Syzygies

Re: Thermocouple fails hot; which controllers fail cool? Well, the butt was good enough that everyone is encouraging me to simulate the equipment failure in the future!

So I have an old BBQ Guru Pitminder - the one that puts an oven dial on your KK, no frills. I gave away a fancier unit to a friend, the Pitminder is exactly what I want. They don't make this unit anymore, the closest match now is their flying blind NanoQ, which requires keeping track of button pushes or using an external thermometer for monitoring temps. (The KK dome thermometer is nice, but it isn't by the meat, and convergence takes a while.) Alas. Anyhow, I've experienced a number of probe failures over the years, most recently putting on a pork butt last night. (Luckily it wasn't my six butt cook last month.) I didn't notice till the KK was in the 300's, fine except I'm serving early this evening. I had a replacement probe and that did the trick. I cranked the KK way down overnight, shades of one of my favorite cooking descriptions in Legends of Texas Barbecue, where the restaurant chef let the brisket fire go out each night, to rebuild in the morning. So the Pitminder fails hot with a broken probe, blowing constantly. One can imagine trivially implementing any number of other scenarios, in digital logic here. The easiest would be to fail cold. More ambitious would be to both sound an alarm, and cycle at whatever proportions worked last time for that temperature request. The chef might not be entirely consistent on top hat position, fire construction, or outdoor temperature, but any decent guess here would be far better than the alternatives. So does anyone have experience here with how other units handle probe failure?

Stone Soup Well that was fun! I highly recommend showing Komodos by inviting said party to bring by some meat for a hands-on test drive. Burgers and rib eye, yum...!!

Re: Hoping to see Komodo in SF Bay Area before purchasing I'm in Concord, about 20 minutes north of you...

Re: Thoughts/pros/cons of adding Tapatalk support? LOL r u sure? phones spillcheck?

Re: More Sear basket fun I took a screen grab of the "you do not have the required permissions..." message replacing each image for me in this thread. Alas, I can't even see the screen grab after posting it, I get the same error message!

Re: Pork Butt capacity n67298 So just filling the charcoal basket with Dennis charcoal would probably last me 48 hours at 210 F, there's always half left when I'm done with pork butt. On top is a two quart dutch oven sealed with flour paste, with three 1/8" holes in the bottom, filled with Hickory and Apple wood chips. Aka "Smoke Pot". None too much smoke, actually rather subtle. Then a 16" terra cotta plant saucer as heat deflector and drip tray, lined with foil.

Re: Pork Butt capacity n67297 n67296 n67295 n67294 n67293 n67292 So slowing down the fire a bit till morning did the trick. An hour to go, and everybody is in the 180's, top or bottom deck. I don't like pork all the way to 200 F, it tastes like rope to me, though when other people cook more quickly I'm sure the effect is different.

Re: Pork Butt capacity Well, I've always cooked very slowly (say, 210 F) for 20 hours or so. I went with six butts 9 lbs each or so for a total of 55 lbs, three on each deck. What I'm seeing on my early morning spot check is that the top three are ahead of the bottom three, nearly ready to serve with seven hours to go. I turned the guru down to 195 F and I'm basically going to ignore this otherwise, mixing the various butts as I pull them. I'm a bit surprised, as in my experience the KK always stabilizes to a very consistent temperature independent of location. I did choose the smaller three butts for the top deck, that could be the main factor here. Other than that, because of shrinkage it would seem from this experience that any load where you can manage to close the lid at first will cook just fine. Large loads don't cook slower. Especially with how tight the KK it, large loads will create a very moist cooking environment, consistent with your reports on how big cooks came out. The pot beans have taken more attention. My 22 quart commercial gumbo pot is nearly full, with Rancho Gordo Sangre de Toro beans. Also simmering overnight, with no signs of overcooking.

Re: Hot Smoked Swordfish plus one

Re: Cooked 8 Pork Butts/Shoulders for my Brother... Thanks for finding this thread, as eight butts are in my immediate future.

Re: Pork Butt capacity Thanks all. You will be with me in spirit. There will be perhaps 80, but an astonishing fraction of them are vegan (friggin' mathematicians like to follow their own drummer) so my Jiarby-scale gumbo pot may be in service for Rancho Gordo beans.

For Labor Day, I'm being asked how many pounds of Pork Butt I can comfortably produce at once. Not the theoretical limit, but a large load whose quality would be indistinguishable from just two or four butts. Any experience to share? Also, half a pound per person often handles large mixed crowds. For a younger, hungry outdoor crowd where alcohol could be a factor, what is a more conservative rule of thumb? Cost is not a concern, and we can distribute leftovers. I've seen six or eight people destroy a Pork Butt under the right circumstances in my back yard, but I've never seen this ravenous frenzy take hold in very large groups. But one can dream, and I'd like to be prepared.

Re: She's in Cali Roll it to the side of the house and start using it now! You'll kick yourself if you wait...

Re: Temperature for Grilling Salmon I like 250 slow, after a light brine (1/2 cup salt, 1/3 cup sugar per gallon water) for four to six hours. On a bed of basil in a Spanish cazuela, with apple smoke. Cook until melting, don't dry it out like everyone serves it to you, this will be rather close to 130 F internal for comfort. The salmon will then "spall" white goop. This really doesn't bother us. Those who are bothered (or are going for a pro look for appearance's sake) will give the salmon a couple of hours fridge time air-drying, to cure a hard surface that won't spall. Either way, I was just eyeing the dregs of our pesto basil, thinking it was time to have this dish again!

Re: Grates running from 12 to 6 oclock? Grate running from 12 to 6 o'clock? That would be for ribs, maybe. For butt we usually run from 9 pm to 6 pm the next night...

Re: Anyone up for a "share" in North Dallas? Yep, just what I would have suggested, a pallet is a good size.

Re: The "Stall" +1. I took my step-daughter to Build-A-Bear once during the holidays, and at checkout a sales assistant came over to up-sell us, boldly proclaiming that our bear wasn't wearing any underwear. The child was fine with "It's a bear!" and I was fine not offering any of my potential replies in the child's presence. Name something, and people think it's a bad thing. I always imagined that the dwell was actually a good thing, holding the temperature down while the collagens and such melted down. And we don't like the mushy effect of using foil...

Re: Konro grill

Re: Konro grill There's a brilliant version of these in Flushing, Queens, NYC, used for Chinese street food. It looks like a giant metal "L" laying on its back. One adds raw charcoal to the top of the vertical column at one end, and sweeps perfect embers out the bottom, to distribute all along the trough over which one cooks. Like the Konro, the trough gap is tuned for skewers. Best grilled street food I've had outside Thailand....

Re: help me decide! I was sure where you were going with this: Black cars get hot! So do dark KKs. Not really a problem, but they're already absurdly fuel efficient, this is just gravy.

Re: you've seen a lamb shank, now look at my beef shank!

Re: Brined and Spatchcocked Chicken VIDEO I was surprised to see the brine just cover the chickens. I nearly fill the bucket with the chickens in, then take out the chickens to see the volume of water, and mix the brine. This way, the water in the birds is inconsequential compared to the brine water, and I can just mix the brine the same way each time, without worrying about the dilution effect from the water in the birds. (If our tap is running warm, I take out more water after noting the volume, and add back in ice after mixing the brine. Add ice till the water level returns to the reference volume; this water level won't move as the ice melts. Or use kilos = liters.) In Paul Bertolli's "Cooking by Hand" he would have us estimate the water in the meat, add it to the brine water, and compute how much salt to add using this total. Essential for more monumental pieces of meat, where having the brine water dominate the meat water isn't an option. You're either making this computation, or intuitively compensating each time. One is more consistent, either actually making the computation or using lots of water. I'm reminded of a recent story about the baseball player Barry Bonds. Steroids aside, a dominant home run hitter in his prime. He was coaching a hitter whose head moved a foot while batting. The hitter got the movement down to six inches. No, no, no! Barry asked him to watch Barry's eyes through a slit, while Barry took a bat. Bonds' eyes didn't move at all. He was great at seeing pitches. I can see how not moving one's head reduces cognitive load here. I like the salinity after brining to be exactly what I was aiming for, not merely close enough. Even if one makes the computation, more water in the bucket means less variation in salinity on the way to equilibrium. This in turn makes timing less of an issue.

Re: Everyday Misc Cooking Photos -Standby Fridge Meat..

(Adapted from The Great Curries of India) So 12 lbs of house-cured bone-in pork loin for the neighbors produced a bounty of leftover (very) light ham. What to do? Make up freezer pouches of pork vindaloo: Clean up and cube 3 lbs of leftover pork loin. Dice 3 onions and saute in 3/4 cup olive oil. Make a blender sauce from 2 tsp cumin, 12 cloves, 2 sticks cinnamon, 20 peppercorns, one star anise, 2 tsp poppy seeds (all ground dry), knob peeled ginger, 12 garlic cloves, 2 TB tamarind pulp, 3 TB cider vinegar, 12-15 seeded Guajillo or similar chiles soaked to soften, with their water. Add more water as needed to make the blender go. (A Vita-Prep will have an easy time here, as would the Indian Sumeet processor.) Combine with onions, simmer and reduce as needed. Add salt (1 tsp or to taste) and a TB or so of palm (or any) sugar, to offset any bitterness from chiles or onions. Add curry leaves if available. Once the sauce has come together, add the pork cubes and very gently simmer. We froze in boilable vacuum chamber bags (our favorite and least expensive bags) for pairs of servings for lunches. Our Foodsaver alternative these days is no vacuum, one just needs a sealer with these bags, if a bit of air bubble is acceptable.