Syzygies

Fogo Premium Hardwood Lump I just had four bags of various FOGO charcoal delivered, to help protect my hoard of KK coffee charcoal. They're my next favorite source. Pok Pok Thaan Thai Style Charcoal This is extruded like KK coconut, but with a different flavor profile. Expensive but worth a try. I love it, but perhaps I just miss Thailand.

Here is a very old thread where I make Tandoori Chicken from "Tandoor: the Great Indian Barbecue" on my previous ceramic cooker: Tandoori Chicken

On my KK I simply cook on the main grill, perhaps with a drip pan to control flareups. For example, chicken tandoor gets basted with ghee. You could baste my old hiking books in ghee after a spice marinade, and you'd swear that this updated Charlie Chaplin classic dish was best thing you ever ate. Yes, once you see it you won't need anyone else telling you this, it will be your opinion too. It's a real, published in India masterpiece that makes no compromises but is nevertheless easy to execute if one has the spices. It's all about spice and marinade handling.

Steven Raichlen PBS Project Smoke ~ Tandor Lamb On a KK, of course. One can find "Tandoor: the Great Indian Barbecue" used sometimes. It's one of my favorite Indian and BBQ cookbooks.

The double bottom drip pan, and a foil lid, would be perfect for this Yucatan dish (cochinita pibil): In a Bay Area underground oven, chefs are making smoky, earthy pork just like it's done in the Yucatán

That's actually some black cod that cost more than my first car, with green charmoula. Ointment of the Gods, except the olive oil causes flareups. I'm tempted to leave olive oil out of the marinade stage. The fire pit is a Solo Stove Ranger, Frankenstein-paired with a Breeo Outpost 19 adjustable grate, all riding on a Harbor Freight Utility Cart. My neighbor has half a dozen alternatives for BBQ equipment. I could get by for life with just a KK ceramic cooker and a Solo Stove grill. I can set up and light wood chunks and charcoal with iso alcohol in 90 seconds, be back in the house cooking sides till it's time to grill. I love the Solo Stove. When I want the deep flavor of slow-cooked barbecue, or a pizza night, I use the KK. (The Sonos bass response really was outstanding inside the KK. This wasn't disrespect. When Yanni played inside the Pyramids, was that disrespect?) Solo Stove (KK thread)

My 23" KK was our second ceramic cooker, and my wife bought it. We've fed 80 people at her church pork butt out of it. The 32" does a lot.

So... The thermometer cable port is 1/2" inner diameter. Any reason we're not using that with the KK Hot/Cold Smoke Generator? I never run a thermometer through that hole anymore. I get better results sticking a probe into the mechanical thermometer hole in the lid. As a bonus, I can control high heats for bread without exposing the thermometer cables to excess heat. There is this idea that it's better to run the smoke through the fire. I certainly considered this, designing the original smoke pot. There, I'd made experiments where at high enough temperatures the gas from the smoke pot would actually catch fire. So this seemed reasonable. But we're talking science here, and I don't know how important this issue is for cold smoking.

Sunterra SANTA MARIA 36" CART 3601-36DSICRT CD1 Lone Star Grillz Santa Maria My neighbor has this style of grill built in, in his back yard. The other end is a pizza oven. Then his other equipment. My old POSK was #2 but he got rid of it long ago. His collection now rivals Jay Leno's garage. So he loves the Santa Maria grill but he doesn't use it much. I'm a big fan of adjustable height grills. They simplify timing your fire. While my 23" sees duty for centerpiece cooks, my hybrid Solo Stove rig sees frequent use for preparing ingredients or grilling a single steak or two sausages... I can set up and light a wood/charcoal/isopropyl mix in a total effort of 90 seconds, go in to manage everything else I'm cooking, and time my return for grilling. With an adjustable grate, what's at stake is how long the grilling takes, not whether it works. Solo Stove Ranger ($215) Breeo Outpost 19 ($129) Harbor Freight Service Cart ($38)

Wow. By an extreme coincidence, I held this exact washing machine drain pan in my hands yesterday, at a local Lowes. It's flimsy. You'll return it. Our compost bins are no longer made, and falling apart after two generations of Harbor Freight straps. We rejected every purpose-built compost bin, and finally decided on seven industrial stackable containers: Global Industrial™ Straight Wall Container Solid - Stackable NRSO2422-14 - 24 x 22-1/2 x 14-1/2 I'll be cutting out most of the bottoms, and hoping for the best. They arrived yesterday, and needed lids. I checked out and rejected this drain pan, before reverting to $8 squares of cheap plywood, for now. Here is the original forum post on using a water heater drain pan to clean grates: Water Heater Pan (2010) That pan of course broke, being plastic. Here I switch to metal, beat up now but going strong. Water Heater Pan (2015) Yesterday's lid search did get me to review the category, and in another coincidence cement mixing tubs caught my eye. Though plastic they'd last a long time as Komodo grate cleaning pans, if one found a good size. It isn't rocket science, however, to plug the hole in a water heater drain pan. You're already in a hardware store, already in an inventive mood. Figure something out! Though of late I always use my pressure washer. The pan protects my yard. I'm asking myself why I don't take the plug back out. Pooled water only gets in the way. Here's my trusty water heater pan (Honey smells barbecue!): Here's the old compost heap: Here's a bottom bin for one of the new stacks. I'll cut out more of the bottom for other levels: It's hard to listen to "What If?" by the author of XKCD without calculating exactly how many holes I need to aerate the new stacks. And Laurie wouldn't have it any other way; this is her turf. What If?

Yes, but they don't also have my Rambo toys!

Yes. I originally was planning to "take one for the team" and also buy the best (not Mexican, but tuned for masa) hand mill. I do have two kitchens. The wet grinder worked well enough that I decided I was done. It does require tending. The wetter the mixture the less tending, but then you need to add more masa harina to compensate. And doneness isn't by the clock, presumably one could learn to spot when it's done, even 20 minutes in with effective tending, and bail. 40 minutes allows rather casual surveillance.

I've bought and used this, even though I have a serious library of KK coconut charcoal. This has more flavor, reminds me of the best roadside grilling on my trip to Thailand. Try a box, no matter what, then you can form your own opinion where it belongs in the firmament. It's worth a try: Pok Pok Thaan Thai Style Charcoal

I bought an electric pressure washer to maintain (clean before oiling) our ipe deck. Now I use it whenever I don't want to get my hands messy washing dishes. The gas range grates ... the Komodo Kamado grates ... a misused molcajete ... the possibilities are endless. I made sure to set it up so access was a minute or two, and if I was really serious I'd build it into the side of the garage, the way some houses once came with central vacuums.

Wouldn't it be easy to make an adapter? A better solution would be to mod the rear door using a Guru adapter: BBQ Guru Adaptors I'm actually rather surprised that Dennis doesn't sell this as a smoke generator accessory.

I've had my eye on that pot for years. Thank you! I don't really mind the flour paste thing. It's actually a bit romantic, like using flour paste to help pots that don't quite fit right in Morocco. For my steamed dumpling experiments, I much prefer a bamboo steamer to metal, it's a live drawing reflecting the hands we have in common with primates. And my earliest, never-reported experiments with alternatives to a cast iron Dutch Oven ended in culinary disaster: They came apart, caught fire, and infused my food with creosote. Still, that pot looked promising. I have other interests and a psychotic number of branches open to explore, and a cast iron smoke pot works. Sometimes I actually find the maturity to leave well enough alone, so I never tried it. Early on, there was a "smoke bomb" branch of this research. People would commission a stainless steel tube, threaded at both ends, and stainless steel caps. Think "pipe bomb". They'd drill the requisite three 1/8" holes in the middle somewhere (I feel like this is some Monty Python movie). These were expensive. I suppose once one had found one and paid for it, it was easier than flour paste. I like rustic. Of course, Dennis reacted by building a professional device. If I were to make any change, it would probably be to buy his smoke generator.

Second try's a charm. Based on my bread baking recipe, I guessed a Bao dough recipe based entirely on freshly ground flour, 2:1:1 Soft:Red:Rye, and raised the hydration. Handled like a charm. Back to my advice to just cook BBQ as I know best how to do, ignore any proposed techniques from books on producing filling.

Ok, first Char Siu Bao experiment in 40 years. Needs work but very promising category. Using freshly ground flour was a distracting challenge, but that actually worked. The primary issue is a savory filling. We know how to make spectacular BBQ on a KK. And any Chinatown sports many places that make spectacular Char Siu Pork; they learned from previous generations. What any cookbook suggests is neither. Don't be pulled off your game. Make the best BBQ you know how, exactly as you already know how, then sauce it appropriately as a Bao filling. That's how any restaurant works: They respond to the equipment they have. This is an awesome way to eat BBQ.

We've been making our own masa for corn tacos. It's work but very much worth it. The story goes that when Masienda's Oaxacan corn reaches the taco griddle at an upscale Mexican restaurant, the aroma makes the Mexican staff tear up with childhood memories. It's really that good (and Anson Mills doesn't come close for this application): Masienda A shopping list for a full setup: Heirloom Yellow Bolita Corn (Oaxaca) (and/or other varieties) Chef-Grade Cal Chef-Grade Masa Flour (Harina) White Tortilla Press by Doña Rosa (this is better than the one you have) Premier Small Wonder Table Top Wet Grinder 1.5 Liter by SS Premier (as recommended by Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico) One cooks corn with cal and water, then lets it sit overnight, to make nixtamal. Recipes for this are all over the map, and no one accounts for the weight of the corn and the water, unlike the brine recipes in Paul Bertolli's Cooking by Hand. I've found that 4:1 water:corn suffices for any corn variety, and 0.5% cal by weight is a minimum effective dose. For example, 360g corn, 1440g water, 9g cal. Cooking times are also all over the map. One wants to see a partially translucent but not mushy kernel when you cut one open to check. After short cooking times Laurie experienced digestive distress. We've settled on using an old slow cooker on a four hour external timer. It only reaches an effective temperature in the last hour, and the corn comes out right. One then rinses the kernels multiple times to get rid of the dissolved outer layer, then grinds the nixtamal to make masa. Traditionally one used a stone metate; this took hours and a shower. Mexicans often use hand-cranked metal grinders, but this requires two passes, and in Youtube videos they finish on a metate. It is rumored to take hundreds of pounds of corn to stop seeing metal fragments from these grinders. Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo imported a Nixtamatic, a powered Mexican machine. Masienda sells the Molinito, a $1750, 26" x 13" x 19" countertop commercial unit. Bricia Lopez, in Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico recommends an Indian wet grinder. One grinds for 40 minutes, scraping down as needed, after adding 1/3 water by weight. This yields a too-wet masa that one corrects with masa harina; the masa still comes out much better than straight masa harina, even Masienda's. A wet grinder is easy to clean. I cannot speak highly enough of Masienda's tortilla press. I actually had a project languishing over a decade to finish a cherry wood press. Now there's no point. The Masienda press is capable of greater force than any other home press I know. How does one avoid a tortilla thinner at one end? Easy, press, rotate, press. How does one easily peel the tortilla free? Press inside a slit open plastic food storage bag. Lift the plastic off one side. Flip, lift the plastic free from the other side. While I own a comal, I vastly prefer cooking tortillas on a Baking Steel, in a pipeline three tortillas deep, flipping every minute at around 500 F. Restaurants use restaurant griddles the same way. It is essential to lightly season the griddle before starting, or wet tortillas will stick. Nothing beats a Dexter Russell 16160 Traditional Series 6" x 3" Hamburger Turner for flipping the tortillas. This is all truly worth it.

I started a thread on making nixtamal from Masienda corn, to consolidate what I've posted on other threads such as here: Nixtamal / masa / tacos from Masienda Oaxacan corn

Wow this thread is cracking me up. Thanks for all the love. 3 holes 1/8" each was a spontaneous choice, though in hindsight seems close enough. I have the first 2 quart smoke pot, and I'm sure it was $20 at some drug store. Crime of opportunity.

This is a personal question; everyone has a different take on what quality of smoke tastes best. I devised the smoke pot many years ago. Once my wife tasted the difference, there was no going back. I continue to be tempted by the Hot/Cold smoker. For me those would be the two choices. My KK is old enough that the Hot/Cold smoker would compete with my BBQ Guru for the single port. With a newer KK the Hot/Cold smoker is probably far easier and more reliable. There's an art to getting a smoke pot going. I've mastered it (school of hard knocks) but I appreciate that it's not obvious.

Now I love you and I hate you, too. Netherton Foundry - Black Iron Tortilla Press created for KOL restaurant