ckreef

It's funny you put it that way as I have a similar story. I've probably told this before but I'll tell it again. Chapter 1: The mythical Konro grill. A few years ago I wanted a Yakitori grill and found Konro's on the Korin website but they were on backorder. I'll wait it out. How long can they stay on backorder anyway? Well I kept checking and checking. Two years later they were still on backorder. At this point I figured Konro's were just some mythical grill, only seen in videos but never available. I gave up, put them out of my mind and bought a cheapie Yakitori grill. I was relatively happy in my grilling life. Charter 2: Japanese knife obsession. This February I got on the idea of finding a perfectly sized and shaped Japanese knife for me. I looked around and just couldn't find what I was looking for. I started looking in every website that sells Japanese knives. I ended up back on the Korin website. They didn't have my perfect knife but while there I figured I would daydream some more about that mythical Konro grill. A few clicks later and Wow! The web page has changed. Seems like they are about to come off of backorder. Could this be real? I slapped my face and rubbed my eyes. Yea I'm awake. It seems to good to be true. A quick conversation with Mrs skreef and a LG Konro was ordered. A month and a half wait and the Konro was sitting on my porch. The end to a 3 year odyssey Final Chapter: Who's fault is it anyway. There's a friend on Guru named Ben. He makes custom Japanese knife handles. I was encouraging him along as he started his custom knife handle adventure. In turn he really got me hooked on Japanese knives. From that, the obsession to find my perfect Japanese knife was born. It was that obsession that got me back on the Korin website, which led me to order the mythical Konro grill. So there you have it. We're blaming this all on Ben - LOL The End - Happy Yakitori

TY Stile88, we're starting to get to the fun part.

If you lived closer I would have definitely used your help. Appreciate the thought.

Hey what are friends for anyway Just wait until fall when I really have my act together and have you and Charlane over for pizza with Konro appetizers. We'll see how long you resist a WFO after that - LOL

Now you all have gone and done it. Need to order some Sumi and Aramaru to compare it to Marabu.

@tony b as you know I have one of those cheapie grills like yours. Nothing wrong with those just a tad small for me (I'm a Yakitori space hog).

My friend on Guru ordered a LG from Korin about a month ago. His arrived two days ago. They are definitely filling orders as the containers come in. Korin is a pretty kewl company. You don't have to worry. When it comes in they'll ship it out and send a notification. It'll arrive a few days later. There's a few other items from Korin. One being a really sm round grill that I could put one piece of glowing lump in to keep a bottle of sake warm. I love hot shots of sake.

Not counting the wide versions most of the sites I've seen label them like this: Note this is listed in vents per side. SM - 1 vent MD - 2 vents LG - 3 vents - 30" XL - 3 vents per side with an extra brick panel - 36" I have the LG 30", 3 vents per side version. I use square rods to hold the skewers. They can be moved in and out so no wooden skewer section is exposed to the heat. I suppose on the extra wide version you could have 4 steel tubes running length wise effectively giving you twice the grill. I would need to go back into that website and do the mm to inch conversion on the width to see if that even makes sense. Other than that you're left with 2 options, metal skewers or using the screens. If you stretch wooden skewers across the bigger width you would have to load it completely full or the wood skewer will burn up and your food ends up in the coals (yea it's happened a few times before). Hope that made sense.

Glad to see everyone is enjoying this thread. Very exciting times.

I read about that. There is one area of this project that I will probably do that to.

Not necessary at all where I live but if I get the right type it should leave the stones with a wet/darker look which will better match the WFO. Of course I will do a test spray on a couple of blocks first to make sure it gives me the look I want. Also the blocks I have are stackable up to 48" without being mortared together. After I put 1,500 lbs on top I'm sure they won't go anywhere. The stackable without mortar feature is part of the reason why I bought these blocks, I might just want to move all this sometime in the future. You never know what life holds.

So here is the immediate schedule of events: Mid week build the block stand. Spray on stone/block sealer (I done care about the sealing aspect but will give the blocks a darker wet look). If I can get those 2 items accomplished by Saturday and we have nice weather for Sunday I'll bring the boom truck home from work and move the oven into place. Fingers crossed on this schedule.

@tekobo interesting website. What they call a LG most places have listed as MD. The extra wide versions are interesting but would definitely force you to use a screen every time. I believe the backorder issue was the factory just didn't produce the special Konro bricks for a couple of years. Once they did the current production run everybody was snatching up the grills. I had been watching the backorder status for about 3 years. As soon as I knew they were coming off backorder status I jumped on it.

Interesting idea as I have a couple of boxes of cocochar. I'll give it a try in the chimney starter and see what happens. For me the comparison is not with binchotan (since I'll probably never spend that kind of money lump) but compared to other reasonably priced lump. What I'd really like is to get my hands on a bag of coffeechar.

Wow what a day but I got er done. I started by removing my test stones and running some string lines to square everything up properly. I first removed the grass layer. That's the hardest part of the dirt digging. Leveled it off and added another string line to mark the footer section. Dug my 4" footer slab and added rebarb holding it up with stone pieces. Poured the concrete using my new cement mixer "toy". Worth every penny of the $300 I spent on it. Here is Mrs skreef working the cement. By this time I was pooped out and grateful for the help. Here it is. Me and Mrs skreef didn't write our name in the cement but fat cat had to get in on the action. Really excited about this progress. In a couple of days I can start building my stand.

That "toy" looks a lot like work to me - LOL

Tomorrow is going to be the first nice day (no rain) I've had off of work in about 3 weeks. With that thought in mind I decided to take my lunch break today at Lowes. By this evening I should have everything together so I can pour my footer/pad tomorrow. We might finally make some serious progress.

I love watching videos like that. Interestingly not all of the charcoal he used was pure binchotan. Just after he dumps it in you can see a piece of extruded charcoal with its perfectly round hole in the middle.

In the states these grills were on backorder for a number of years. Early this year when it looked like they were going to finally come off of backorder I pre ordered mine. I probably got one of the very first ones coming out of the container. A friend on the Guru forum ordered one recently. His is expected by end of April. Fingers crossed that yours arrives shortly. Me and Mrs skreef always have a good time cooking and eating this style. I just need to get a bunch more recipes under my belt.

Any reasonably decent lump will get hot enough to cook with. The problem is most lumps don't last long when burning that hot. The harder the lump the longer it will last. The sound of two pieces of lump hit together is a good indication of just how hard it is. The harder the lump the more of a "clink" sound it will make compared to a "thud" sound. Take for example RO. Burns plenty hot enough but burns up rather fast. When you strike 2 pieces together it makes a dull "thud", almost hollow sound. The Marabu on the other hand has a "clink" sound to it. They talk about this sound when talking about binchotan. Let your lump talk to you, become a Lump Whisperer - LOL Also properly sized pieces is key to success. I never sort lump but will do so for this cooking adventure.

Here is a sneak peak of the the Konro. I did this cook a few weeks ago when I first got it. The setup is much different now. It sits down in the table with only about an inch sticking out above the table. I also have steel tubes I use to hold the skewers instead of using the screens. I am planning on doing a proper post once I get the setup complete (still need to trim the cutout hole in the table). As for using this inside - I believe with proper precautions it would be doable. I get my coals completely glowing orange before dumping them in the Konro. Once glowing orange they give off no smoke. The only smoke you get is from the juices dripping onto the hot coals and that would easily be carried away by a vented hood. You could set it on a piece of finished 2"x12" if you were worried about the surface below.

I'll repeat the reply in case people over here want to know the answer. I would say it was no flavor but....... I had every piece glowing completely orange before cooking on it. That's how you work a Yakatori grill. You would never use it that way in a kamado so it just might have a flavor when burned under normal kamado use. To add a little more to the answer, it was so sparky not sure I would ever try it in a kamado. Fogo had great shipping from FL to GA so I'll probably try their black bag lump for use in the KK's.

This review has very little to do with kamados. My intention was to find the longest burning lump suitable to use in my XL Konro Yakatori grill. Last night I tried Fogo Marabu Hardwood Lump. Using an XL Weber chimney I added two alcohol soaked cotton balls, a thin layer of RO lump and then filled it up with Marabu lump. With that setup it had no problem getting lit. I started it on the porch but quickly moved it out to the yard. To just say it was sparky is a huge understatement. I've bought $10 fireworks that didn't spark as much as that chimneys worth of Marabu. We did have a nice fireworks show before dinner - LOL. Once it was fully lit and glowing orange the sparks ended and I dumped it in the Konro. It did burn nice and hot. Me and Mrs skreef had a leisurely dinner cooking and eating that lasted about an hour. There were plenty of glowing coals still going when we finished. The Marabu lump eventually burned completely up and left very little ash compared to other lumps. In this Yakatori grill I've tried Black Diamond, Rockwood and now Marabu. Both the Black Diamond and Rockwood burned hot but definitely didn't last as long. I would consider the burn time of Black Diamond and Rockwood to be 1+ hour. On the other hand the Marabu would be a 2+ hour burn time. The extra burn time is definitely useful especially if you have a few guests sitting around enjoying a nice evening of cooking and eating. Would I use Marabu in a kamado? Probably not due to the sparky issue. For now it's the best I've tried in the Konro and will continue to use it until I find something that sparks less and burns at least as long. Sorry no pictures of this adventure. Not quite ready to showcase the new Konro Yakatori grill. (I still have some trim work to do on my modified Yakatori table.)

This is sold by Fogo and is supposed to be their hardest, longest lasting lump they sell.

That is a nice looking pretty awesome bike. Didn't take much to get that extra fat back tire squirrely. I bet he spent a small fortune on it.