wilburpan

You have a KK 23†like me, right? Like I mentioned above, I really really like this size, even for routine cooks. I can get Smaug from unlit charcoal to burger grilling temperatures in 15 minutes or less, and when I’m done, shut down happens so fast that I never have thought I was wasting charcoal. Even for ridiculously small cooks like this:

The rib cooks are done indirect with the deflector sitting on the charcoal basket. That does allow for a lot of area when doing low and slow cooks. For direct grilling, however, you’re kind of stuck with how many burgers/steaks/whatever you can fit on one grate. That’s where the larger KK grills come in handy. If you’re looking for input on what size KK grill to get, we’re a family of four, and we often have one or two families over for cookouts. I’ve found the KK 23†to be perfect for this amount of people. A KK 32†would be nicer for cooking lots of burgers at once, but we wouldn’t hit that capacity often enough for the step up to be worthwhile. I would also make sure that whatever size you get has a rotisserie big enough for whatever you plan on cooking. I got the rotisserie, thinking that I wouldn’t use it that much, and instead I’ve found that I use it much more than I thought I would.

FWIW, I don’t think it’s a placebo effect. I do think it’s the difference between a KK grill and ceramic kamado grills. I’ve made this point before, but one often-stated advantage of a kamado grill is that it is more efficient and traps moisture better than a Weber kettle grill. If that’s the case, then it should be the case that the more efficient that a kamado grill is at trapping moisture, the better the results. I know that the very first cooks I was doing with Smaug were better than the food from a BGE demonstration run by one of their reps. (The BGE food was very good, to be sure.) That’s why I think that the difference that you and Ryan are seeing is real.

If ash cleaning is a question, I’m only 5’6â€, and I can reach into Smaug from the top and sweep out the ashes through the front vent opening without any trouble.

Don’t worry about asking questions. It wasn’t that long ago that I was a newbie as well. When I make ribs, I generally let the cook go for about 5 hours at 225-250ºF, then check the ribs with the bend test. If I need to use multiple grates, I don’t rotate the ribs at all. I’ve done a number of rib cooks where I needed two grates, and one where I used all three grates, and I never rotated the ribs. I couldn’t tell any difference in terms of doneness between them.

One of our friends unfortunately had a fire in their house over the holidays. The family is okay, but they are going to be living in an apartment for at least 6 months while their house is renovated. We decided to have a surprise potluck lunch for them, and my wife volunteered me to make ribs. Of course, I was more than happy to do this. That’s when she told me that the potluck was to start at 1 pm. Counting backwards, that meant starting cooking at 7 am, which meant starting prep work at 6 am. On a weekend. And I like to sleep in. So I dutifully set my alarm. I didn’t do anything different from my usual ribs. I made a rib rub à la Aaron Franklin’s approach, and applied it to six racks of ribs. I rubbed the ribs with some olive oil before putting the rub on. I loaded up Smaug with the ribs. He was stabilized at 225ºF. About 5-1/2 hours later, this was the result. I impressed myself by managing to get all six racks into the house all on one plate. I had to try out one of the ribs to make sure they came out okay, of course. The potluck was a great time. Folks there seemed to like the ribs. I know they all were gone by the time we had to leave for my son’s basketball game.

Yum!

I’ve seen that iridescent pattern on beef before, usually in Chinese food. What seems to be key is slicing a cut of beef with well-defined fibers across the grain, like in skirt steak. That doesn’t guarantee the iridescence, but I’ve never seen that look with beef sliced with the grain.

Ditto! You’re going to love the food your KK will be turning out for you.

Great pork and chicken combo!

Looks great!

That fish looks incredible, Rak! I may be biased, since both Rak and Bosco’s observations line up with my own , but I also think that the KK is bringing something to the table that standard ceramic kamado grills don’t, despite the common wisdom that the food doesn’t know what grill it’s in. That thing is the moisture issue. KK grills are so efficient that they can retain and maintain temperature with very little airflow compared to other grills. It’s the same principle that makes food coming from a ceramic kamado moister than food cooked the same way on a Weber. Dennis has said that the increase in efficiency and moisture retention between a KK grill and a ceramic is even greater than the difference between a Weber and a ceramic kamado. Based on Rak and Bosco’s observations of their cooks, I would say that’s pretty good supporting evidence for that idea.

I think Dennis’s point here is important, especially if you’re coming from another brand of kamado: For a low and slow cook, the vent settings I wind up using on Smaug are much much smaller compared to vent settings I’ve seen in videos featuring other brands of kamados. Almost shockingly so.

That’s true for cameras and guitars as well.

I’m trying to come up with a way to better explain this that won’t get people upset. So with the caveat that the comparison I’m about to make is not intended to make fun of anyone’s interests or hobbies, here goes: I think we can all agree that KK grills are a high end item. There’s no denying the obvious quality and thought that went into the design of our grills. One of the things that makes this clear is the difference between seeing pictures and online information about a KK grill and seeing it in person. There are aspects of quality with the KK grill that just doesn’t telegraph well through photos or the internet. There are other brands in other types of products where there’s a similar experience: Apple for phones and computers, Mercedes-Benz for cars, Rolex for watches, and so on. If you take a look at the image those brands project, they skew towards the minimalist side. Most high end brands take that approach. In the grilling world, a good example would be Kalamazoo grills. If you take a look at how those grills are branded, there’s a relatively small Kalamazoo badge with a logo on the lid, and “Kalamazoo†printed down in the control area along with the model number in relatively small type. That’s it. Kalamazoo grills also come with a number of custom cooking surfaces, which is something that brand is known for. Those grates don’t have Kalamazoo branded on their surfaces anywhere, either. On the other hand, there are a number of other kamado brands whose marketing strategy seems to run along the lines of “If it has a space available, put the logo on itâ€. And although I’m not saying that such an approach can’t be successful, it’s not the sort of approach that high end products tend to take. An Audi only has two spots on the exterior that identify the brand: the grill and the trunk. A NASCAR race car is certainly a performance car, and arguably beats an Audi on performance, but all the badges and logos take away from the image of a NASCAR race car as being a high end model. (Not a perfect analogy, I know, but I think it gets the point across. And this was the point of comparison that I was worried about. I’m not denigrating NASCAR or its fans by this comparison. I like NASCAR racing myself.) So that’s why I’m not in favor of a KK branded thermometer. There are plenty of design cues that KK is known for. The current location of the logo is nicely placed. The silhouette of the grills, the feet, and the top vent are clearly associated with KK and no other grill. The use of tile also further differentiates the company and its products. That’s why I would say that although you could put “Komodo Kamado†on the thermometer, you don’t NEED to do so. I would vote for shipping Fahrenheit/Celsius thermometers with all KK grills. Helps simplify the inventory.

LOL!

I certainly don't want to depress sales of the KK Dual Fuel grills, but one thing to consider is how much time you really are saving by cooking with gas. Assuming that what you are going for is a direct cook over a high temperature, for ideal cooking there’s a warm up time involved with using gas. You don’t have to heat soak the grill, but you do want the grates to be hot. With my old gas grill, I let it burn on high for 10 minutes or so when grilling direct for burgers, steaks, fish, chicken, etc. Comparing that to direct cooking with a KK grill using charcoal, in my hands I find that I can consistently get my KK 23†from lighting the charcoal to 500-600ºF in about 15 minutes. (If you want to see how I do this, check out this post.) This isn’t faster than gas, but the actual amount of time saved winds up being a whopping five minutes, if you take into account the 10 minute warmup time I normally did with a gas grill. That’s not a huge amount of time saved. Heck, I’ll lose five minutes wandering around my kitchen trying to remember what ingredient it was that I’m looking for. I’ve also learned to alter my work flow when cooking direct. What I do is set up and light my grill first, then do food prep. By the time the food prep is done, the grill is ready to go. So if that amount of time is important to you, go for the Dual Fuel. I do keep a propane tank around since getting my KK 23â€, but that’s for lighting the charcoal.

I vote dual scale, but no logo on the thermometer. The brand is for the grill, and I’m in favor of not putting the Komodo Kamado brand on everything. It seems a bit tacky to me for a high quality item.

Nice take on deep dish pizza!

I’ve gotten to the point where I use the internal temp (I like 195ºF) as step one in determining whether a pork butt is done. Once the butt hits 195ºF, I’ll see how easily the probe goes in and out of the butt in various places. Sometimes it’s like butter, in which case it’s done. Sometimes I get more resistance, at which point I’ll let it go longer. From the description of your butt with the globs of fat, I’d bet that probing it would have given you some resistance. I generally plan for 1-1.5 hours/lb. for a bone-in pork butt, cooking indirect at 200-225ºF according to the dome thermometer, with the meat on the main grate. so your 9 hour cook time seems reasonable.

No worries: it’s still going to be a great weekend! And welcome!

I did eight racks of ribs in a KK 23†recently, without the aid of a rib rack. They came out great, even without rotating them. In the picture, it looks like that’s just as the cook is getting started. I would expect that all the pork butts (at least I think they are pork butts) will shrink as the cook goes on, giving more room for air to get around them.

Welcome! That’s a really nice space you have for your KK, and your cooks look terrific!

Just a thought: you could see if Dennis has any pink/purple Sunbrella fabric options for a cover.

Well if Charles promised that to her, I guess we all know who needs to make good on that deal. Sounds just like my list, except for the extra basket (I do have the splitter) and the double bottom drip pan, which wasn’t available when I ordered Smaug. The nice thing with the KK basket splitter system is that there’s a half-circle plate that sits horizontally in the basket on the non-charcoal side, which means you effectively have an equivalent to the KJ D&C system. With the KK 23â€, the basket is round, so that means you can orient the indirect half any way that you want: left/right, front/back, 45º, and so on.