wilburpan

On May 1, 2016 at 8:42 AM, bosco said:

Wilburpan wrote a post about the KK being like an expensive chefs knife.  A standard knife will do the job, but a high end knife will do it better so to speak.  So this raised the debate about the cooker vs. the cook.  I thought this guy was sniffing glue on weekends (later learned just huffing the chemicals from the high heat burn in lol).

 

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.”

On April 27, 2016 at 11:29 AM, DaVarg said:

 I was leaning towards 19 HT and did a "multivariate decision analysis "  on 19, 22 and 23, but most of them are very subjective. 

  -thermal mass of 22 is higher

  -cross section area was similar to 23, but 23 high top had more upper volume

  -pricing was similar (even with added lower grill)

  - liked the leaner shape look of 22

  -and  more importantly, the tiles (more terra than blue) gave the  22 (that was in stock ) a the look my son and wife liked !! 

 

DaVarg

davarg.com

 

 

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"? 

Chicken legs, that is. Leg and thigh pieces, to be specific.

Here they are prior to cooking. I made a rub using Aaron Franklin’s progressive rub method.

I put them into Smaug, who decided that he wanted to be at 425ºF that day. The legs were cooked indirect for about 40 minutes.

Plated, with some avocado, potatoes, and roasted cauliflower.

Here’s the interesting thing about this cook. By all rights, I overcooked the legs. I decided to mow the lawn while they were cooking, and when I was done, I checked the IT. The IT of the legs was 180ºF, which was much higher than my intended target of 170ºF. Even so, when I cut into the legs, this is what I got.

This is the sort of juiciness level that I expect from steaks, not roast chicken. The meat was incredibly moist. The only comparison I have is the moistness of really good fried chicken. This result was doubly impressive given that I overcooked the leg pieces. On the other hand, maybe I should shoot for 180ºF for dark meat in the future.

The other thing I learned is that I need to be lighter on the rub application when it comes to chicken. I put the rub on the chicken like I would for pork ribs. As far a chicken goes, there can be too much of a good thing. The meat was terrific, but the skin was too salty.

Ever wanted to know what 6 pounds of wings looks like in a KK grill? Here you go.

Off the grill:

Plated. My wife made spinach and potatoes.

I made these wings using the baking powder/salt trick to get the wings super crispy. They cooked at 400ºF for about 35 minutes. They turned out great, except for the row of wings at the back of the grill. I’ve learned that there’s a relative hot spot towards the back of Smaug since the vent is placed towards the back of the top lid. The back row of wings were a little overcooked, but the rest of them were great.

I’ve noticed that the stem of the dome thermometer has acquired a nice black coat of smoke and stuff from all the cooks.

Could that layer of soot insulate the tip and make the thermometer read artificially low?

That was a fantastic write up on gumbo. I’m filing this away for future reference.

I don’t suppose you would care to do a similar take on étouffée, would you?

Hi Tony,

I cooked the pizza on the main grate. I know a lot of folks cook pizzas on the upper grate on the baking stone at high temps because the pizza benefits from the heat coming off the inside of the lid. But that’s for thin NY style pizza. A Chicago style deep dish pizza is more like cooking a pie or a lasagna, so putting it on the main grate is fine.

I haven’t made a Chicago style deep dish pizza in a while, so Sunday night I put one together. I basically follow the recipe at the Real Deep Dish website, using sausage.

There are a couple of modifications that I made to the recipe. First, I turn my oven on to 100ºF, and then turn it off. For the dough rising, I place the bowl with the dough in the oven, and let it sit for several hours.

Second, I’ll add a good amount of fennel seed to the sausage. The Italian sausage here in NJ doesn’t seem to have fennel in it — at least not the ones I can find at our local grocery store. Back in Chicago, where I grew up, Italian sausage always had fennel seed in the mix.

Third, I use a 10” cast iron pan instead of a deep dish pizza pan.

Final product. This was cooked at 450ºF, indirect, for 40 minutes.

It was great. I really should do this more often. Other than planning ahead enough to let the dough rise, it’s very quick to put the pizza together.

My wife mentioned that this pizza had the best crust of all my attempts at making Chicago style deep dish pizza so far. It was firm enough to keep the cheese and toppings in place but still was very light at the same time. I think one of the keys was that I let the dough rise for a longer period of time than my previous cooks. My kids were out playing, so I waited for them to come back before starting the cook, which resulted in extra rising time for the dough. 

Sometimes I’ll hear that posting just another rib cook is boring.

I beg to differ. There’s no such thing as just another rib cook. This thread is proof of that.

Nice!

Do you have access to dry scallops? If so, try using those. They’re pricier than regular scallops, but completely worth it. It’s like the difference between choice and prime steak.

On April 12, 2016 at 6:12 PM, ckreef said:

I baked it in the KK using the upper rack and pizza stone at 452*. After 10 minutes I pulled it and added a little shredded parmesan, some fresh sliced mozzarella and a few pepperoni.

[snip]

Not bad for my first attempt although next time I'm cooking it at 450*.

Now THAT’S attention to detail.

Seriously, that’s a great take on Chicago deep dish pizza.

By all means see one in person if you are able to arrange that.

Having said that, I’ll just echo what tinyfish said. I also did a lot of looking into a Komodo Kamado grill, and also asked Dennis a ton of questions via email and by phone, and ultimately ordered my KK 23” without having seen one in person. In addition, my KK 23” was the first kamado grill I ever used. I haven’t regretted it one bit.

On April 9, 2016 at 0:00 PM, Newg4 said:

 I'm just going to let these babies cook through, not going to foil or anything.

You know what’s never been said about cooking ribs on a KK grill?

“I really miss spritzing and foiling.” 

Seriously, great job on those ribs!

5 hours ago, churchi said:

Excellent post @wilburpan. Appreciate the time in replying.

I am due for a hi heat cook this weekend, so i am going to try what you have suggested and post back.

Thanks heaps mate.

One other thought: since you have a KK 32”, if you don’t have a lot of food to cook over direct high heat, try using your basket splitter, being sure to put in the horizontal plates so that air only goes through the part of the basket that has the charcoal. Then see how hot the fire gets using the “hold your hand over the fire” method. High heat cooks are at a temp where you can only hold your hand over the charcoal for a second or so. It may be that the KK 32” dome thermometer may not be truly reflective of direct cooking conditions down by the searing grate, especially if you’re using the basket splitter, so waiting for your thermometer to get up to 600ºF may not be necessary.

On April 7, 2016 at 9:23 AM, churchi said:

@wilburpan, when you try and get your grill up to searing temp of 500-600 (no heat soak) are you just lighting coals in a few places then using a blower or hair dryer to light all the coals quicker? I think thats what im not doing to get the 32 up to hot temp quickly.

Im thinking i need to light 3 or 4 places with the blow torch, then get the air blower out to light up more coals quickly and that should get the searing temp up i think. Am i on the right track there?

Hi @churchi, 

Here’s my method of getting Smaug up to steak searing temps fast.

I start with a full basket of charcoal, and light it over a fairly wide area. I do use a weed torch, but the main purpose is to get a lot of charcoal lit, not to blast the charcoal with the weed torch. I have the lid open with the bottom vents fully open, with the grate off. After five minutes, I’ll flip over the lit chunks in the top layer of the charcoal a bit in order to get the top surface to give off heat, put the grate in, close the lid and open the top vent as high as it would go. I can usually hit 500-600ºF within 15 minutes.

I think that the moving the charcoal around after five minutes helps a lot, because it gets lit coals right at the top of the basket and distributes the fire more quickly than letting it burn on its own. (That’s also why I leave the grate off at first so I don’t have to maneuver a hot grate later to stir up the charcoal.) I’ve noticed in the past that if I’m going for a high temperature, and there’s large pieces of charcoal on the top that are burning only on the bottom side, the unlit portion of the charcoal is preventing heat from coming through. Flipping over those pieces did a lot to speed up the process.
 
I’ve noticed that when my thermometer approaches 500ºF, the top surface of the charcoal will mainly be on fire, but the larger chunks will have a dark spot in the middle that isn’t actually burning. Here’s a picture from the Serious Eats website that shows what I mean.
 

 
This looks like a good charcoal fire, but it’s really not at full blast yet. You see those large pieces of charcoal in the middle that still look black? That’s charcoal that’s not burning. I think this acts as an insulator, blocking the fire underneath it, and preventing the temperature from rising higher. Turning those pieces over helps the temperature come up faster.

Hope that helps! Try this method with your KK 32”. I’d be curious to see how well it works for you.

Ken and Ryan (and anyone else who has a KK 32” and a smaller KK):

For direct high heat cooks (burgers, steaks, etc.), I tend not to heat soak the grill. I do what I need to do to get Smaug up to 500-600ºF on the dome thermometer, which takes me 10-15 minutes tops, cook what I want to cook, and then shut down.

If you’re doing that sort of cook, how much more charcoal will the KK 32” burn than the smaller grill?

Welcome! Since you have a BGE, maybe this will help. A KK 23”, which is what I have, has slightly less area on the main grate than the XL BGE. A KK 23" will be a step up in size from a Large BGE.

If you currently have the XL BGE, and don’t find the size too small, I think a KK 23” will do just fine, even with direct grilling. You lose one dinner plate’s worth of grilling space, but since that difference in area is spread out around the rim of the grill, it’s not very noticeable.

I’ve had up to 20 people over for food, and if I’m direct grilling, I’ve done pretty well with the space on a KK 23”. Sometimes I am cooking in batches, but given that it’s direct grilling, the cooking for each batch gets done fairly quickly. If I was cooking the chicken/asparagus feast that Bosco described above, I would have done the sweet potatoes and asparagus first, put them onto a platter, and would have finished the chicken and bacon well before the veggies cooled off. Cooking like this isn't as convenient as having the extra space on a KK 32”, but it’s not extremely difficult, either.

For cooking indirect, a KK 23” is going to have significantly more capacity than an XL BGE. The design of a KK grill allows the KK’s second grill to be larger than the grates that sit above the main grate of a BGE.

Not that I want to talk you out of a KK 32”  , but I thought you could use another piece of information.

You’re still looking good!

And listen to your physical therapists. In this situation, they’re more important than the doctor.

Really nice!

Here’s one thing to consider trying for your next pulled pork. Prep your pork butt however you want, stick it in your KK, indirect, at 225-250ºF, and just leave it until it’s done. I usually shoot for an IT of 195ºF, and then probe it for tenderness. I’ll take the pork butt out when it’s tender all over, and pull the meat right away.

I think you’ll be surprised how good pulled pork will come out on a KK without wrapping, spritzing, or any other maneuvers.

This isn’t to discourage you from spritzing to add flavors, but a lot of the things people do to retain moisture aren’t really necessary when using a KK grill. So maybe that will save you some effort in the future in regards to wrapping, etc.

1 hour ago, skreef said:

Hey ckreef I use it for all my baking cooks. I guess since you got just one, I better get my own

1 hour ago, ckreef said:

Kewl, so your going to get your own KK just for baking? What size and color are you looking at? LOL

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See how that works - LOL

Wait — here’s a situation where the wife wants a KK grill and has to talk the husband into the idea?

Not only is that backwards, we all know who’s going to be the loser in this battle.

5 hours ago, Ed said:

hello all - I am on the verge of pulling the trigger on an order for a 23" - Dennis has of course been enormously helpful and encouraging. Question for all you old hands: my accessory list is the 6" rotisserie, a cover, and the charcoal basket splitter. Any other must haves in your opinions? 

I agree with getting the 8” rotisserie basket with the reducer instead of the 6” basket. If you’re getting the splitter, get an extra charcoal basket as well. 

One other accessory would be the side tables, if you don’t have any handy space to put things on.

Hope you’re back on your feet quick!