CeramicChef

OH! This could be very tasty for this old altar boy and current day Mackerel Snapper! Thanks!

Thanks, Cook. I'll get it and try it out.

Cook - I generally don't take pics of cooks. However, that is about to change. Especially with videos. As for salmon, I'm Catholic and at this time of year, I'm a FISH person. No meat Fridays! Yeah, I've done salmon many times. As for the lid being off, when I do cook in a DO, it is generally after all the ingredients have had their smoke added during the preliminary cook of the ingredients. I mostly keep the lid on the DO as I don't want to have to constantly add moisture to the cook. The DO lid isn't an airtight seal, so just enough water evaporates to concentrate the sauce just about perfectly. I'll be posting pics of more cooks more often. I look forward to your cooks!

Shack - thanks! A Dutch Oven is one of the handiest things in any kind of good kitchen. I don't remember smoke getting into DO cooks and I did a lot of breads, cakes, cobblers. Now a days I have been know to smoke a chuck roast, pull it, and then use the pulled beef to do chili in a DO on my KK. Great flavor! I've also done shepard's pie in a DO. I'll bake several Idaho bakers on the KK at the same time I cook some ground beef and lamb. I scoop out the potatoes, which pick up a subtle smoke flavor (for a more robust flavor use the whole potato), mash them up, blend in some cream cheese, baked garlic, butter, and half and half, and top the meat and gravy mixture with the potatoes. Then it's back in the KK after being being topped with some cheese. You can also use pulled smoked beef and pulled smoked lamb for even a smokier flavor. I have lately been doing about a braise a week using a DO. I'm trying my hand at adapting classic braising recipes to the DO and the KK. Some have been quite successful. Others not so much. I think I'll start trying my hand at videos and posting them here. Stay tuned for further developments!

slbb - even with my KK BB 32", TheBeast, I've never worried much about that. I can always get the cook down in the KK without problem. I can always flip the extended grate upside down and put it right above the firebox for sears. With Beauty! I didn't get her because I wanted to move the cook closer to the fire. Rather, I got her for the small onesy-twosy cooks I tend to do during the week. TheBeast is really best for larger cooks and parties, at least in my opinion. And you know what they say about opinions! I hope I answered your question. If not, we'll get it done. Just tell me where I left out the info you were needing.

Tony - glad to hear things up north have turned around! Nothing like a bottle of bubbly, a chicken on the KK, and good tunes on the patio! Good on ya for surviving another winter. We've got trees in full bud down here in OK and tulips peeking out of the ground. It was in the upper 70s today and forecasts say we shouldn't be below 60-65 for daytime highs over the next 10 days! But something tells me Ole Man Winter ain't done yet!

Cook - I did kabobs of every stripe ... Beef, chicken, shrimp, etc. I really loved baked potatoes direct on the coals. Steaks were common. I even did some Cornish Game Hens on occasion. My Father taught me to BBQ and cook over fire at an early age so by the time I was in Scouting, I wasn't intimitated by outdoor cooking at all. All I did was add a Dutch Oven to my bag of tricks and it was game on! Cakes, cobblers, breakfast biscuits, etc. As long as I had my griddle and Dutch Oven, I wasn't going to starve. I'll have to rummage around and dredge up some of those cooks from a long time ago.

Shoot me a PM if you would like to see a 19" Hi-Cap Komodo Kamado in Northwest Oklahoma City, OK! We can always make it happen. I look forward to chatting with you. Ken

Cook_Shack - that recipe takes me back more than a few years! I used to do this all the time when I was in the BSA as a Scout and later as a Scout Master. Sumptuous and easy desert! I'll do this this weekend! Thanks.

Frogs - thanks; I appreciate it greatly. Come on up to OKC and we'll drink a little whiskey ... ok, maybe a lot of whiskey ... and burn some protein! I'll play Sous Chef for you!

tony - these past two weeks have been the weeks from hell that simply won't end! If something could screw up, it did it in spades! You've heard of Murphy's law? Well, I can attest that Murphy was an optimist! I'm thinking for 1st cook we're going to do something incredibly easy ... NY Strips. At this point in life, even I can't screw up a NY Strip.

KKers! I've been up to my A$$ in alligators lately and haven't had much time to devote to getting Beauty! into her cradle and out on the patio. We got that accomplished yesterday! Following are a series of pics that show Beauty! next to her new friend, TheBeast a KK BB 32". They seem to play well in the sandbox and get on well together. Next to TheBeast, Beauty! seems to be quite diminutive. Here is a shot of both Beauty! and TheBeast with their lids open. What may not be apparent here is that the angle of the lids when in the open position is the same. From the other side. Here are Beauty! and TheBeast a little closer together. The perfunctory picture of Beauty! in her permanent spot on the patio directly across from TheBeast. Gotta be ergonomic ya know ... Here is the first load of charcoal in the basket. It seems small, but all I've had lately to compare is what TheBeast puts in his belly! As most of you know and for the visitors here, all KKs require a minimum of a 2 hour curing burn before the first really high temp cook. Out of the crate you can cook anything you want as long as the temp doesn't get above about 350F. High temp cooks would be temps over 500F or so. This curing that each KK owner does is to make certain that the curing burn at the KK factory did, in fact, get rid of all the volatiles in the elastomeric cement that is used to attache all the tiles to the KK. Occasionally there can still be some volatiles under a couple of the larger tiles. These volatiles tend to bubble to the surface and leave a little white residue. During the venting of those volatiles some tiles may loosen. All you have to do is push the tile back in place. No problem. I personally have never seen a tile loosen. Here is first fire in Beauty! and getting ready for the curing process over the next few hours. I chose to light 3 spots in the FOGO charcoal for the curing burn. Beauty!, like TheBeast, is incredible responsive to airflow. Temperatures climb easily, I had Beauty! up to 500F inside of 20 minutes, no problem. As I write this, she's holding rock solid at 500F with nary a fluctuation. Beauty is a typical KK; the most over engineered kamado on planet earth. She meets the call every single time! Dennis, THANKS! for another great KK! More to follow.

Thanks, Dennis! I appreciate it greatly! Will post there thanks to you!

Doesn't it get B-O-R-I-N-G around your place having to eat perfect cooks like that ALL the time?

I've done Cornell Chicken a few times and it has always been well-received. I've gotta do it more often. Thanks of the reminder!

Tony - that is how you properly spatch a yard bird! Beautiful color on that cook! Beer is for drinking while BBQing, not for birds!

The only problem I with foil is that if it's down on top of the charcoal, i.e. you're smoking with herbs, the foil tends to melt if you have a hot fire. Foiled veggies on the grate higher in the KK shouldn't be a problem.

I think that we should get the plant gurus down at my old Alma Mater, Texas A&M, to genetically modify tomatoes so that they produce their own high grade vodka while they ripen! Seriously, down at Texas A&M the plant genetics guys hated the color of orange so much (Orange is the color of the enemy - Univ of Texas at Austin) that they modified a carrot and changed the orange color to Maroon, the color of Texas A&M! Now if they can do that, Vodka Tomatoes can't be that tough, right?

Where's the vodka? LOL!

Roger wilco, Dennis!

I HATE crock pots. As far as I'm concerned you can call 'em crcock pots, slow cookers, whatever ... They're all a crock!

Howdy KKers! The Tri-tip is resting comfortably in the fridge and it's gotta keep until tomorrow or SWMBOI will have my tush! Cook - I like that styrofoam cooker idea. I really do. Cheap and effective. Montana - congrats on a great cook! If SWMBO likes it, what else matters, right?

This sounds interesting! Pics? Thanks, Cook_Shack!

MAJOR SCREW UP UPDATE ALERT! Ok, KKers, as many of you know it's the liturgical season of Lent. I'm also a Catholic. During Lent on Fridays, we abstain from eating meat. Sooooooo, the Tri Tip that was going to hit the plate this evening is going to hit the plate tomorrow evening. I'm so sorry about this. I should be able to count better than that! I'll post the Tri Tip cook when it happens. I took it out of the bath and it feels amazing. We'll see how it tastes in a dy or so. Thanks for understanding. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!

@bgrant and @ tony - those are exactly the units I've seen. Are they that much better than my MAPP torch? I'll try anything once, twice if I like it!