CeramicChef

Howdy KK Kooks! For your consideration, I present a hickory smoked, reverse seared Prime NY Strip. I've been under the weather lately and haven't done a thing with TheBeast. TheBeast was getting a bit antsy, so I went out to the refrigerator and discovered I had 2 Prime NY Strips. More correctly, SWMBOI asked if I intended on letting "... all that meat go to waste"? She also informed me it was taking up needed space in the refrigerator. It wasn't bothering me one little bit in the refrigerator and after all, it IS my refrigerator! But as we all know, happy, ahhhh, happy life! So not feeling too keen about putting' on the dawg, I lit TheBeast and threw in a piece of hickory for smoke. Here he is, getting up to speed: Here are the Prime Strips just on with nothing but salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Just plain simple. And after 30 minutes at 200F, here they are at 120F when I pulled them. Really gorgeous color on that meat. I opened the bottom vent about 3/4ths of the way open and spun the top hat vent 2 full turns. Temps took off like a rocket sled on rails! Here's what 750 looks like in the belly of TheBeast! Here's 2 minutes later at the first turn: Here's another 2 minutes after that first turn: Pulled at 135 internal temp (SWMBOI Likes her steak on the medium side and again, happy, ahhhh, happy life!) I gotta figure out a new saying for SWMBOI! You can't tell it but the pic because the light was so bad and my camera sucks, but it was SWMBOI Medium. Perfect she told me. Whew! Another bullet dodged! And here, finally, is the means whereby I avoided going face down in my cook. HYDRATION! That Shiner Wild Hare died in the service of a great steak and a grateful CC! Pete The Pink Salt Pig gives this cook 4 hooves up! He fell on his a$$ doing so, but Pete liked this cook! Y'all have a great week!

dstr8 - I'd say that you were consistently good on those pizza pies. Really nice cook. Very nice indeed!

BBQ Master - beautiful cabinetry! Very nice craftsmanship. And the KK ain't bad either!

Amir - WOW! Great looking pizza pies you cooked there. And they're just a tad bit different! KUDOS! That asparagus and scallion pizza gets major points for innovation! I'd certainly never have thought of that combination. Congrats on a great cook.

distr. - at first I thought PRUNES? Are you kidding me? But as I read your post, this really sounds pretty goo, dadgummed good in fact. I'm going to give this a try! THANKS! Oh, and btw, those kabobs look delicious! Killer!

EGGARY - sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do! SWMBO likes stepping out about once a week. She likes being waited on, seeing and being seen, likes me picking a wine (at least for the most part). And If SWMBO is happy, that's all that counts in my world. I've been to Lawry's and it's a fine place. You can certainly do a lot worse! I've always said that our KK spoil us. We compare everything eaten out to what we cook at home and at home, we may not get all the splash and dash, but we get EXACTLY what we want and how we want it. Thanks be to KK! And Dennis!

Well Wilbur, you know me. As an engineer, i'll try just about anything once just to see what happens! Most engineers are empiricists deep down. MY favorite questions always start "I wonder what happens if I ..." Got me into more trouble ...

Thanks! I appreciate the pointer.

+1^ Robert is my go to guy when I have questions about my CyberQ WiFi. He's all over this deal and as far as I'm concerned, if he says it, I believe it. Never found him to be wrong.

I prefer to think of it as Midnight Express! I generally run my corn squeezings thru an activated carbon charcoal filter to pull out all the aldehydes and ketones that make you regret the day your Mother met your Father. I also only run thru the mash once as this also cuts down on some of the carry over. When I was an undergrad we had a Chem Engr course in Unit Operations ... basically the theory behind the major operating units you'd find in any process area. So you know at the end of the semester you always have some sort of project/paper. Out group designed an ethanol distillation column complete with reflux, optimal feed tray, the whole schmere. Well, I did a lot of undergrad research and had an office with a HUGE laminar flow hood. We built that still in the laminar flow hood in my office. It was pumping out stuff almost as pure as your Mother's milk! The best we got was about 92% or 184 proof. One quart of that stuff in a keg of beer and you had a helluva party! Tony, maybe I should consider this beer thing. You have any good simple places to start reading? Thanks in advance!

Dadgum, Wilbur! You just might be onto something! I gotta think about this one .... How do I reincorporate the oils that are sure to separate out if the cheese melts?

Wilbur, not a dumb question at all. Three weeks seems to me to be the optimal time to let cheese cure after smoking. If we ate the cheese right after smoking, it really wouldn't taste as "smokie" as it will in 3 weeks. Right now, all the smoke is on the surface of the cheese. Letting the cheese cure helps the smoke to infuse deeper into the cheese. I wish I could rush the process along. Anyone have a way to cut down on the curing time for smoked cheese?

BRAVO! When your wife likes the Q, Parrot, you're GOLDEN! And Robert is quite right, burnt ends are pretty easy. He'll get you through! On another note - how in the world do you keep your KK so dadgummed WHITE!? If I had that thing down here in OK, it's be sandblasted pink because of all the red dirt we have flying around here in the mild breezes! How do you keep the smoke from turning the top brown? Beautiful Kooker, Parrot, really beautiful!

Tony - I've thought about learning the art of making good beer, but I'm much more of a whiskey man. And YES! Hell Yes I do mix up a batch of corn squeezin's now and again. Being a Chemical Engineer it just seems to come rather naturally! You've got one gorgeous looking brew house there! Congrats!

So today is a nice cool day here in OKC and after Jerri smoked cheese right after Thanksgiving and my ne'er do well Brother gigged me to smoke some cheese for him, I decided to do some smoked Tillamok Medium Cheddar Cheese today in TheBeast. This is my first attempt at smoking cheese in the belly of TheBeast, so we're into unknown territory. So, we shall see what we shall see. Open up both manifold wide open to get plenty of airflow to make certain the A-Maz-N-Tube Smoker performs as designed. Here's a pic of the A-Maz-N-Tube 6" smoker resting on my lower grate in the beast. It's been lit and has been burning for 10 minutes. Blew out the fire as per instructions and it's now smoking away. We're using hickory pellets today for our smoke component. Here is the Tillamok Cheddar cut into slabs for better smoke adsorption. I used a veggie tray since the holes will allow for good smoke contact on all sides of the cheddar slabs. You probably can't tell from the picture, but I have the upper cooking grate to get the cheese high in the dome of TheBeast. The upper cooking grate is sitting on the main grate which is above the lower grate. So we have the lower grate holding the Tube Smoker, the main grate, and the upper cooking grate holding the cheese for smoking. Here's a picture of the top vent. I've opened this more for this smoke than it's ever been open for a cook, even high temp pizza cooks. The reason for this is that Tube Smokers are notorious for not staying lit in kamado cookers. This isn't going to happen to me today! TheBeast's top vent is 3 full turns open at this point! If you look right under the top vent in the lower right hand quadrant you can see the gasket. Here is the cheese after 2 hours on smoke. The cheese doesn't look as if it has adsorbed much smoke, but believe me it has! You should have been in the kitchen 5 minutes after I brought it in .... smelled like a BBQ joint! Go figure! After a trip to the Food Saver, here's what you get ... Note that Pete The Pink Salt Pig approves! Also note that I've put the date I smoked this cheese on the bag. It'll be ready for consumption in 3 weeks, just in time for Xmas hors d'oeuvres! The reason the bag is so dadgummed crinkled is because I got distracted by Skippy, the Sous Chef cat! I"ll let y'all know in 3 weeks how this turns out!

Tony - I feel like I'm in an episode of "Dude, You're Screwed!". Do I mess with God's servants, the KofC? Not in this lifetime! Just plain bad juju and I'm already about to max that scale! Do I tell SWMBOI's Mom no way Jose? Not in this lifetime, especially when she could very well be my last M-I-L? Again, a career limiting move! SWMBOI's Mom already had the "She cries .... You die!" talk with me. My motto has become "Dude, You're Royally Screwed!". But then I'm 60, I'm retired, what the hell else am I gonna do? After all, I got TheBeast to use, right? Just gives me more excuses to drink more Woodford Reserve!

And I'm not even going to comment here on those two dead ducks hanging next to the bird houses! I'll let other point out the massive incongruities!

Wilbur - Doc, you just tore that cook apart! KUDOS! And as for fine china, nothing works better! Or at least that's what both ex-wives will tell you! They got all the good stuff and I got plastic! LOL!!!

Parrot! Absolutely NOTHING wrong with that! Kudos!

Tony - Do you have any leftovers? I'm a betting man and I'm betting NOT! Pretty tasty looking!

Social - I'd say you must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express the night before you cooked that bird because .... YOU NAILED IT! Kudos!

Here's a few pics I was about to post: I just HATE it when I can't hit a temp! This was supposed to be a 350F cook! The Guest of Honor and THE TURKEY ROLL i spent hours trying to tracking down! This is just prior to their smokey encounter. The turkey roll is in the upper right hand corner. Here is the cook about half way through the cook ... And now here is the Guest of Honor and his little buddy at the end of their smokey experience. And now the Guest of Honor about to be wrapped up and going Over The River and Through the Woods Grandma's House. Notice that Pete The Pink Salt Pig, approves greatly! His little buddy, Turkey Roll will be smoked turkey enchies later this week! Everyone RAVED about how tender and moist the Guest was. In fact, no good deed goes unpunished .... for Christmas the whole famn damily wants me to do both a turkey and a ham! I gotta talk to SWMBO about her volunteering my time! This cook was brined 24 hours and injected with a butter, garlic, and Maple Syrup. Cook temp was 350F over pecan smoke. It took 2:15 to do this 17# bird.

Get a little heat hiding in there! You are one sneaky dude, Tony! I like your style.

Killer chops there Tony! Very nicely done. Kudos to ya!

Tony - absolutely killer cook! You must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express Wednesday night because Tony, YOU NAILED IT! I make a cranberry relish quite similar looking to yours. I'm stealing your secret ingredient and this coming Christmas my family is gonna,go wild. It's my Mom's recipe and she would have approved! Again, great cook and I hope you, your family and your friends had the happiest Thankgiving ever!