CeramicChef

I'm on a mission! I've looked all over OKC and I can't find these dadgummed turkey roasts. I've cooked these before, but not lately and not inOKC. I've gotta find a turkey roast! I've asked every butcher in every market I frequent and no turkey roasts. I will not be deterred! I'm finding a turkey roast if I have to fly to Houston!

Hey Dennis -I hope I'm not out of place here, but you mentioned during one of our conversations that you were experimenting with building and selling the smoke pots described elsewhere in this Forum. How is that progressing? I've got the 2 qt Lodge dutch oven on the way, but if you're close to a final model of that smoke pot, put me down for one, tell me where to send funds, and well move on down the road! Thanks in advance!

Dennis - you're aces in my book! Great advice and oh, so timely! I'm doing a pizza cook tonight for a few friends. Don't have the time to do pizza dough from scratch, so I'm getting the pizzas from a franchise operation, Papa Murphy's. It's a take and bake deal and I can recommend them highly, especially if you all your favorite toppings, a little more cheese, and only that special touch that a KK can contribute! I'll post some pics tomorrow! I'm kicking the temp up to 575o and give it a whirl. This should be more fun than I've had in a long time with my clothes on! Yeah, I know, that's a visual you didn't need!

Wow, Doc! I know exactly the kind of country you're in. Bastard country we call it where I come from ... it takes one mean bastard to live there. Nobody but a real bastard wants to live there. Yada, yada, yada! Present company excluded, of course. If you hunted those days in that kind of terrain, man, you'd never stop picking cactus needles from the dawgs legs and paws. You don't need that at all. Again, thanks for the rescue of those dawgs. I've rescued dawgs and cats and never regretted it for a second.

Wilbur - try this link here in the KK Forum. Has some pics of a set up for calzones. http://komodokamado.com/forum/topic/4835-first-calzones-on-the-komodo-kamado/ Here is another showing a pizza set up. http://komodokamado.com/forum/topic/4799-ken-forkish-pizza/ Be sure to let us know how it goes!

Wilbur - hope work is easing up on you. How often do you have to take call? For my pizza cooks, and I've only done 2 so far on The Beast, I get my baking stone high in the dome. I haven't used a heat deflector down low. I take The Beast only to 550° and leave it at that. I heat soak for a couple of hours and then I can cook 3-4 pizza and not worry about recycle times. I generally do thin crust. I haven't done any Chicago style deep dish and have only done a single thick crust. YMMV. Be well.

Doc - do you run your dawgs? Freddy would listen the his dawgs baying and he could tell exactly what was going on out in the field. Those Guys had a voice that really carried! Great dawgs and lovely animals. They laid around until it was time to go to work and then they were all business and then, it was back to holding down a hunk of floor. Thanks for rescuing those animals. They never forget.

Doc (if I may be so bold!) - those are GREAT dawgs! A friend os mine from my college days has always had a Black & Tan. Great coon dawgs and when you look up the word Loyal, there's a picture of a Black & Tan.

Dennis - you got your wish here. I belong to another Forum dedicated to all things kamado. I've been cooking on kamados for over 20 years. On the other Forum I saw a thread Komodo Kamado. I'd never heard of it so I thought let's read this thread. Very small number of posts and even smaller number of active posters, but they were unmovable when it came to their kamado's quality, beauty, etc. That got me interested. Then one day someone posted pics and specs of the newly announced KK BB 32". I pulled up the site, started reading, looking, drooling, lusting, dreaming. The more I looked the more I had to have a KK BB 32". Then I called Dennis. Game. Set. Match. Komodo Kamado is a great asset to Dennis Linkletter. Dennis Linkletter is an invaluable asset to Komodo Kamado. If you read this and wonder how all the "Hype" about Komodo Kamado can possibly be true, I assure you the "Hype" you've heard doesn't do the KK justice. Anyone who has a KK quickly runs out of superlatives describing their KK experience. Anyone who eats food cooked on a KK has only one word to describe the food ... WOW! Anyone who sees a KK in its native habitat, the backyard, patio, by a pool, simply stands in awe at its beauty.

I have a BB 32" and find that controlling temps as low as 200°F is not a problem. The reason I say I have the 32 is because as many of you know, it has a unique airflow control manifold. The left hand side is you standar basic dial quite similar to that found on the 23. The difference lies on the right hand side of the manifold. There Dennis has designed a rotating disc with 5 different holes drilled in it. These holes range in size from about 1/8" to about 3/4". The smaller holes make low temperature control, i.e. 200° - 225°F about as simple a process as I've ever seen. I've cooked on kamados for over 20 years and on my previous kamados (BGE & Primo) control at that low a temp range was problematic. Not so with the KK BB 32. That revolutionary airflow control manifold that Dennis has invented is better than anything I've ever seen on a kamado. It's shear genius! I sure hope he's got his intellectual property attorneys patenting that invention!

Tony, et al. - to prolong smoke absorption on low-n-slow cooks you do indeed want prolong that period when meat takes on smoke. To that end, I always put my cooks in the refrigerator after I prep the surface for a cook. Thus, on a pork butt, I'll apply rub, wrap the butt, and refrigerate for a minimum of 12 hours. For my friends that like a particularly smokie cook, I'll put the meat in the freezer for the last hour before the cook.

Tony - I fat fingered a reputation vote on my iPad and gave you a thumbs down! Sorry about that ... mea maxima culpa! Obviously it was meant to be thumbs up!

tonyb - you are absolutely correct! Thanks for saving my thermometer! I owe you a Black & Tan!

Well KKers, it snowed in OKC yesterday, about 2.5" from what I hear. Windy as all get out and dadgummed cold. However, The Beast seemed right at home here in OKC and on the patio. Y'all stay warm and have a great week! Oh hey! Dennis, The Beast wanted in yesterday afternoon. I had to tell him NO! I told him that he had a coat on the way from overseas. Any word?

Cookie - nice post! Thanks for being so complete. Now if I can just get some pizza pies that look like those, I'll be fat, dumb, and happy. So far, I'm 2 outta 3! Great looking pizza pies!

Hi KKers! So what's on the menu this coming weekend? I'm helping a friend learn how to cook on his Kamado, a Primo XL I gave him that predated The Beast's arrival here in OKC. We're having deer meat from a fawn taken some time back. Should be very tender and tasty. That will be Sunday after church. I'm thinking that Saturday evening, I'll do a surf and turf for SWMBO and myself. NY Strips and scallops, some cole slaw with Herman's dressing that SWMBO loves, and a roasted head of cauliflower. Friday evening, I think we're having pizza. I've got meetings all day Friday with my attorneys and I'll be hammered flat getting out of that meeting. I'm thinking about grabbing a pizza from Papa Murphy's and throwing it on The Beast. Something quick, easy, and good. I'll post some pics if I can remember to take 'em. Have a great weekend!

I've got a 32 and use the Pit Viper 10 CFM in conjunction with the CyberQ WiFi. Works great. Easy peasy temp control.

I just recently received a BBQ Guru CyberQ WiFi unit controlling a Pit Viper 10 CFM fan. I'm using it on The Beast, a KK BB 32. I light my fire and let it get well established. I put the Fan in its port, get everything hooked up and dialed in on temps, close my top vent until I just feel the gasket grab, and walk away. The unit comes up to temp, the cook goes on and I monitor from my home office desktop. Easy peasy and worth every penny!

Dennis, I'm no intellectual property attorney, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Please tell me your patent attorneys have examined the air control manifold on the KK BB 32 for possible patents. I'm telling you that thing is is most innovative air control feature I've seen on a kamado. It's shear genius and you should be able to protect that thing, or so it would seem in my poor pumpkin head.

But of course! Congrats, Dennis! You worked for it, you earned it, you deserve it! All Meathead did was reaffirm the blatantly obvious to those of us who own a KK.

I just got a CyberQ WiFi from BBQ Guru. I've done a couple of cooks with it on my KK BB 32, aka, The Beast. As I've noted elsewhere here on this forum, temperature control on The Beast is remarkably easy with very few transients. Temp is rock solid once it's dialed in. So the question is: "Do I NEED a temp controller?". Decidedly NO! The temp controller is nice to have but certainly not a necessity. I like being able to sit at my desk in my home office and monitor my cooks. The fact that the CyberQ is WiFi based is a big plus. Bluetooth is limited in range and limited to line of sight. Not so with wifi. Another feature about the CyberQ that I like is it has 3 food temperature probes. You can monitor 3 different items being cooked at one. Now you can really load The Beast with meat. You can do butts, pork loin, and a chicken at once and monitor all three at once. To me this is a real bonus.

It's been quite a while since there have been posts to this thread, but I'm going to jump in and add my 2¢. I got my KK BB 32" aka The Beast about 2 months ago. I've been cooking on ceramic kamados for over 20 years. I started out as do many on a large Big Green Egg. I learned the art of kamado cooking on that cooker. It got Humptied during a move and I replaced it with a medium BGE as I was now single. Big Mistake! I learned the hard way that SIZE MATTERS! Then along came the Primo XL and I was in heaven. Now I own the KK BB 32. The reason I got the 32 over the 23 is specifically because size matters. I regularly entertain 6-10 folks at a time and while the 23 could fill the bill, size matters. I've always said that when it comes to size, it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and can't get it! Look, it's simple,economics. A 23 will feed, as Dennis says, about 6 people. My KK BB 32, The Beast, can easily accommodate double that number for significantly less than twice the price! So for me and the way I entertain, it only made sense to purchase the 32". Let's look at operation of the KK BB 32. Talk about easy! The 32 defines easy operation. Temperature control is incredibly easy. Dennis is an engineering genius. Period. The air control manifold on The Beast is the most innovative way of controlling air flow through a kamado I've ever seen. The manifold consists of two dials. The left hand side will be familiar to any KK owner ... Its a dial type with index marks. Everyone knows how to adjust airflow using a dial. No big deal. It's the right hand side of the manifold that is really brilliant and innovative. This part of the manifold is a dial that has 5 holes drilled in it. The holes range in size from about 1/8th of an inch on the small end to about 3/4 of an inch on the large end. These holes, especially the small ones, allow for fine tuning on temperature. By themselves in conjunction with the top vent, low-n-slow temperature control is a cinch. I have two charcoal baskets; one exclusively for use with the Extruded CoCoNut Charcoal and the other for use with my regular lump charcoal, i.e. Fogo. I only use the extruded charcoal for low-n-slow cooks. I use Fogo for all cooks over 400°F. Swapping charcoal for the type of cook becomes simple. I have used the basket splitter sparingly. In fact, I really don't see much use for it in my style of cooking. I always start each cook with a full basket. I only light a single spot for my low-n-slow cooks and I want the fire to be able access an entire basket over a 12-18 hour cook. For high temp runs, I will generally light 4 spots in the basket and get a hot, hot fire cranking in The Beast. Load up the grill with the steaks! If I'm doing steaks for SWMBO and myself, two spots lit is more than sufficient. I will say that i do wear my welders gauntlets when i sear steaks, chops, etc that are low in the belly of The Beast. It's dadgummed HOT down there! Charcoal usage on The Beast is minimal. This is the most efficient kamado I've ever used in terms of how much charcoal is burned for a cook. The Beast never ceases to amaze me. Whether I'm searing steaks, cook pizzas high up in the dome, roasting turkeys, or smoking ribs or butts, The Beast is the most versatile kamado I've ever used. It adapts to me. It doesn't force me to adapt to it. I have yet to run into something that The Beast can't accomplish and do it effortlessly. Again, with respect to size, I firmly believe its better to have it and not need it than to need it and can't get it. Size matters. If you entertain or cook for no more than 6 people, the 23" will most certainly be a great cooker for your needs. However, if you cook for or entertain for more than 8 people, you should really consider the KK BB 32". It's the single most amazing cooker I've ever used.

Ahhhh haaa! Food processor! This I can do .... Now why didn't I think of that? Dennis, as always, I learn something every time we touch base in any way! Thanks.

Tony - that last post covered the waterfront! Thanks for passing on your accumulated wisdom. We newbie KKers appreciate it. You're Aces!

Tony - I love Penzey's. If they don't have it, I don't need it! Thanks.