wilburpan

There's an easy solution for that: get yourself a KK 23" to keep Prometheus company. No need to thank me for that suggestion. Knowing that I was able to help is thanks enough.

One of the nice things about a Komodo Kamado is that it comes ready for a rotisserie. All you need is the motor and the rotisserie basket. I’ve cooked a whole chicken on Smaug before, and it was great, but I thought it was time to try out the rotisserie function. Here’s the rotisserie basket. The two forks hold the food on by grabbing the outside of the food, as opposed to the rotisserie forks that pierce the food. There’s a lot of flexibility in how I can place the forks, as they can be attached to either one of the outside rods on the rotisserie basket. Here I have one fork on each outside rod, but I can put both fork on the same rod, and the forks can be individually rotated to fit the food exactly. This is how the rotisserie looks mounted on the grill. There’s a drive bearing built into the right side of the grill, which is how the motor couples to the rotisserie basket, and another bearing built into the left side of the grill that holds the other end of the rotisserie rod. I set up the charcoal basket with the divider, so that the chicken would receive direct heat on one side and indirect heat on the other as it rotated. This is how the charcoal basket looks with the divider in place. The charcoal will go on the left side of the basket. This is how the basket looks loaded with charcoal. I’m aligning the splitter in line with the main shaft of the rotisserie. You can also see the steel plate that blocks air from flowing past the burning charcoal, forcing all the air coming up from the bottom through the fire. This is more efficient than other systems that split the basket to create two zones within a kamado. So here’s our chicken. I picked it up from the Chinese grocery store. I love getting poultry there because it’s fresh, never frozen, and great quality. Plus, there’s the entertainment value of getting a chicken with the head and feet still on. I made a rub with 1 part salt, 1 part baking powder, 1 part ground black pepper, and 1 part poultry seasoning. The reason for the baking powder is that it helps crisp up the skin. I’ve used that trick for making wings, so I figured it would work for the whole chicken. I would have used 2 parts poultry seasoning, but I forgot that I had it and had already ground the black pepper. Oops. I dried off the chicken as much as possible with a paper towel, and then massaged the rub into the skin. Then I put it onto the rotisserie, and turned on the motor. Smaug was set at 350º. I cooked the chicken until the thigh meat hit 160ºF, which took about 45 minutes. Then I opened up all the vents to crisp up the skin. Ten minutes later, this was how it turned out. Those of you who are really observant will note that the chicken is positioned differently. That’s because after I started up the motor, I saw that the chicken was off balance, and I repositioned it. The wings and one leg also popped out during cooking, but (spoiler alert) this didn’t spoil the cooking at all. And the final result. Here’s a piece of thigh meat, along with some corn. The chicken turned out great. Both the white and dark meat were nicely done, and really moist. The skin was nicely flavored and crispy, even though I didn’t rub butter or oil onto the skin, which I’ve done before. We devoured the whole thing. No leftovers tonight, which is how I know the meal turned out good. I keep hearing how great spatchcocked chicken is. Based on my experience so far, I can’t really imagine how spatchcocked chicken can be that much better than cooking one whole. All in all, the KK rotisserie was flawless. Because the rotisserie unit is entirely contained within the grill, I don’t have to worry about how airtight Smaug was, which might be a concern with the design of aftermarket rotisserie units for other kamado grills which rely on the seal being tight between the upper lid and the rotisserie frame, and the bottom of the rotisserie frame and the lower shell of the grill. In addition, the KK rotisserie isn’t vaporware.

Congratulations on your KK! You’re going to be really happy with it over the long run. To answer some of your questions: 1. The heat shield is removable. It slides off the rods. On mine, I have to use a fair amount of force to get it off. The rods are not perfectly aligned with the tubes on the heat shield, and it’s the friction between the two that keeps it in place. If you really need to, you can try bending the rods a little so that it’s easier to slide the heat shield on and off. Likewise, you can twiddle the rods that the draft doors at the bottom of your grill to make it easier or harder to pull off. 2. I don’t bother to clean my thermometer. I left it on the grill through the winter, and recalibrated it when the weather warmed up. To recalibrate, get some water boiling, and put the thermometer in it. Adjust it so that it reads 212ºF. 3. I don’t have the issue with the doors flapping open on the grates when they are hung on the hooks, but I hang my grates so that the doors are down. My feeling is that a catch would solve the issue of the doors opening if they are hung by that end of the grate, but it would make opening them to add charcoal or smoking wood in the middle of cooking somewhat problematic.

The other pieces had more fat. Not to mention that the kalbi was so richly marbled that at some point I was thinking that I was really cooking beef fat with some muscle in it.

My wife came home on Saturday and said, “I decided what I want for Mother’s Day. Here’s the meat you’re going to cook for me.†How could I say no? There was some kalbi and sliced pork belly. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Korean BBQ, check out my previous post. In short, kalbi is beef short ribs, but sliced in a way so that you get one long thin strip of meat hanging off the bone. You can also get kalbi cut across the bone, but this method is much better. Korean sliced pork belly is bacon, but fresh — no curing or flavoring is added to it. I fired up Smaug to steak searing temperatures, and used the lower grate. Cooking the pork belly is straight forward. Do one side, and then the other. I waited until the pork belly released itself before flipping, much like I would do with fish. For the kalbi, I marinated the meat in kalbi marinade for most of the day. I started the marinade in the morning, and we cooked at dinner time. Cooking the kalbi was done in a similar manner as the pork belly: one side, and then the other, waiting for the meat to release from the grill each time. Because of how thinly the meat was cut, it only took a couple of minutes on each side. Here’s the pork belly and the kalbi after all the cooking was done, because who doesn’t like a picture of big piles of meat? No one, that’s who. Finally, the assembly. We used kitchen shears to cut the pork belly and the kalbi down to smaller pieces. One leaf of romaine lettuce, some rice, and a couple of pieces of meat were put together. For the pork belly, I made a mixture of sesame oil, salt, and pepper, and put a bit on. For the kalbi, I added a little fermented soybean paste, which is much better than it sounds. The lettuce was wrapped around the meat/rice/sauce, and we ate it like a little burrito. Of course, it wasn’t the only serving we had. Altogether, I went through eight of these, give or take. Delicious! I hope my wife wants this for Mother’s Day next year as well.

I’m quite happy to be confused with ckreef. That tells me that my cook must have been really excellent.

Looks like an order for a second KK grill is in your future.

My wife wanted flank steak tacos for dinner last night. How could I say no? I got a flank steak, and seasoned it well with my go-to direct grilling spice mix (equal parts salt, pepper, chile powder (ancho and chipotle mix), and oregano). I fired up Smaug, and cooked the steak for about four minutes per side. We also had portobello mushrooms on the side. I let the steak rest for about five minutes, then sliced against the grain. It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. The assembled taco. It’s pretty simple: a few pieces of thinly sliced steak, diced tomatoes, salsa, and a couple of slivers of avocado on a corn tortilla. Delicious! And my wife made a batch of her famous cowboy beans as well.

I’m not quite swamped, but pretty close. I’ve been using Smaug — just not enough time to do a writeup, or the cook was so basic (hotdogs, burgers) that I passed on documenting it, especially since I’ve posted on hotdogs and burgers already. Woodworking is coming along. My shoulder is still acting up a little, but I’ve been mentoring a local high school student who is building a small bookcase as part of a senior project. That’s fun, because that way I get to do woodworking while someone else does all the work.

Welcome to this side of the kamado grill internet!

Welcome, and congrats on the grill! I have a KK 23†and love it. I was lucky in that the truck driver was able to drop the crate on my backyard patio using the skid moving device that he had. We do have a walkway that he used. I agree with everyone who has said to leapfrog with two good sheets of plywood to get the crate into your backyard. The good news is that once the crate is back there, uncrating and setting up is a one person job for the most part, with the exception of rolling the grill off the skid down the ramp. I did it myself, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Terrific meal, Ken! Everything looked delicious.

Happy 61.008th birthday, Ken! We cook rice quite a bit at my house. (I know, what a surprise for a Chinese family, AMIRIGHT?) One of these days I’d like to get a Zojirushi, but I’m waiting for the budget rice cooker that I bought when I was in school to give up the ghost first. The problem is that your basic rice cooker is pretty much bulletproof, since there’s not a whole lot to go wrong. After all, it’s just a small double boiler, a switch, a heating element, and a thermostat. Your unit is too new for this, but if you remember next year, let me know how the nonstick coating on the rice cooker bowl is holding up.

Thanks for the comments! There were leftovers, which was not a surprise, given that there are just four of us, and my wife doesn’t eat lamb. I chopped the leftovers into small bits, made a batch of mashed potatoes, and made shepherd’s pie. It was also tasty.

I’m really sorry to hear about that. Hope that you get it back, or if not, that your homeowner’s insurance will cover the cost.

Great looking pizzas! I’m really looking forward to seeing your dough recipes. I’m a Chicago native, and love Chicago-style deep dish pizza. I’m not the greatest at dealing with dough, and this may be considered heresy, but Bisquick makes a pretty decent deep dish pizza dough. It’s relatively light, it holds up well to the weight of the cheese and sausage, and it browns nicely in the pan.

Hi Ken, I did the potatoes in our kitchen oven. They were your basic “toss potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper, and roast at 400°F†dish. I got my timing of the dishes wrong, which is why I had to use the oven. Total cooking time for the leg of lamb was a little over 3 hours in Smaug’s belly, including searing at the end. Prep time was about 30 minutes.

I had been going back and forth over whether to try a leg of lamb for Easter, mainly because based on previous experience, I thought I was looking at having to buy an 8-10 lb. leg of lamb, which would have been way more than the four of us could handle. Luckily, this weekend I found a 3 lb. boneless New Zealand leg of lamb at one of our local stores. Still a lot of meat for a family of four, but much more manageable. For this cook, I followed a recipe that I found on the Serious Eats website. Here goes. The rub is a mixture of rosemary, garlic, shallots, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, and anchovies, sautéed in olive oil until the garlic and shallots are tender. After transferring the mixture to a bowl to cool, I added in kosher salt and black pepper, and mixed it up good. Here’s the leg of lamb, fat side up. I opened up the leg, and spread about half the rosemary garlic mixture on the inside. Then I rolled up the leg again, and trussed it up with some butchers twine, because my understanding is that if the leg of lamb opens up when cooking, it’s a big mess. The remaining rosemary garlic mixture gets rubbed onto the outside. At this point, I could have stuck into the fridge to wait overnight, but I didn’t plan that far ahead. The leg went into Smaug, who was set up for indirect cooking at 275ºF. I waited until I hit an internal temperature of 130ºF. Here’s what it looked like when it was done. I took out the heat deflector, fired Smaug up to 500ºF, and direct grilled the outside for about 10 minutes. Here’s the final product. Sliced open, and served. It was delicious — super tasty and juicy. The lighting in the sliced open picture makes it look like the outside was cooked much more than it was. In addition, I think lamb holds up better to being cooked to medium than beef does (I like steaks medium rare). Just think of a lamb gyro that’s cooked to well done, and is still juicy and delicious if done right. Happy Easter!

Great cook, CC! The same approach holds for stir frying. Most Chinese dishes are a combination of veggies and meat, and the same issues of different cooking times holds true there. When making, say, chicken and snow peas, we’ll cook the aromatics first (ginger/green onion/garlic), then add the snow peas, then take them out of the wok and set them aside. Then we’ll cook the chicken, add the snow peas back when the chicken’s done, and make the sauce.

Because of the lousy weather, work schedule and traveling for work, and other issues, it’s been a while since I was able to use Smaug. Since it was Good Friday, we decided to have grilled salmon steaks for dinner. Salmon steaks. These were huge — one pound each. When I was picking them out at our local fish place, I didn’t really realize how big they were. Nothing fancy in the prep work, just a decent sprinkling of Old Bay. I got Smaug up to 500ºF, and let him sit there for a while since this was the first cook I’ve done in a couple of months just to burn off any funkiness that might have been lurking inside. I put the salmon steaks on, and grilled them until they were able to release easily, which was about 4 minutes. I flipped them once, and grilled the other side until I got to the easy release stage as well. After poking them with a fork, I let them sit a little while longer to make sure the inside was where I wanted it, which was another 3 minutes or so. I like salmon to have a nicely cooked outside, and the inside to be barely cooked. (I know, I need to get an instant read thermometer.) Closeup of the salmon on the grill. Plated, with some sautéed spinach and a leftover biscuit from Red Lobster. Yummy! Our local fish place does a great job of sourcing their fish. The salmon steaks were big enough that there’s leftovers for a second meal. I really misjudged the size of them when I was picking out the salmon steaks. And am I glad the weather is better now.

Since you have some experience cooking with kamado grills already, I’d hold off on ordering a fan until you see how your KK grill works for you. You may be so happy with how a KK grill behaves compared to others that you might decide that a fan isn’t necessary. For me, I had looked into getting a fan system, and held off. I’m confident enough in my ability to set my KK grill where I want it that I don’t foresee getting a fan system for a long time, and I had ZERO experience with kamado grills prior to getting Smaug.

Right on! Glad to see that your new KK has arrived. Have fun with it (like that’s hard to do ).

To my eye, the two logos aren’t identical, but they aren’t completely different, either. FWIW, my wife has a marketing/advertising background, and her opinion was that although you could make the case that a red flame is different from a red grill, if you’re looking to create separation in a customer’s mind between the two brands, it’s best to not have any elements that are similar to the other brand’s logo.

I think the red fire makes the logo too similar to the Kamado Joe logo, given that KJ has gone all in with red being their signature color. Also, there isn’t an easily available option for a red KK grill at this time.

Welcome! And congratulations! We would all love to see pics of your new grill.