Syzygies

Re: BBQ.About.com, Ultimate Grills, Best of the Best list I actually had an intermediate Guru, and gave it to a friend so I could buy the most basic model, which basically puts an oven temperature dial on your cooker. I generally have a plan in advance, and no desire or time to fret. Call me an old-timer...

Re: New Member - SoCal - Lake Forest Jeesh, I'd say!!!!! Welcome to the forum.

This should be amusing... n67031 Let's party!

Re: Komodo Kamado is #1 on Google for Kamado! KK also shows up first for me. However, rather than wikipedia, the KFF appears second. (For the uninitiated, an "enthusiast" site for a now-defunct competing manufacturer.) This effect is described in the TED talk Basically, the internet is evolving into an echo chamber for our own beliefs. Conservatives will be lead first to sites that warn how education damages political judgment, so states should pass identification laws discouraging student voting. That sort of thing. The internet will tell everyone that they're right, ossifying our beliefs.

Re: Summer Cheer There is a cure!

Re: Thanksgiving 2011 Any ideas how to get these birds into my car?

Re: Cooking salmon We did a very thick salmon steak last night, indoors alas. Brined four hours in half cup salt, quarter cup sugar to a gallon of water. Vacuum sealed with 1/2 cup of good olive oil, 134 F water bath for 90 minutes, and predictably the center only reached 124 F. Two slices would have been smarter, we were rather rushed. I've been seeing this olive oil "confit" method in various recent cookbooks. The consistency at 124 F center was spectacular. We're having the leftover flakes and oil over fresh pasta with parsley tonight. When I smoke a salmon on the KK (as described earlier in this thread) I don't go much over this target temp.

Re: Summer Cheer Before my month-long food tour of Thailand, featuring the hottest foods our teacher could induce the locals to serve us, a veteran of an earlier trip urged me to bring along a British brand of witch hazel pads. Not to go into more detail than you already have, but why not keep a bottle of witch hazel handy at home?

Re: LooftLighter Go visit The Grateful Griller - Services. This post was written in a manner that could be construed as primarily attempting to drive traffic to a commercial web site. That is against forum rules. I found the content interesting and valuable. Both TheNakedWhiz and primeats engage in BBQ-related businesses, but neither flaunts it on the forum. I'm simply trying to provide gentle feedback, rather than reporting this to the mods. Simply stop flaunting the brand, and don't write posts like a press release? That is all I object to, the commercial tone. I value the contribution itself. Though I admire Slu's succinctness. There's been a lot of commercial spam on this site lately. I had just flagged four threads in a row (now gone, perhaps you missed them) before seeing this thread. Ask someone who nearly got killed by a deer last month. Ridding the planet of other predators besides ourselves is not an entitlement. In equilibrium wolf kills are just a tax we should be happy to pay. I deeply admire wolves. As a species we're idiots to not grasp the importance of planetary diversity.

Re: LooftLighter Yeah, the "press release" format, and "late night TV ad" exuberance really had me wondering. I almost reported this post as serving only to advertise a product. We've got a few "branded personalities" here, in addition to us ordinary folks; everyone is welcome. "Naked" comes to mind as one I deeply admire, with a very low-key, folksy presence here, just offering what he knows without hawking his web site. The OP might study Naked's posting style, as a very nice model for how to manage a "branded personality". We don't object to "branded personalities" per se, but there's a line not to cross, or the wolf pack will make low growling noises as feedback. I take Slu's hilarious retort in this spirit. The odd thing is, the LooftLighter looks like a nice product. I recall Dennis promoting the use of a hairdryer, this is a further step in that direction. To the OP: Just skip the "press release" format and try writing like a normal person? We have a pretty broad definition of normal, to include the likes of the rest of us, it shouldn't be that hard.

Re: The "Thermapen" of kitchen digital scales? I infer from the silence that everyone else's experience is the same: Digital kitchen scales are cheap disposable crap. Alas. On Chowhound people like My Weigh scales, with some people having two at different resolution and max weights. Even this one has quality control issues; most are too big to tuck away in the kitchen: My Weigh scale This is a hard category to research because of all the Amazon "associate" link sluts out there. They haven't even tried the scales.

Re: Poll - Main and lower handle position/placement As part of testing, you should really try the "grill lifter" tools you include. You didn't think they were for this, but what did we know?!

Hi. Our most recent digital scale died, and luckily we saved earlier editions that still limped along. But we were astonished to realize how dependent we've become on digital scales. For example my sourdough bread recipe is a spreadsheet, enter hydration percentage, freshly-ground flour percentage, that sort of thing and it gives the blow-by-blow directions to the gram. American cookbooks are written for cave people, luckily for many kinds of cooking it simply doesn't matter. So what's the "Thermapen" of digital scales? Is there one? Please don't tell me your favorite $20 scale. Not be rude, but we're hard on scales and we've moved on. At this point I'd rather hear from the folks who roll their eyes that I don't have a chamber vacuum sealer yet. If you're reading this and don't own a Thermapen, just get one. Most of us here have one. Trust me on this one, the difference is night and day. Thermapen

Re: kk tool accessories They came, and I'm staring in disbelief that they can protect my hands from 600 F grill grates? Is this so?

Re: Coals take how Long??? Coals take how long? It depends who you ask!

Thermapens, and marathon "stalls" I've given up on the category. Junk with poor range. Nothing beats a Thermapen. When I ran marathons, I had to learn that it was ok to stop. It may have seemed like I was turning to salt, but stopping wouldn't have completed the process. One stops, one starts again, no big deal. I was also losing so much water that I seemed to be running backwards for a while at the 17 mile mark, but stopping wasn't the culprit. (One sees people running in foil, which may help. One best avoids this "stall" by running very quickly.) It's also ok to open the KK lid during any cook. When I was first learning brisket I found articles where the authors basically set up a police perimeter around their cookers. Nice show of dedication, but not much of an effect either way on the food. Part of judging progress is deciding where to jab with the Thermapen, and feeling how the meat resists a bit of movement of the probe. These are dimensions one loses with automation. Doneness isn't a function of temperature alone.

Re: lighting the grill Yeah, get Dennis to give you a safe maximum temperature, and do a "self cleaning oven" burn at that temperature. All that will turn to ash, and brush off. I've left my KK at 800 F with no apparent damage, but I'm the wrong person to ask. Sure, my old K7 was the poster child for a different manufacturer's shortcomings, but to be fair those tiles were intended for looks, not as a heat shield for re-entry. What did I know!?

Re: lighting the grill

Re: lighting the grill

Re: Florida Charcoal 2011 Well, our dogs are the spiritual leaders of our barbecue pits, with as great an interest as anyone in the outcome. Mine even barks at me whenever she thinks my attention has wandered from dinner...

Re: kk tool accessories Just ordered a pair. I'll also use them for handling the cast iron combo cooker at 500 F / 450 F recommended by the Tartine Bread book... Tartine Bread Lodge LCC3 Logic Pre-Seasoned Combo Cooker (For indoor baking, nothing e.g. La Cloche or a Le Creuset pot comes close to the same effect, trapping the steam needed for rustic loaves.)

Re: Tru Tel Options**

Re: SF Bay Area Buy So I went to pay Dennis using paypal, and I had a balance that nearly covered it. Nice surprise! I have a very healthy kaffir lime tree, and I had shipped 26 boxes of kaffir leaves and limes to fellow cooks who had studied with my Thai cooking teacher (Thai Food and Travel). Most people had paid the postage to my paypal account.

Difference: Them Us

Re: kk tool accessories