Syzygies

Get a second charcoal basket! I bought a second charcoal basket from Dennis. I don't recall it being expensive, and it was well worth it. One holds local hardwood lump for high temp burns, and one holds extruded coconut lump for low & slows. I always use more than enough ECC, and I rest the spare charcoal basket on a terra cotta plant saucer in the garage. Shutdown is a tricky balance. One wants to snuff the fire without getting a stuck top hat. Get the bottom sealed tight, and the top loosely tightened. One can tighten further on one's pick up pass after dinner. (After the waxing ruckus I started, perhaps I should reword that? ) I haven't tried the new lump yet; I'm working through my old stock. The first batch Dennis offered (not made by Dennis) has the flavor characteristics I want, and is probably more fragile than the new stuff. In any case, lifting out the charcoal basket avoids handling the partially burned charcoal. I like to alternate, swapping baskets before each cook. Grill cleanliness is the Achilles' heel of low & slow cooks, but high temp cooks do a wonderful "self cleaning oven" job of cleaning up, after a grill floss cleanup. Now that ECC is readily available, maybe more people will spring for the second charcoal basket.

Re: Waxed for the Winter This was not your fault! Sorry I didn't use a smiley.

Right forum? n66981 Boy, when I first looked at "view unread posts" I really had to wonder if I was on the right forum...

Re: First Burn of KK Extruded Coconut Charcoal Now I'm wondering, does the coffee charcoal work like coke?

Re: First Burn of KK Extruded Coconut Charcoal

Re: Guide the break Ok, I'll bite. I feel like I'm 13 again. Laurie couldn't explain it to me either. I don't get it! As a friend says each time she finds something I build in the back yard, "Explanation please?"

Guide the break Of course, another basic engineering principle is to "guide the break". One slashes bread to control the oven spring. Sidewalks come precracked for expansion. Taking down a large tree is all about this principle. You pre-crack the internal firebox collar in a KK. A systematic design flaw in my "off-brand K" was that it was designed head-in-sand for all sorts of similar effects, rather than recognizing the effect and attempting to guide it. I'm a big believer in lubricants and solvents before forcing anything, to give it the best chance to move as designed. One can always clean the nasty liquids off later.

Re: tight top vent Be careful not to go too tight after a very hot fire. After the metal contracts it might be very hard to get the top back open. I tighten part way, come back in an hour when the fire has died to the point where the top hat is cooler. Oh yeah, if I remember.

Re: Indirect/Water? Yep, you talked me into it.

Re: BBQGuru New Product (drum roll...) You say that like it's a bad thing!

Re: Indirect/Water?

Re: KK is here and first cook pics! Oh man that looks good...

Re: Covering your KK In California, we use the cover for rainy season, and leave it off for the dry half of the year, including summer. Otherwise I'd get tennis elbow taking it on and off, and we like looking at the KK. Rain carries messy particles (look at your car) and a partial load of charcoal stays dry enough to use again, this way. Even closed up tight, I feel the damp has a better chance to get inside without a cover, and that I don't want.

Re: Assembling the rotisserie basket Nice. When we filmed my one line in A Beautiful Mind, Russell Crowe complimented my voice, and then said I had "a good face for radio."

Re: Getting Close!! That's wild stuff.

Re: Indirect/Water? A ceramic cooker retains moisture better than a Weber, and a KK is the tightest of the ceramic cookers. This effect is nevertheless a matter of degree, and worth considering. A very full ceramic cooker performs differently from one with a small load. This is true across brands, less so with a KK but the effect is still there. I've recently made some "village bread oven" experiments roasting with my KK, where I don't begin cooking till the fire is basically out, and the KK itself is thoroughly heat-soaked. Opening a fairly tight cooker to check on a roasting chicken, I had quite the surprise: The steam equivalent of flashback. I didn't actually burn myself, but I could have. I'm gearing up for KK experiments with baking hearth breads. Home baking is a tricky subject because you basically have to take people's word for it that they're getting good results, all you can really take on faith is that they're happy with their results. Professional bread ovens inject steam to a degree impossible in a home oven. Spritzing like a banshee and pouring boiling water into a cast iron dutch oven can sure appease the "effort" gods (if they can pull themselves away from "Flashdance" reruns to notice), but is not a match for a professional bread oven. The Egyptians baked bread in covered pots, an idea quoted by "La Cloche" bread bakers, simplified by the no-knead crowd to using a Le Creuset dutch oven, and simplified by the Tartine Bread book to baking in a covered cast iron pot (Lodge LCC3 Logic Pre-Seasoned Combo Cooker). Here, the dough generates the right amount of steam for its baking chamber. So, does a loaf of bread generate enough steam for a very tight, thoroughly heat-soaked KK after the fire dies? I'm not sure, but I doubt it, and I'll be experimenting with adding steam. For ordinary roasting in a KK, I'm not sure worrying about steam is worth the trouble. One can easily add too much. Nevertheless, this is an issue everyone has to work through for themselves, before developing a personal style. Or (yes, you there lurking) just buy one and demonstrate to the rest of us what minimal effort really looks like. The KK rewards that style of cooking. (Channel your inner Jamie.)

Re: Alice our new puppy is in the house! Our neighbors (the ones that got handed our off-brand K that shed its tiles, when we got our KK) have a pair of golden doodles. From puppies I befriended them, not wanting any territorial responses through the fence. Now they're escape artists, and whenever they get loose they show up at our door. I've been pretty generous with the BBQ with them over the years, and they don't seem to mind. Lovely dogs. Very doggy. We call them the snickerdoodles.

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide The word "boil" is an oversimplification, but an aid to shopping. I've never simmered anything over 195 F using sous vide techniques, and usually in the range 140 F to 160 F. If a bag can't be boiled, and they're not telling me where the limit is, then I'm assuming the limit is below a temperature I might use. For comparison purposes, Cambro tells me their temperature ranges: http://cool.cambro.com/CamSquares_Poly_ ... orage.ashx CamSquares - Poly Withstands temperatures from -40°F to 160°F (-40°C - 70°C). http://cool.cambro.com/CamSquares_Camwe ... orage.ashx CamSquares - Camwear Withstands temperatures from -40°F to 210°F (-40°C - 99°C). I certainly cook above 160 F, so I buy the more expensive Cambros, to be safe. These are guidelines, and even below 160 F I've bought a better margin of error. A helpful question to ask yourself might be: Why do the vacuum pouch manufacturers sell two grades of bags?

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide I thought I was clear the first time. If one obeys the rule not to vacuum pack hot food, then one must sear afterwards. However, classic braise technique is to sear beforehand, which is possible if one can close the bag without a vacuum. I know the convention in sous vide is to sear afterwards. It's just a convention, an adaptation to the limitations of the prevailing equipment. This is a standard issue, known to experts, and I'm by no means the first to realize that avoiding the vacuum avoids this issue. See Low-Temperature Cooking Without a Vacuum

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide For one comparison between boilable and non-boilable bags, 8 x 12 Chamber Vacuum Sealer Boilable Bags - Case of 1000 $78.98 (7.9 cents/bag) 8 x 12 Chamber Vacuum Sealer Bags - Case of 1000 $54.23 (5.4 cents/bag) I was minimizing total expenditure for what looks like an indefinite supply of two sizes, and ordered boilable bags from SousVide Supreme: Chamber Vacuum Pouches 8x10 (500 pouches) $49.95 (10 cents/bag) Chamber Vacuum Pouches 6x12 (500 pouches) $49.95 (10 cents/bag) For comparison, Ziploc Quart Freezer Bags - 54-Count $7.64 (14.1 cents/bag) I take your advice with great respect. I am curious, however. In the interest of full disclosure, do you have a horse in this race? Are you sitting on a hoard of chamber vacuum bags, that I'm saying aren't boilable?

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide It was exactly your comments on this forum that lead me to conclude that the Ary VP215C ($1,100 and up) was the most affordable chamber machine I'd actually want to own. Better engineering, oil pump... Some of the reviews on the $800 Ary VP112C scare me. There are reasons you went for the VP215C, and they're good reasons others should consider. I would have bought one by now, but for the analog controls. To reach an intermediate pressure, one watches a gauge, and at the right moment, hits stop. An oddly familiar protocol I feel I've practiced in various ways my whole life. I don't remember it always going well! In restaurants, part of sous vide cooking involves specifying a precise level of vacuum. The $1,900 minipack MVS 31X comes with digital controls, and reviews well. So I'm stuck. Meanwhile, I can live with the liquid restriction of "clamp and seal", if it saves me counter space and a couple of grand. What, I want to spend $1,900 because Thomas Keller says I sometimes want a medium vacuum? Why would I want to spend anything on a chamber machine, if "clamp and seal" is this easy?

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide In Under Pressure, p. 29, Thomas Keller writes A chamber machine salesman aware of the usual repair issues put it differently: Your pump isn't designed to be used as a still. I sure don't want these vapors going through the pump oil, it can't be good, and I'm told it's not good.

Rolling Pin and Counter Edge A rolling pin and counter edge may be the easiest way to ready a bag for clipping. Keeps the bag very flat, with plenty of opportunity to tease all the air out.

CLIP-it Bag Clamps Just to summarize, this thread is about using oxygen absorber bag clips to assist in sealing chamber vacuum sealer bags, without a chamber vacuum sealer machine. They're a game changer.

Re: Clamp and Seal Sous Vide (The "Dead Greek Guy" Method)) This is a point of contention, and saying it doesn't make it so. Only some plastics are determined food-safe at cooking temperatures, and the major chamber vacuum sealer bag manufacturers offer two lines, one approved as food-safe at cookiing temperatures. If someone could thoughtfully explain to me what these specialists are thinking, they might be able to convince me to follow their lead in saving 2 cents per bag by not worrying about this. Otherwise, I'd call this another instance of Darwin stopping by to say hi. Friendly chap, but I'm pretty cautious around him. This question can get political, for sure. I remember my 60's friends despising microwaves, and one could see "fear of plastic" in the same light. It's interesting that FoodSaver bags are routinely used at home to simmer meals, yet (in many locales) you couldn't use them in a restaurant. One could spin many a theory on this one. For me this is moot. There's the faintest price difference between chamber bags designed for boiling, and not designed for boiling. I'm certainly not going to maintain two supplies. These bags in use are staggeringly more beautiful than any Ziploc or FoodSaver bag I've ever seen, in a clean, minimalist way. They look more like glass, while supermarket bags look more like jello. Sort of like the two grades of Cambro; the hard plastic rated for boiling is clear, while the cheap stuff is cloudy. I want my freezer filled with seven kinds of stock in one cup servings, in these bags. Fort Knox. I'm thrilled that I can seal these bags so trivially, without a chamber vacuum machine, or even a water bath. These bag clamps rock.