Amphoran

Re: Say Goodbye to this Red forum I'm using IE 8 also, and cannot see any "subscribe topic" or the line above it at the bottom of the page. IS there a setting? I, too, would LOVE to be able to go directly to unread posts from the bottom of the page. Also, is there a setting so then when you DO go to unread posts, that you go to the END of the thread instead of the beginning? Cheers, Mike

Must be a function of browser setting or some other program; I don't see ANY highlighted words, using plain vanilla IE 8.0. Cheers, Mike

I have found the same to be true of cleaning the ash out. The easiest and fastest way I've found is to put the drip pan under the draft door, remove the door, and just scoop all the ash out with my hands. I can at the same time easily toss any chunks of charcoal that fell out of the basket back in the top. Nice things about hands is that they're washable!

I've always cooked my spatchcocked chickens skin up, but clearly there's an advantage to the opposite! Was it skin down all the time, or did you flip halfway? Thanks, Mike

Actually, wood has a very strong antibacterial activity on its own. After years of demanding polyethylene cutting boards in all restaurants, a study was finally done and it was found that the only cutting boards that actually didn't harbor bacteria were wood! It seems to be a dual effect from the toxcicity of lignin and of dessication - the cellulose is avid for water and dries the bacteria out to the point that they can't grow. I'd simply (gently) scrub the surface clean with running water and a stainless steel scrubber, then let it air dry thoroughly. If you're really concerned about sanitization, then swab the surface down liberally with some vodka. 40% ethanol is a very good bug killer. Mike

Again I find that DJ and I think alike! I do have a Smokey Joe for doing the thin bed of coals thing, and use it a fair amount for Kushiyaki, sate, etc.

I'm with DJ on this! I've learned that I can get a good fire going in about ten minutes, grill a couple of steaks or burgers on the sear (or the lower for thinner burgers) grill, and be shut down all within 15-20 minutes. I close the lid (but with the vent wide open) so the handle doesn't get blazing hot, but otherwise, the technique is the same. Mike

I usually st louis trim, but NOTHING is wasted. It all goes on the cooker, and the trimmings end up in tacos, chili, etc. The trimming takes about five minutes per rack, and then they pack into the cooker much more uniformly. Chacun a son gout!

6-7 hours at 220-230 is what I usually shoot for, but those are standard spare ribs (usually St. Louis trimmed), not baby backs. That yields racks that are almost falling off the bone, but which have just a little bite left. I usually do three large racks at a time, which just fills the main grill. Cheers, Mike

oooh ouch!

Cilantro IS Coriander leaves....

That fits with my experience. It takes my stone a couple of hours to get fully heat soaked. Letting it do so makes much better and more consistent pizzas. In fact, I've taken to often doing them in my oven - heat soak for two hours at 550, then turn on the broiler for 5 minutes while prepping the pizza. Turn off the broiler and slide in the pie. The extra heat in the top of the stone helps get the right amount of char on the bottom of the pie, and helps keep the stone temp up. Thin pies cook in 4-5 minutes with this technique. Mike

Side Cabinet Arrived! My large side cabinet has arrived, and is a thing of beauty. Here are some pictures. Mike

Keep the beer glass straight up and down....

I've used it to good purpose in quite a few sandwiches and salads. It is available in many stores, or online. I got mine through Amazon. Mike

I barbecued cuy outside of Cuzco at 12,500 feet about 30 years ago. Of course, it was not in a KK, so it may not count.

The climate Johnnyboy refers to is just west of the mountains in Washington and Oregon. In Seattle, this describes the situation from November to May. If the air is almost always (super)saturated, circulating it doesn't help. Fungi need only a certain level of available moisture, and that level definitely builds up in the ceramic. As an example, when I first opened the KK after its first Winter, the lid would only open about halfway. After two or three cooks, it opened fully again - several pounds of water indicated, and just in the lid! What I've found works best is to seal it up with a cannister of dessicant inside. Also, as several have suggested, doing a good hot cook to burn up any organics in the cooker (deny a food supply) before buttening things up. Mike

Ummm - It looks like the poll is worded backwards. My two cents worth is that it would make flipping easier to have them run 12 to 6, but it is not a major issue. Mike

According to the drawing, the upper two compartments on the right side (of the large one) are not dedicated to anything, so a box could be slipped into one of them to hold the small stuff. At least that's my plan! Mike

When this annual party started, I was clearing 50 years of woody debris from the site of a defunct cabinet shop, and periodically having 8 foot diameter three foot deep bonfires. Made one HELL of a bed of coals. A friend came by on a bonfire day, took one look, and said "I'll be back". Returned a half hour later with a sack (at that time, 12 dozen) large pacific oysters. We dumped them (a few at a time) directly on the coals, and fished them out/off with a pitchfork and a spade. They cooked VERY rapidly, and took on a nice smoky aspect if you left them on a few extra seconds. When we ran out of woody debris, I split a 55 gallon barrel in half, and put forty pounds of charcoal briquettes in it, and a sheet of hardware cloth over the open side. The barrel got red hot, but the coals were deep enough to withstand the gushes. We did it this way for a few years, but then we, and most of our friends acquired toddlers, and what had bee fun suddenly seemd unsafe. I tried doing them in a Weber gasser the next year - disaster! Took way too long to cook, ending up steamed rather than roasted, and all the salt water/sand/bits of shell totally destroyed the gasser. Since then, I've been acquiring used weber kettles at garage sales, etc., and filling them with charcoal. Yes the get red hot, but the toddlers are all now college graduates, and don't have toddlers of their own yet. Even so, it is a lot harder to take a header into a kettle up three feet in the air than into a half barrel lying on the ground. The used webers stand up to the abuse surprisingly well, though I do consider them sacrificial. I've also started doing about half the oysters South Carolina Oyster Bar style - cooked with live steam. When my parents shut down their dairy farm, I made off with some stainless tubing and fittings, and built a steam generator. Steam is piped into a wooden box with a hole in the top, just the right size to hold a large bucket. The bucket has a hundred half inch holes drilled in it, and holds a peck of oysters. You drop the bucket into the hole, the steam condenses on the oysters, and cooks them to perfection (except for the lack of smoky flavor) in a few minutes. More controlled than the extreme charcoal method, not quite as exciting. Opinion among attendees is split pretty evenly as to which they prefer. Mike

"what wouldn't you put in the KK?" I do an annual oyster roast for a large group of people - large pacific oysters, high heat direct. When they open up, they gush a considerable amount of salt water. You need a very thick bed of charcoal so it won't go out. I won't risk salt water wetting the refractory, because as the water evaporates, the salt remains behind. Multiple insults will lead to growing salt crystals in the pores, and will ultimately destroy the material. Anything and everything else I cook in the KK, and don't worry about flavor transfer - ten to fifteen minutes at 600 deg cleans everything out pretty nicely! Mike

I keep an old weber kettle around for things I might not be willing to put into the kk...

Chicago and Detroit are also in the middle of the continent, which is the important factor in weather/climate patterns. What I should have said is that latitude ALONE doesn't mean much.

I would agree that part of Paresh65's problem could well be damp charcoal. A lot of the heat is wasted evaporating water from the coal, so that you don't get the temps you would expect to. I've never found that just the cooker itself being damp had an effect that lasted beyond the first hour or two. Mike

Latitude doesn't mean much; Chicago is at the same latitude as Rome... What matters in my environment is 90 straight days of constant light rain and 100% humidity with temperatures in the thirties and forties, and the fact that most of my cooks are low and slow, which maintains a high-moisture environment inside the kooker. I've started doing more high temp cooks in the summer to help dry it out, but the winters here are really not that conducive to cooking in it unless you have a roof over it, which I don't. An hour at 500 deg will certainly clean burn off most anything that the mold might grow on, and kill the spores that are inside. given the winter, though, the container of Calcium chloride (Dri-Z-Air is the most common brand in these parts) really really helps.