MacKenzie

No carved pics but the turkey was moist and nicely done throughout. You realize you are going to get a lump of coal in your stocking! Beautiful tree.

Now the rest of the story- sliced, vacuum sealed and froze the bacon this morning. Taste test was next. This bacon did taste very nice, it had a different flovour than my bacon from store bought belly and the lean was more tender and the fat seemed to be more clear. I have to wait until next fall to do it again. The farmer only raised 10 pigs /year.

Dinner is calling, yummy.

Looking at your OctoForks, I believe you put them together exactly as I did, LOL. Keith from OctoForks pointed out that there should be a bolt in the square hole at the end. It will make it easier to adjust the forks. I thought you might enjoy the background.

As you suggested you could brine. Often I do that with pork chops, just using a lite brine for a couple of hours and then let them just rest in the fridge for and hour or so. Thicker cuts I'd brine longer and rest longer. I do like the lite brine technique. Sygyzies on this site suggested 1/2C sea salt per gallon and a little less sugar. For chicken brine for 4 hour or more and I'd do a 2 hour rest in the fridge after that.

Looking good from here, that is how I would put a whole chicken on the OctoForks. One thing I found helpful is to tie loose and flapping parts with some cotton string to the tines or wherever. Sounds strange to say this over an open fire but so far it has always worked and the string has not burned off. Mind you I don't have a rip roaring fire going.:) Sometimes I cut the chicken in half and then I would put it on the tines like you did in your first pix. Sometimes I only use one OctoFork but if I thought there was any danger of things slipping off I put the other set of tines on backwards just close enough so that there is no room for things to fall off. Personally I think you will find a big difference in cooking on the KK. There will be a world of taste difference. Remember, if you are looking you aren't cooking, keep that lid shut. :):):) The delivery excitement is rising.

I'll say it's looking gooood. [emoji4][emoji4]

You hit the jackpot, beautiful daughter, beautiful cat and beautiful ribs.

Taste cook, nice colour on the duck.

You have the spirit,eh.[emoji4]

Report back with pics I hope.[emoji4]

Funny I use Ruhlman's too but no juniper berries in it. Guess I need to get my book out. More experimenting what fun[emoji4][emoji4][emoji4]

Thanks, Tony, not yet. I wanted to see how the taste of this local pork belly compares to my supermarket ones. One of these times I will try it for sure. I normally do a dry cure for the breakfast bacon.

Tazmanian pepper berries, Aussie sent some to Tony and because they stain everything purple and are addictive he started calling them purple crack.

This was one one of them- First thing was to smoke some bacon, 2 slabs as a matter of fact, the whole belly of an organically raised pig. I am aiming for 145F IT and grill temp around 215-220F with some cherry, maple and whiskey barrel smoking woods. Done as planned. While I was waiting for the bacon to finish I made some homemade spaghetti. The little white dish has some shaved cured egg yolk in it. It is going on the plated spaghetti. Plated with Parmesan cheese and shaved egg yolk.

Nice job on the turkey smoking. BTW if those toes were here they'd be frozen digits as it is only 18F and I'm wearing my winter coat smoking pork belly.

Looking good and I am so glad that you are going to keep us updated with pixs.

You could throw in some chips to if you have them. Good luck.[emoji4]

and there is one more[emoji4][emoji4][emoji4]

Thanks, guys and I still have enough dough to do one more pizza.

There are times I struggle as well especially if there is no fire in the KK. It seems to me that when I smoke things like bacon and there is a fire in the KK and the temp is around 225F the cold smoker works very well but I haven't done it that many times to say for sure that is always will work.

In my Dutch oven smoker I use sticks that are about 3 inches long and around 1/2 in in width and thickness.:)

Keith, those roasts and burnt ends look and sound verrrry tasty. A lot of happy eaters I'm sure.

Tony, your Winter Warmer sounds very tasty to me.

and here is the rest of the bread story- The dough was enough for 2 loaves of bread or 1 loaf of bread and 2 pizzas. You know what I picked. Here is the pizza made tonight- You no doubt will notice that I have previously seasoned the parchment paper. Loading it up- Purple crack goes on next. Baked. Plated.