wilburpan

This looks really cool. You had mentioned cooking a pork butt this way. Were there any other meats that you've cooked using the meat hanger?

Gorgeous grill! Also, glad to see you’ve put it to good use already.

Here’s an example from a post I made on the KG forum. I’m in the process of typing a reply. This is in WYSIWYG mode. (That stands for What You See Is What You Get.) This is like most word processors in that if you use boldface, italics, underlining, quoting, links, etc., you see the text being formatted as you type. See the switch icon marked by the red circle in the upper left? That’s the icon I was talking about. If you click on it, the editor changes to this. This is the raw BBCode of my reply. BBCode is a system used by forum software to mark formatting, quotes, links, and so on. The KK forum used to have this functionality before the recent update. I’m hoping that this can be added back. I don’t always need to use it, but occasionally it comes in very handy.

In the previous version of the forum software, there was a little switch icon in the upper left corner of the formatting bar. Clicking on that icon switched your editing mode from WYSIWYG to raw BBCode. Is there any way to activate that function again? Being able to directly see the BBCode was useful to me on occasion. Thanks!

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I do have my fall back make-your-own rub for when I’m really really really in a hurry. Since I have that committed to memory, I can make that in no time. But in real life, I’ve found that using a premade rub only saves me a few minutes, tops. I’ll lose that much time wandering around the kitchen trying to remember what I did with my knife. And on top of that, making my own rub allows me to control how much salt is in the final product. From an overall health standpoint, that’s something to think about.

That’s going to be a lovely addition to your yard. One day we would like to put in a vegetable/herb garden, once the kids stop sucking up all of our free time.

I’ve come to like making my own rubs and spice mixtures. In the long run, it’s cheaper than the prepackaged mixes, and it really doesn’t take that long. If I'm looking to duplicate a premade mix, this is what I do. As an example, I’m going to use the McCormick Steakhouse Mushroom mix that ckreef has in his photo, just because it’s the first one. First thing is to look up the ingredient list. Google is your friend here. There’s a page with lots of information on what goes into this mix here. Here’s the ingredient list, from the page I linked to: Onion, Garlic, Salt, Mushroom, Spices (Including Black Pepper, Yeast Extract, Hydrolyzed Corn Gluten, Soy Protein, And Wheat Gluten, Vinegar, Molasses, Sugar, And Natural Flavor. Although we don’t have exact measurements, the ingredients will be listed in order of how much is in the mix. We can ignore a lot of the ingredients, like soy protein and wheat gluten. Ingredients towards the end of the list are in smaller amounts, and probably can be dropped without altering the flavor much. Once I get rid of the nonessential ingredients, here’s my list. Onion, Garlic, Salt, Mushroom, Black Pepper, Molasses, Sugar. I would make a mix with equal parts onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper, probably 1/2 tsp. each. In place of the molasses and sugar, I might add a pinch of brown sugar. For the mushroom, either add minced real mushrooms or dried mushroom (porcini, shiitake, etc.) shavings. I might even add back a drop of vinegar or so. And since vinegar is just to add some acidity, you can substitute that with other acidic ingredients, like a little red wine, since that goes well with mushrooms. Total time to mix these ingredients together would be 2-3 minutes, tops. Then I would follow the directions on the website. It says that one package is 2 tsp., and that’s enough to add to 1 lb. of burger meat. So take 2 tsp or so of the mix you just made, and 1 lb. of burger meat, mix, and grill. You can take this approach with just about any premade spice mix. The benefits of this are that in the vast majority of cases, salt and/or sugar are at the top of the ingredient list, which means that you’re paying a lot for relatively cheap ingredients. And if you look through the ingredient list of a number of spice mixes, you’ll see the same ingredients coming up over and over again, so it won’t be hard to stock your spice rack with the spices you’ll need.

Congratulations! If you’re impressed by how fast and easy it was to park your grill at 350ºF, just wait until you open all the vents to get to steak searing temps.

So glad the move went well!

Congrats on getting your grill in place!

Wow! Great looking loaf!

Still not enough light for money shots on the grill, but we’re getting there! Spring is coming! In the meantime, I made this miso glazed grilled salmon. I marinated salmon fillets in a mix of miso, soy sauce, sugar, and sake for 30 minutes, and then grilled them skin side down first, then flipped them. This was delicious, but my younger son didn’t like the taste, which is weird, because he’s the more adventurous of my two boys when it comes to trying new food. My older son, who is much more picky, chowed it down.

All of these food photos look awesome. I did think for a second that MacKenzie managed to convert her cooked rotisserie chicken into an egg for breakfast. KK grills are great, but even I don’t think they can work that sort of miracle.

I haven’t had to move my KK grill up or down steps. Luckily when it was delivered, the driver just moved my grill, crated and on the skid, around my house and onto the back patio. However, I do woodworking as a hobby, and I’ve had to move large equipment into my basement via a Bilco door and stairs. The biggest thing I’ve had to maneuver down there was my bandsaw, which is about 550 lbs. What I did for that was to get a very heavy duty hand truck (something like this). I strapped the bandsaw to the hand truck, and bumped it down the stairs with the help of three friends. Having the wheels made going down the stairs quite a bit easier than trying to deadlift the bandsaw directly.

Great, thanks! The preference page is working as expected.

Overall, I like the changes to the forum. However, there is one issue that I’d like to change. I’ve noticed that I now get emails every time someone replies to a post that I follow. I really don’t need these emails, so I figured I’d just change my settings. I found the page where you can set notification preferences, and saw this. Can the administrators change this so I can toggle the option whether to receive emails when someone comments on something I follow? I don’t know why this should be locked. Thanks!

Very nice!

Right on! You’re going to have a great time with your new KK grill.

Nice! I’ve been looking for a good source for beef ribs around here.

I’ve never seen this behavior on this forum. However, some of the subforums have a lot of “Pinned†posts, which supersede the new posts. In other words, if a post gets a new reply, it goes to the top of the unpinned posts, while the pinned posts stay on top. Maybe that’s what’s making new posts seem like they aren’t getting to the top of the post list.

Hi churchi, Here’s how I get Smaug going for high heat direct grilling. I start with a full basket of charcoal, lit in five spots over a fairly wide area, with the lid open and the bottom vents fully open, with the grate off. After five minutes, I flip over the bigger chunks in the top layer of the charcoal a bit. At this point, those chunks are lit on the bottom side but not the top, so I flip them to get the entire piece of lump lit. Then I put the grate in, close the lid and open the top vent as high as it would go. I can hit 500-600ºF in 15 minutes or less using this method. 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 hits 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. The other thing that helps is to modify my workflow. With my gas grill, I used to prep the food, then turn on the gas, then wait for the warmup, and then cook. Since getting Smaug, I’ve learned to light Smaug, prep food, do the five minute charcoal flipping/vent setting thing, go back to prepping food, and cook when Smaug was ready. In fact, overall this may be more efficient than what I used to do. I’ve often said that having a kamado grill is like having a charcoal grill that’s as efficient as a gas grill. This is why. My old gas grill would have to heat for about 10 minutes or so before the grates were hot enough to cook steaks, burgers, or seafood, and it never got as hot as Smaug can get. I know that BBQ is all about patience, and enjoying the process. But as long as folks keep talking about keeping a gas or pellet grill around for quick cooks, I’m going to keep making the point that starting a charcoal fire for high temp direct grilling can be very quick with a kamado grill. Using this method, I’ve consistently been able to hit these temps in 15 minutes, tops. Compared to my old gas grill, I’m losing a whopping 5 minutes of time, but the benefit is that the cook turns out way better. And in reality, 5 minutes won’t break anyone’s schedule. If it does, you should just make ramen for dinner instead. Heck, I’ll lose 5 minutes wandering around my kitchen trying to remember what I was looking for.

Charles, do you think that the different size of our grills might have an impact on what we're seeing with cooking steaks on the main grill? For steaks, I generally have a full basket of charcoal, and it's completely on fire when I start cooking. Even if you do the same, my guess is that the smaller basket in a KK 16.5" and a KK 19" means there are less BTUs put out by the fire compared to a KK 23". Bottom line, whatever works for you works.

I think I gravitated to the main grate because of my wife. As I mentioned, she likes her steak medium well, and if I was to cook her steak on the searing grate, the outside would be scorched by the time the middle of the steak got to medium well. DAMHIKT. If I cook a steak to medium rare on the searing grate, I get pretty much the same result as I do on the main grate, except that the outside brown layer is a little thinner. If I was cooking a steak just for me, that’s what I would do, but considering the results I get on the main grate, it’s not like there’s a huge benefit.

Go figure. Serious Eats is also one of my favorite food sites, and I didn’t know they had a recipe for suckling pig.

There seems to be a persistent sentiment out there that the meat doesn’t know what grill it’s cooked on. I’ve never figured out why that might be true, when so many other factors seem to affect the cook. However, outside of a few direct comparisons I didn’t have much empirical evidence to support my thinking. But based on your experience, as well as Bosco, Mr. and Mrs. Reef, and Rak’s, and probably others that I’m missing, I think that idea can be laid to rest.