wilburpan

How much water wood can soak up is dependent on the size of the piece of wood, and the amount of time exposed to water. Small wood chips like the ones in SR’s video will take on a decent amount of water after 30-60 minutes. A chunk of wood the size of your fist or so wouldn’t take on an appreciable amount of water if soaked. It’s easy to test this. Grab some wood chips, soak half of them for 30-60 minutes, and then throw all of them on a low burning fire, like what you would use for a low and slow cook. The wet ones will take longer to burn. The difference would be smaller on a hot fire for cooking steaks or burgers, but that’s not the type of fire you would add smoking wood to. I do woodworking as a hobby, and for initial milling of lumber for projects, I have the opposite issue: I’m trying to make sure the wood is dry. The thicker the piece of wood, the longer it will take for it to reach equilibrium. It’s like soaking wood chips, but in reverse. Now whether you want to use wood chips as opposed to larger pieces of wood for smoking, that’s another issue entirely.

True, but anything that jazzes up the presentation makes for a better eating experience. I took his statement about the smoke ring more in the context of the overall experience, not just taste. And the smoke ring makes for great video, as I mentioned above. Given how small those chips were, I can see the benefit of soaking them. Larger chunks of wood won’t need that treatment, however.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Although I’m a little embarrassed to be included since as far as I can tell, I have the least amount of BBQ experience out of everyone here by far. I never did a low and slow BBQ cook until I got Smaug less than two years ago. And although a lot of people disagree with me on this, I have to give a lot of credit to Dennis and his KK grills for allowing me to get results as good as I have gotten right out of the gate. Just a word in defense of Steven Raichlen: what works well or is best practice in a live cooking or restaurant kitchen setting may not, and often does not work well on video. For example, if you’re chopping an onion in a restaurant kitchen, the priorities are speed and making sure you chop the onions to the proper and consistent size for the next step in making the dish. For video, the priorities are a good looking video segment, and transmitting information to the viewer as to what the steps in making the cuts for chopping an onion are. If you blow through chopping an onion at restaurant kitchen speeds, and filmed that, the average viewer may have no idea what just happened. I’m not a SR fanboy, either. The Project Smoke episode just released was the first time I’ve seen any of his videos. I watched the first episode of this season, and plan to continue, more for getting ideas on recipes and flavor combinations as opposed to grilling techniques.

Nice! With the ramp, you should be able to get it off the pallet with the help of a friend. I was able to get my KK 23” off the pallet by myself when it was delivered, and I’m not particularly strong. I wouldn’t recommend doing that either with a KK 23” or your KK 32", but I mention it just to show that it’s easier than you might think. The hardest part is wiggling the grill off the block it’s semi-resting on.

When my grill was delivered, I was given a window of 9am-1pm. The truck pulled up to my house at 12:55pm.

Some folks will say I’m crazy, but I use a weed torch hooked up to a standard 20 lb. propane tank that gas grills use. The long handle lets me stand back so sparks don’t get to me, it lights the charcoal super fast (I’ll hit the charcoal for only 15-30 seconds when lighting for a hot direct cook), and the big tank pretty much ensures I only have to worry about replacing it once a year at most.

That is a gorgeous home and yard you have, Bosco! Truly something to be proud of.

This weekend I made a seafood dinner for us: shrimp, sockeye salmon, and asparagus. I’ve cooked these before, but this time I decided to push my technique a bit. The first thing I did was to really lighten up on the seasoning compared to what I usually do. For the salmon and shrimp, I used Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning (thanks Robert!), but I applied a very light coating. It looks like there’s a lot on the shrimp, but I only seasoned one side. For the asparagus, I drizzled some olive oil on it and a light amount of black pepper. They all went into Smaug at the same time. Final result. There were a few lessons I took away from this cook. First, dialing back on the seasonings/rub is a great way to test your technique. In this case, I couldn’t hide any over/under doneness of the seafood and asparagus with a heavy application of seasonings. In addition, normally I apply a light coat of olive oil to the salmon to aid in it not sticking to the grill grates, and as a way of helping the seasonings bind to the salmon. Again, not having the oil made me pay closer attention to the cook. Second, often times there’s a comment here about how charcoal is less convenient than propane for hot fast cooks. I’ve found over and over that using charcoal doesn’t have to slow you down for this sort of cook, if you’re smart about your workflow. For this cook, the very first thing I did was to light up Smaug. Then I started on the food prep, which included shelling the shrimp, washing the asparagus and trimming the ends, cutting the salmon fillet into individual portions, and seasoning. By the time I was done, the dome thermometer was at 600ºF, and the grill was ready to go. From eyeballing the grill and from previous experience, I know I was at 500ºF at the 10 minute mark. Could a gas grill have hit 500-600ºF faster? Maybe, but with this sort of workflow, it doesn’t matter. I would guess that the food prep is the rate limiting factor in the majority of cooks.

That’s great! Here’s to many more decades. I don’t know how many other grill companies can count on stories like this one. Quick question: what’s an “MK death”?

I did a similar thing when I ordered. Instead of using the online store, it was a (short) series of emails with Dennis to make sure I had the accessories I wanted/needed. It worked out great.

I’ve gone through several bags of Royal Oak, and haven’t found many issues with it. I’ve found maybe three rocks over the course of one year’s worth of cooking, and the presence of those rocks didn’t negatively impact my cooks. I’m working my way through my second bag of Fogo charcoal. This stuff is entirely different. The pieces are huge (the website states 80% of the bag are pieces over 4 inches, and I believe it), and I get considerably less ash production compared to Royal Oak. The one downside is that the pieces are so big that lighting a fire for a hot and fast cook is more difficult. I think that the smaller pieces in Royal Oak do provide an advantage for hot and fast cooks, as there’s more surface area to burn, which helps the fire build faster and provide more heat. The Fogo website lists both a Super Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal in brown bags, which is what I’ve been trying out, and a Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal in red and green bags, which I haven’t tried yet. The Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal is described as having a mix of smaller pieces of charcoal (70% of medium sized pieces of 2 to 3 inches, 30% 1 1/3 to 2 inches). Here’s a picture from their website that shows the difference. I’m going to get a couple of bags of smaller-sized Fogo and try it out for fast cooks to see how that behaves. By the way, if you look at the Fogo charcoal website, you’ll see that the Premium Hardwood Lump Charcoal comes in a red bag and a green bag. I emailed them, and they said there’s no difference between the two besides the color of the bags. Having said all that, it’s hard to beat Royal Oak for $7.88 a bag. I wish I had had time yesterday to stop by my local Home Depot to grab some.

That’s terrific! I’m glad the word is getting out there.

Congratulations! You're going to be super happy with your new grill. If anyone could have messed up the burn in process, it would be me. I let Smaug get way too hot, and there was a bubble I didn't notice until months later. I poked a hole in the grout with a pin, some liquid vented out, and over time that area settled down. The process is really foolproof.

I have used the basket splitter with the splitter running left to right with the rotisserie in Smaug. It works well. I haven’t figured out all the ins and outs of using the splitter with the rotisserie as opposed to a regular charcoal basket set up, but I think there’s a slight advantage in being able to have a smaller, more intense fire by using the splitter. This way you can still cook at a lower temperature, which is achieved by the smaller fire, but the direct exposure to the more intense fire results in more browning of the skin of a bird or the outside of whatever piece of meat you’re spinning.

I can move my KK 23” by myself. I’m 5’ 6”, and not particularly strong, and the hardest part is getting the grill moving. Once I’ve got it moving, it moves reasonably easily, and that’s on a patio made with pavers, so it’s not the smoothest surface. The casters used for KK grills are really top notch, as is everything else. As far as leaving the grill out of the rain, I’ve left Smaug out in the elements here in NJ, and there’s been no issue so far. That includes rain, ice storms, and snow. It hasn’t hailed here in a long time. I can’t speak to a KK grill’s durability for rocks and stuff. I would say that if a tile or two are damaged, the repair will be pretty easy. As far as the hobby aspect goes, I didn’t know how much I would like using a KK grill, or kamado cooking. But for what it’s worth, I bought a KK grill as my very first kamado grill without having had any experience with low and slow BBQ. It’s been 1-1/2 years, and I haven’t regretted that decision one bit.

Awesome cook! I love lamb. My wife, on the other hand, doesn’t, which means there’s not much opportunity to cook lamb at our house.

I use the grates that I need for each cook. If I’m not using them, they’re not in the grill. Ideally, I’ll heat soak for low and slow cooks. In my hands, that means letting the grill sit at my target temperature for about an hour. This isn’t time wasted, as what I usually do for cooks is light the grill, set the vents for the temperature I want, then do food prep. By the time I’m done with food prep, I’m at least pretty close to being done with the heat soaking time. Having said that, I did a rib cook recently where I didn’t have time to heat soak, and the ribs still turned out fantastic. I did light the grill first, and then prepped the ribs, but it was only 30 minutes or so of heat soaking. You can hang the unused grates off the hooks on the side of a KK grill. I built a storage unit out of 2x construction lumber and 1x pine boards from Home Depot.

Clever! And they look delicious! Did you you bake the potatoes before scooping them out, or were they still raw when they were filled?

Great job on the ribs, and a great looking grill!

You used that word “meager”. I’m not sure it means what you think it means. All those cooks look terrific! You said you’re not one for verbiage (ha! ), but could you share the details about your stuffed pork chops? The main thing I’m interested is what you did for the stuffing, and whether you cooked the stuffing and pork chop separately, or stuffed the pork chops and cooked the whole thing at once.

Bosco exaggerates. I’m a pediatric oncologist, so if I wanted something to ingest on weekends, I’m not messing around with glue. I have access to far better things. (This is a *sarcasm* alert, just in case the medical license monitors are reading this forum. ) Ed, congratulations on your new KK grill! You are going to love it. Whatever enjoyment you had with your BGE, just multiply it by a factor of 12 or so. That’s what you have to look forward to.

My wife promised our friends that I would make ribs for their party last weekend. “No problem,” I thought, as at this point I’ve made ribs enough times that I’m pretty comfortable with the process. Of course, that thought led to everything going wrong. Sunday morning. I had planned to get things going around 7 am. Of course, I oversleep and wake up at 8:45 instead. I go to light Smaug. At that point I remember that the propane tank/weed burner that I use to light the charcoal is out of propane. Rush trip to the home center to exchange the propane tank. I get Smaug lit and going. It’s raining. Luckily, I have a KK grill, so the rain won’t get into the top vent. I quickly make up a rub and prep the ribs. I’m really in a hurry now because it’s close to when Mass is starting, and I have to make a decision: rush the preparation of the ribs, or wait until after Mass and be late for the party. I decide to rush it. My wife and kids have already left, because they are serving at Mass and need to be there early. I skipped taking the silverskin membrane off the back side of the ribs, which I normally would do, and hope that the ribs will be okay. I oil down the ribs with olive oil, sprinkle the rub onto the six racks I’m making, and get them into Smaug. I make it to Mass just in time to beat the end of the opening hymn. All through Mass, I’m worried that I have the vents set incorrectly for a low and slow cook. I wanted to make sure the grill was at 225ºF. I shouldn’t have worried. KK grills are so reliable that the same vent settings get me to within 5-10ºF of my intended target. Smaug was running a little high when I got back from Mass, but it took a minor adjustment to dial him back down to where I wanted him. The good news is that once I had the temperature dialed in, I didn’t have to do anything except wait. Here’s the result after 5 hours. The ribs turned out great. My friends loved them. When they told me how much they appreciated all the effort I went to making these ribs, I just said, “No problem.”

Thanks! In terms of the increased volume under the lid, do you have a sense as to what that gives you in real cooking terms? Something like, “I couldn’t do a 15 lb. turkey on the upper rack with a KK 23”, but I’m able to do that with the KK 22” Hi Cap.”

Congratulations on your new KK grill! You’re going to love cooking on it.

Right on! If you could, can you tell us why you went with the KK 22" as opposed to the KK 23"?