Syzygies

Re: ashes and safety

How's the quality? Harbor Freight is an amazing place, but some of their stuff won't make it to your car intact unless you've parked close. I buy things there that only need to have the correct form (wheels for a "picnic table truck" to move my outdoor workbench six times a year max) and return anything where quality can possibly affect function (wood clamps that self-destruct on first use). I fear that a propane torch is in the second category. Proceed with caution.

Five or ten minutes? Depends on your charcoal. For low & slow I like to start a focused fire in extruded coconut, right under my smoke pot. This is good. For higher temps, I've moved over to the Benzomatic JT850 which is quicker. So it depends. If you already have the plumber's torch shown, e.g. for projects around the house, then this is a handy way to use it. (Our previous owner used scrap pipe with four joints for the shower, buried in a wall where a clean single piece of pipe would have done. The joints failed and I learned various skills to repair all the water damage and replace the plumbing.) Remember that thread on refilling propane tanks? Propane is heavier than air. Dennis must have had this in mind designing this gas burner door, as it is flush with the cooker floor, so if this torch goes out unattended, the cooker doesn't turn into a bomb. Good thing. Still, attend!

Oxygen I have to admit, at the aisle in Lowes where I bought my new torch, I stared and stared at the oxygen canisters. The potential of oxygen was first documented on the web in 1995, in this classic video that disappeared for a while, then surfaced on youtube: I was simply thinking of feeding oxygen in gas form to an already lit fire, perhaps through a JT850. Not wanting to qualify for the Darwin Awards, I retreated to a more conventional solution.

That's fascinating. Our pH is dead neutral, 7.0, while it should be 6.5 to 6.7. It's clear that the end rot is restricted calcium uptake, which we had assumed was a pH effect, but we did also have a cold spring. (It still feels like a cold spring!) Next year we'll go at soil prep earlier, get the pH dialed in before we plant. I've wondered about heating strips in the soil, Laurie considers that cheating! (Not to worry about commercial charcoal, not allowed on the premises.)

That's funny, my old torch (doubles for sweating copper pipes) had stripped its threads. I almost replaced it, bought the JT850 instead today, just before your post. On a test drive as soon as I got home, it sure did a faster job of lighting charcoal than I'd had available before. Jiarby (Glenn Butler) shows up at competitions with a Rambo-style flame thrower that makes the JT850 look like a toy, but he'd certainly approve of the JT850's use in our amateur hands.

Are there any actual gardening advantages to keeping the ashes in the yard? Our tomatoes have a bit of end rot this year, on a very precise watering system, and our analysis is that our soil needs to be a bit more acidic. Ash is basic, right?

One cardinal rule is to make sure the ashes are really out, so you don't burn down your garage. Then, don't overspec the problem. Over the course of a year, if it's twice the effort to get the last third of the ashes out, it's simply not worth it. I use a dedicated paint brush to sweep ashes down and out the ash door. A 16" terra cotta plant saucer (unglazed unless you're sure of the glaze) lined with foil make a very convenient heat deflector and drip catcher, with easy cleanup. The same saucer catches ashes nicely. Some escape, which doesn't bother me.

Re: is there really a difference I came from a Kamado #7 that I drove into the ground (shed its tiles, cracked, but lots of good cooking) over five years. I figured, the Komodo Kamado, much nicer fit & finish, lasts many times longer, but similar enough shape and size that I could jump in with no learning curve. I was wrong. Aesthetics aside, a fundamental difference in how the KK cooks comes from the fact that it is both very tight and very well insulated. One can get to and hold a temperature quicker, with less fuel. Early on, I made plenty of mistakes, trying to drive the KK as if it were a K7. But one learns. I am of the opinion that traditional low & slow brisket is the single hardest entry in the barbecue repertoire. Just saying this opens up a can of worms, for this approach to brisket is easy on a ceramic cooker, if nearly impossible on an offset firebox cooker. And one school here favors quick, higher heat briskets involving foiling. The intensity of the debate supports my belief (shared by many others) that brisket responds to the synergy of skill and equipment. Nevertheless, brisket made this way comes out better in a KK than it ever did in a K7. I can only speculate why: Tight, well-insulated, so less airflow. Does this dry the meat less? I can just imagine Harold McGee lecturing me that this has nothing to do with meat drying out, and if it did, a water pan would correct any differences in cooker tightness. Perhaps. My intuition likes a very slow airflow. No one who can tell armagnac from cognac from moonshine would dispute that distillation is very sensitive to every variable. My hunch, supported by experience, is that so is barbecue. Of course, you buy a KK because you want it.

Wait for Dennis to weigh in? This is his technique. I pictured a simple "blow from above" to get a spot raging, then let time take its course. There was a separate discussion of shop vac filters that could handle ash, with the caveat that embers start fires in unwanted places (garage where shop vac is stored). My compromise is to remove most of the ash manually with a paint brush out the ash door, then clean up with a shop vac sometimes. Ash above the charcoal bothers me, it's crazy to get the last 10% down below. That is, unless the hair dryer trick saves 20 minutes later. But where is the ash down below going to go, if the rest of the KK is clean, and there's a decent load of lump in the way?

And here I thought these were KK tile choices? Oops.

Re: Straight Lines Well, I figured you couldn't possibly be serious about foiling brisket, but that's a touchy subject with some people, so I let it go.

That's fine. It always makes sense to salt then season, and figure out how much salt per dish, as a fraction of the total weight.

Yep, 0.57 up to 0.96 ounces, call it 2/3 to 1 oz of salt for 6 lbs meat. After experiments, adjust this rule to your taste. I'm on my third digital scale, and this one seems to be good to the nearest gram, better than the two gram accuracy I used to see. But on any scale, you have the right idea: Use the measuring spoon you'll actually use (don't assume 3 tsp = 1 TB as how you measure, this may be off in practice), and count until you reach 3 or 4 ounces on your scale, and divide. I just measured 12 tsp as 3 oz for my generic sea salt, so I'd use 3 or 4 tsp of my salt on a 6 lb piece of meat. There's always the diffusion issue, with surface effects. For a nice round butt, does the salt really reach the middle in a couple of days of rub then cook? People like a more flavorful bark, and one mixes the meat, so I haven't worried about this. On the other hand, my brother has a 1/4 acre agricultural pond he uses for swimming in the NY muggy heat. He pours in blue dye to control the algae. We debated diffusion rates, as in, if a molecule of dye were to move unimpeded from one end of the pond to the other, how long would it take? Pretty quickly, actually; the diffusion appears to take so long because the molecules keep changing their mind which way they're going. As if they forgot why they came into the kitchen...

Re: NaCl +1. I consider this essential technique. For ribs and brisket, I've come down in steps from 1% sea salt by weight, to 0.6% by weight. Americans cook by volume, English measure, pretty much the rest of the world cooks by weight, metric, if they measure at all. Salt can vary 2:1 in density, so if you go by volume, always use the same salt. Kosher salt is popular with restaurant cooks because they can reliably grab it by feel, with consistent results.

Oh I love sweet potato pie.

Another use for the Komodo rib rack!

porky goodness quanta (a.k.a. pretty good 'que) (also k.a. peptide with amino-terminal glycine and carboxyl- terminal glutamine) Spock Detecting Large Quantities Of Win In This Sector Captain So I stopped laughing enough to type again, and it did sound like a trekkie reference, but I have no idea what WIN is.

Re: It's BBQ I also know Italians who claim you can make wonderful Risotto in a microwave. In either case, I simply don't understand the physics, but clearly I have to try this.

Yum I love short ribs. (They're also excellent in a bistro braise, or as a component of hamburger.) Your butcher probably has them in back, not yet cut up, in racks of six or so. I like cooking them uncut.

Re: concepts

Re: Golden Gate Meat Company

Replace the doohickey with stainless steel bolts Here's my take on easing the ash cleaning process: Remove that doohickey obstacle whose purpose I forget, replacing it by 5/16" x 3/4" stainless steel bolts. One wants something to block the holes, so they aren't hopelessly plugged when you finally realize what the doohickey is for. One wants stainless steel because other metals e.g. galvanized let off noxious gases at fire temperatures. Now sweeping the KK is less of an agility test.

Re: Golden Gate Meat Company Yep, that is the BBQ tradition. Along with staying up all night minding a cooker made from spare oil rig parts, rather than sleeping like a baby after sending a month's pay to some guy in Bali. This is also a forum where discussions of Waygu beef take place. I like the Niman Ranch take on the parallel question for pork: They like their pigs to spend hard winters outdoors, and recently trendy pure breeds just can't take the midwest cold. I can only say that this $76 brisket made fantastic barbecue. Inexpensive briskets have been hit-or-miss for me. I wanted our guests to be dumbfounded, and I needed a reliable source. (And a reliable cooker. Because the KK is so tight and well-insulated, it exchanged less air than my old K7, for a moister brisket.) It's hard to carry out a controlled experiment, because the treatments optimized for cheap meat are different, and could make Charlie Chaplin's boots taste great. I like more naked approaches, where the meat itself has nowhere to hide.

Golden Gate Meat Company I've made quite a few briskets, and more so even than ribs or butt, the meat makes the 'cue. I can kid myself that my technique entered in, but truth be told, the Komodo Kamado makes easy work of cooking a brisket, putting me more in the role of an Alsatian wine maker, trying to stand out of the way and not screw up what nature created. For anyone in the SF Bay Area, by far the best source of brisket I've found is a butcher shop at the Ferry Building: Golden Gate Meat Company They have a dry aging room. I tried eight days once and one could eat the brisket with a spoon. My guests loved it but it was too much for me; perhaps the sweet spot is four days. I bought an 11 lb brisket on Monday for $76, to serve last night at a friend's party. Rubbed in 0.6% sea salt by weight, then black pepper and pan-roasted ground dried chiles (actually, in a freezer vacuum pack left over from a previous rub), and some Aleppo pepper to bulk out and heat up the rub. I put hickory chunks and apple chips in a two quart cast iron dutch oven "smoke pot" with three 1/8" holes drilled in the bottom, lid sealed on with flour paste, set this on coconut extruded lump and cooked the brisket at 210 F for 19 hours. Foiled and toweled in a cooler for the two hours before serving at the remote location. This is quite the opposite extreme of a fast cook, which I want to try, but with ample marbling in the meat, it works. A half hour's work, some waiting, and a stronger crowd reaction than spending two days making gumbo. I'd say this was my best barbecue ever, except it had a quiet "I can do this any time I like" reproducible authority to it. The Komodo Kamado did a better job than my old Kamado K7 ever did, and a huge advance over getting up every two hours to tend an offset firebox metal cooker. Brisket rocks.