end stainless steel gas grill. I would also argue that it's more durable than the BGE/KJ/Primo grills as well, given the reports of hinge and band failures, gasket failures, firebox cracking, vents that are not quite airtight, and so on.
 
But even better than the feature set of a KK grill is what you can cook with it. Here's some of the food I've made with Smaug since he arrived.

Pulled pork.

Brisket.

Ribs.

Korean BBQ.

Leg of lamb.

Prime rib roast.

Grilled salmon and asparagus.

And steak, of course.

But beyond the great food that Smaug has helped me make, I have to emphasize this key thing from my experience with a KK grill. I was able to do this despite the fact that I had no experience with low and slow cooks prior to getting my KK grill. Everything I have tried has been a huge success, even though it was the very first time I've tried smoking brisket, ribs, pulled pork, a prime rib roast, and so on.

As I mentioned, prior to getting Smaug, I had zero experience with low and slow cooking, and I've had fantastic results with a variety of low and slow cooks. So either it is the grill that's making a difference, in which case that shows that it's worthwhile getting a KK grill, or I'm a really amazing BBQ genius, in which case you should listen when I say that a KK grill is completely worth buying.

Looks great Wilbur. Did you pull it off at a certain temperature or do it by touch?

So here are the annotations for each step.

1. I made up a little more than 1/2 cup of a rub based on Aaron Franklin’s approach to rub making: mainly a 50/50 mix of salt and pepper, with a little granulated onion, granulated garlic, paprika, ancho chile powder, dry mustard, and brown sugar.

2. This hunk of pork butt was about 7 lbs.

3. I put some olive oil on all sides of the pork butt, then hit it with the rub. I don’t have wall-to-wall coverage with the rub, but I’ve observed that folks who do that are using rubs with a fair amount of sugar in it. Those rubs stick to themselves, just like how brown sugar clumps up in the bag. The rub I made doesn’t do that, since it’s mainly spices, and doesn’t really stick to itself.

In addition, this rub packs a ton of flavor since it’s mainly spices, so I’ve learned to ease up on the application. One time when I made ribs, my kids said that there was too much rub.

4. Smaug was set at 225ºF to start. He crept up to 250ºF over the course of the day. 

5. The pork was taken out when it hit an IT of 195ºF. Total cook time was 9-1/2 hours. It was probe tender throughout.

6. Proof that it was probe tender: I was able to shred the entire thing with a pair of dinner forks. No need to buy a set of bear paws!

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Six.

Looks great! I love those huge shrimp.

 

 

And for the love of Pete, don't get ribs with "up to 12% solution added" or "8% patented solution added"...just say NO to enhanced ribs and other pork. If you accidentally buy some, brine them overnight to get help get rid of that awful goo they put in the packages. Just sayin'. 

Really nice cook! Those ribs look delicious.

Where do you find ribs that haven’t been enhanced? All the local grocery stores seem to have that label on the ribs that they sell.

Welcome, Mike! Looking forward to reports on future cooks. You do use your KK 32†for more than brisket, right?

And most importantly, what color did you get?