wilburpan

10 hours ago, Izzy said:

I still have not ordered the stainless steel Jamco cabinet.  I thought I'd post a question regarding the storage for the BIG KK 32 grates.  Do the KK owners build something custom to store the grates?  Also, a quick update on the outdoor kitchen, that's not going too well as the contractor has gotten extremely slow.  

I made a shelving unit from 2x material and pine boards for my KK grill stuff. I wrote a post about it here: http://komodokamadoforum.com/topic/6027-built-a-storage-unit-for-my-kk-grill-accessories/

On July 10, 2016 at 8:13 PM, FastGlass said:

First cook. Not brisket or anything, but still searching out where to find the good cuts on the island. Was very good, family is happy (and full). The basket seperater was a nice way to get a great sear going, and finish the fish on the side while grilling the oil, cumin, paprika, salt n pepper asparagus. Homemade crab cakes with blue and rock crabs my son caught with friends today in Menemsha. Chipotle pepper and lawrys for the Salmon and Swordfish, and the sushi grade tuna in particular was very very good! 5 pepper fresh cracked crusted with a bit of Hawaiian Alaea volcanic sea salt rubbed in....yum.

Really nice cook! I love grilled seafood.

Just out of curiosity, did you cook your fish on the main grate or the lower grate, and do you cook skin side up first or down first for your salmon?

That’s awesome! Push that software release out the door and get cooking. You can always release a x.0.1 fix later.  

On June 20, 2016 at 4:29 AM, Aussie Ora said:

really great write up mate the pics are awesome let me know what I'm in for and really zoom in and apreciate the quality which looks pretty good. Forgive me I'm at the I'm getting one stage so I was looking at the top cap pic when you zoom in on this there is a tiny hole was this from the venting or does it go right through for some reason only asking because I just notice the hole for a thermometer lol

Outback Kamado Bar and Grill ♨

20 hours ago, 5698k said:

This hole is simply for a kotter pin to prevent the cap from accidentally unscrewing all the way.

Rob

20 hours ago, bosco said:

I still need to add my pins, I didnt realize that was what they were for

The cotter pin was attached to the top vent cap when I unpacked it. You can see the cotter pin in one of the photos in my original post. I took it off to get the top vent cap out of the box, and reattached it when I screwed it into the top lid.

2 hours ago, cschaaf said:

Well, that makes sense. Otherwise, you would have to buy a grill to go with your new accessory.

LOL!

The reason I say that the D&C is solving a problem that doesn’t exist, as far as reverse sears go, is that if part one of the reverse sear is done in the 200-250ºF range, it’s pretty easy to reconfigure the grill grates and deflector before opening up the vents to get the temperature up for the searing part. It’s not like you’re reaching into a 500ºF fire to move a grate and deflector plate around. That’s the main reason I saw being mentioned as to why you would want a D&C — to be able to do a reverse sear without having to move stuff around.

I hope that made sense.

That’s a PBS thing. They don’t allow identifying brands on equipment used during the show. You can sponsor the show and get mentioned during the beginning and ending credits, like Komodo Kamado does, but you can’t have the equipment be labeled. All the grills are set up this way, with the label either obscured, covered, or removed.

All PBS shows are like this. If you watch This Old House, and pay close attention, you’ll see that there’s electrical tape over the brand names of the drills and other tools they use. It’s not too hard to guess which drill they are using, since Dewalt is yellow, Milwaukee is red, Makita is blue, and so on, but they obscure the labels anyway.

16 hours ago, Aussie Ora said:

Thanks for that info Wilbur the divide and conquer system is handy though

Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

Oh, I agree — I’m sure it’s handy. But I think it’s also far away from “must have” territory.

Put it this way: in terms of accessories, I would much rather have a baking stone, a rotisserie set up, or the KK basket splitter before getting a Divide and Conquer system.

On June 12, 2016 at 0:12 PM, Aussie Ora said:

G'day everyone I've made up my mind and am jumping in the deep end I have had the komado Joe classic for nearly 2 years and love the divide an conquer setup can the charcoal spliter be used for reverse sears or can someone explain to me how to do this I have figured it out in my mind how to do it but would be nice to hear from first hand experience

To be honest, I’ve never had a situation where a split setup would seem to be that much better than reconfiguring the grill while doing a reverse sear.

Here’s my take. When doing a reverse sear, I typically have the dome thermometer in the 200-225ºF range, the deflector plate in, and the meat on the main grill. After the steak hits the IT I want, I’ll put the steak on a plate temporarily, put some gloves on, take the main grate out, and then take the deflector plate out. This would be difficult if the grill was at steak searing temperatures. But at 200-225ºF, it’s not a problem at all.

Then I put the searing grate in, open the vents all the way, and wait for Smaug to heat up to steak searing temps. This takes a few minutes, but it’s much faster than you may think.

I remember once talking about the KJ Divide and Conquer system as solving a problem that didn’t really exist. To be fair, I’ve never used the D&C system, but then again, I can’t see doing the first part of a reverse sear with a full on fire so that I could go straight from the first step to the second step of the cook without reconfiguring anything. If I’m going to start a reverse sear with a full on fire, I’ll just cook the steak directly, since I can get results like this without the reverse sear.

On June 9, 2016 at 0:50 AM, CeramicChef said:

I've got TheeEast, a KK BB 32.  His grates are an nice ebony black.  I run my grill flow over every bar of the grate after a high temp burn.  After everything has cooled down, I then take a Char-Grill nylon brush to each grate.  I've never had any complaints from guests.  I've also never had a grill that has gleaming grates other than when I get a new grill.  Is there something I'm missing or something that I'm not knowing>  Am I risking my health with my ebony grates?

I don’t think there’s a health issue. The only problem I can see is if you’re grilling something with a tendency to stick, like fish, you might want to clean the black stuff off the grates. If you’re not having a problem with sticking, however, don’t mess with success.

On June 8, 2016 at 5:48 PM, Enginerd said:

(nope, no name for it yet, alas "Smaug" is taken)

Sorry!  I guess there is one advantage to jumping in the deep end when buying a grill.

There are other LOTR dragons: Glaring, Ancalagon the Black (probably not the best for your grill), Scatha, and the Beast of Gondolin. Hope that helps.

And congratulations on your new KK grill! You’re going to love using it.

Congratulations! I’m going to be really interested in how your catering venture goes.

Welcome to the KK community, Aussie Ora! I think you’re going to be more than pleasantly surprised with how your new KK grill performs compared to a ceramic kamado. 

And earth tone pebble tiles are the best. Even in the rain.  

4 hours ago, Izzy said:

OK.  I may hold off on the temperature controller for now, but when I decide to get one, it will probably be the Stoker II which appears to be superior.  Am I missing something?

Also, I decided to order 10 additional bags  of charcoal (5 coconut and 5 coffee) as well as an extra rick rack.  The only accessory left is the rotisserie motor.  I intend to roast a pig in a couple of months.  Is it true that if I order the heavy duty motor, I won't be able to use one of the side tables that I ordered?  What are KK 32 owners using?

Add me to the list of people saying that you should hold off on the temperature controller for now. All I can say is that prior to getting my KK grill, I had ZERO experience with low and slow BBQ cooking, and I was able to dial in Smaug to a temperature of 200-225ºF without much problem. That’s how easy a KK grill is to control.

My KK grill is a 23”, and I have to remove the right side table when using the rotisserie motor. It just pops off, and mounting the motor is not too much of a problem. I have more issues with snaking an extension cord out to the grill due to the locations of electrical outlets in my house.

That is hilarious. 

To get to the first unread post, there’s a little circle or star in front of the post title (circled in green in the screenshot below). Click on the circle or star, and it should take you to the first unread post. (If it’s a star, then it’s a post you’ve started or replied to. Otherwise, it’s a circle.)

生日快樂！

In older versions of this forum, when starting a new thread, I would often used the “Preview” option before submitting the post. I don’t see that option in the current version of the forum. Can this feature be reinstated?

For those of you who want to try squid (and if you like calamari, I suggest that you do), there is a difference between fresh and frozen whole squid. Both of them can be cooked well, but the fresh squid has less issues with becoming tough while cooking. As far as tenderness goes, I wouldn’t change a thing about this cook. The way this cook came out, I don’t anticipate that I’ll need to do the milk soaking or cross hatching methods in the future if I’m using fresh squid. I have seen both of these techniques used for frozen squid.

Congratulations!

For our first wedding anniversary, my wife and I took a trip to Italy. It was the first time for both of us. One of the meals we had was in Murano, which is well know for its glassmaking tradition. But what I remember most from that part of our trip was eating a plate of grilled squid. It was very simple: squid, cleaned, grilled, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and some lemon. So simple, yet so delicious. It’s a meal that I still remember even though it was more than 15 years ago.

We were at the Korean grocery store picking up food to do Korean BBQ. At this grocery store, I always stroll through the seafood section even if I’m not intending to get any seafood. I noticed that they had fresh squid for sale. I picked up three of them, to see what I could do with them.

Here’s the squid.

As it turns out, cleaning and prepping squid is pretty simple. The first order of business is to cut the tentacle end from the body. I made a cut between the eye and the tentacles. Once I did this, the guts came out easily. Then I rinsed the squid under running water, to rinse away the ink and any slime from the inside of the body.

The bodies have a long thin bone in them. It looks clear, almost like plastic. You can just grab it and pull it out. The bodies are also covered with a thin skin. It’s easy to peel the skin off. Once the skin is off, the fins can be peeled off the main part of the body. Some people say that removing the skin and the fins isn’t necessary. I took the skin off all the squid bodies, but I left the fins on two of them.

For the tentacles, there’s a sharp beak in the center. This just pops out.

After I was done disassembling the squid, I patted them with a paper towel to make them as dry as I could. Then I sprinkled some olive oil on them.

Cook the parts on the grill at high heat. I once posted a picture of Smaug cooking just four hotdogs. Cooking just three squid is equally ridiculous.

Sprinkle some salt and pepper on them, and add a drizzle of lime juice (we were out of lemons), and you’re done.

These squid were really  good. The one thing I didn’t anticipate was the development of a slimy juice inside the bodies of some of the squid as it cooked. The juice that developed had an interesting taste to it. If you like the green stuff inside a lobster, or uni (sea urchin sushi), this stuff tasted like that. I think it was a result of me not rinsing out the squid enough. The fins were indeed edible, but not as nice as the body. It was a little tougher.

I’ll definitely be doing this again, although next time I’ll be sure to rinse the squid more carefully.

So I’ve been digging into this a bit. There are some interesting characteristics of collagen that I’ve found diving through the biomedical literature.

First of all, collagen is not a pure chemical compound, like water or carbon dioxide. There are many different collagens that vary from species to species and even between parts of the body in the same animal.

Second, it appears that collagen denatures in the 105-115ºF range. This is under laboratory conditions, which may not be completely apply in a piece of meat. But given that the IT that we tend to shoot for with low and slow cooks (195-205ºF) is clearly higher than that range, there’s probably more to the denaturation of collagen to gelatin in a piece of meat than just hitting a given internal temperature.

11 hours ago, CeramicChef said:

Ya know, this thing has interesting possibilities.  Getting good datat would take a lot of it,e individually, but corporately, we could knock this out pretty quickly.  We could all agree to do pork butts on a specific weekend.  Record the weight of the butt that goes on the grate and the weight at the end of the cook.  First cook is at 225° and record the ambient.  Report the time to prone tender, say 203°.  Then 2 weeks hence, same thing but crank up cook temp to say, 275, and record the same data as before.  No Texas crutch at this stage.  Two weeks hence we again cook butts only at different temps between 225-275.   Same data recorded and reported. 

@wilburpan, you've got some access to SAS or SPSS or some big statistical package.  Could you and @Syzygies crank the data and see how his model presents?  You guys up for some modeling "fun"!?

If I wanted to put that much work into smoking a pork butt, I’d be cooking on a Weber grill instead. 

***ducks***

4 hours ago, bosco said:

awesome and congrats.  I can't wait until your post that says, why does everything seem to taste better?  You will say I haven't changed the way that I cook, yet everything is juicier and has better flavour.  

When you post that here we will all say that is the difference, better airflow is the key in this design keeping more moisture and allowing for a cleaner burn.  Less creosote and more wood profile.

You post this on another forum, and everyone will tell you that it is not the grill its the cook evolving and that money doesn't make things taste better. 

Wait — I thought I was a BBQ genius, because everyone kept telling me that even though I was getting excellent results from my low and slow cooks without having had any low and slow BBQ experience, the grill had nothing to do with it. Now I am sad. (Not really!)  

Congratulations on the new grill! You’re going to love it. Since you’ve used gas grills, having a KK is going to be a revelation. I’ve often said that using a KK grill is like having a charcoal grill that’s nearly as convenient as a gas grill.

I’ve had that burn-through thing happen, where the fire seems to leave a part of the charcoal basket alone, but that rarely happens. I haven’t identified any specific factor, but having chunks of lump that are too big seems to contribute to this. For building a low and slow fire, I try to distribute the bigger chunks across the basket, instead of having them all in one area.

Terrific job! That’s a great way to break in your KK grill. It only gets better from here.