Syzygies

We need a LOL-cooker caption contest for this pic. (Nice digs, by the way.)

Re: Korean Baby Back Ribs Laurie saw this and asked me,

Re: more info I have an answer in her words, which I've posted in the recipe section: Korean Baby Back Ribs

From a digression in another thread: Here is my friend's recipe for Korean baby back ribs: some brown sugar (I never measure it, but maybe 1/2 c more or less) 1c soy sauce 1 T sesame oil (from toasted sesames) about 3 to 5 crushed red chile flakes (the kind you put on pizzas) 5 cloves of garlic your toe sized ginger (ok, I've never seen your toe consciously, but you know what I mean) finely chopped 1/4 c water 5 scallions, thinly sliced 3 LB pork baby back ribs Whisk all the ingredients in a baking pan or a bowl Add the ribs and toss to coat (Here I stab between the ribs with something sharp like a Fondue fork, or a knitting needle but not too much or the meat will look like a rag) Here comes very un-American part--keep it at room temperature for about two hours. I know Americans will think the meat will go bad, but so far none of my guests died of rotten meat at my house, and I don't tell my guests I kept it for two hours outside the fridge) Then refrigerate overnight, turning occasionally--no need to stay up all night--just turn before you sleep and when you wake up) bake at 450 F or bbq

Between Dennis and an earlier supplier, I have thirty boxes. And I'll buy all I can, next offer. I recommend thinking big, next time the extruded coconut is available. (Notice I didn't get pilloried, from people buying the "inferior" batch after my review. The stuff is decent. People here clearly miss it.)

It sure looked like I could have used the deflector as intended. The smoke pot picture is actually from my "dry run" rather than my first cook. You can tell because I'm using lump charcoal, not extruded coconut. As it happens, I have a second charcoal basket on order with Dennis, to make it easier to switch back and forth between these two fuels. I actually used my 16" Home Depot plant saucer, wrapped in aluminum foil (shown above), as a deflector on the lower grill. It is a slick, low-rent solution. Just wrap the grease in the foil, discard, and go again, no SS drip pan to clean. I admired Dennis's drip pan and heat deflector separates, but I haven't tried them yet. What I'm really antsy to do is to load up his stunning rib rack!

In my pre-ceramic days I was six months in a rental visiting Berkeley, CA, and sharing a good gas grill with my upstairs landlords. They're friends; I'm still assigned to the grill at parties there. The one-who-cooks is Korean, and while sauced ribs is not normally my style, she makes the most incredible Korean / California fusion marinades. Her descriptions don't convey her sense of balance; I can't reproduce what she does. How she goes about ribs is all-wrong by BBQ competitor group-think, but boy do crowds devour them. A gas grill has nothing on a KK, but I made the best of it. I bought a rotisserie for it, and by far our favorite food this way was whole chicken, light smoke, Hawaiian red sea salt and black pepper on the skin. There was a party of fifty that set on three birds in as many minutes; Laurie and I only got to taste as we carved. Good thing Hyungsook had lots of other food. Since then, we've cracked the code on one way to make chicken on a ceramic cooker that we love, but it's not the same, and why not have some variety? So we're reading this thread with great interest, we'll probably take the (minor, after the KK) plunge...

I did get to try my 2 quart cast iron dutch oven "smoke pot" in our new KK this weekend. It fits fine, and worked very well. We were actually pressed for time, so I started my fire under Guru control before going out for the day, with the smoke pot set up but on the main grill, with a heat deflector between it and the fire. Then when we got home that evening, I quickly moved the smoke pot down onto the fire, and put on 25 lbs of butt and shoulder to cook overnight and into the next day. Because the KK is tighter than my previous cooker, and better insulated, there was much less airflow, leading to thicker, moister smoke. Great smoke ring penetration, and the same clean flavor we expect from a smoke pot. (I had wondered if I would actually go for broke, making all this meat for a party as my first cook on the KK, or using my tried-and-true old cooker. Once we unpacked the KK, there was really no looking back.)

Baby backs are in my experience trickier than spareribs. They're twice the price, aimed at a market that can't be bothered with spareribs. With the exact trouble you went through, you could have cooked spareribs. They can be cooked similarly, with baby backs needing less time and less rendering. On the other hand with "grade inflation" what used to be sold as St Louis spareribs is often sold now as babybacks. A pig rib is a pig rib, I like 2 1/2 to 3 lbs trimmed, best. I personally brine many meats, but never ribs. On the other hand, the salt is unpredictable by eye, going for a dry rub instead. So I measure 0.8% sea salt by weight (one would use more for boneless meats, but this accounts for the bones) and apply before applying a further salt-free rub of chiles and/or black pepper. At 250 F I'd agree you went for a long time. On the other hand, ribs look done when they're done. Peek earlier? A classic method for ceramic cookers and spareribs has been 3:2:1 where the middle 2 hours is in foil, perhaps sauced. With indifferent meat this is probably a great idea, but with the most flavorful pork we find this comes out mushy and hides the pork itself.

Here's a nice illustration of the KK shape: A whole pork shoulder, alongside a pork butt, 25 lbs of meat on the main grill with plenty of room. This wouldn't fit so easily on a round grill.

As a K7 to KK switcher, I'd be happy to field a phone call. The differences are too many to type. Everything is thought out better, works better.

Yeah, the side-by-side photo makes this point pretty clearly. There's room straight up over all points on the main grill, which is set a few inches down from where the cooker opens. Laurie really likes that the new cooker is bigger, yet doesn't sit so high off the ground. It looks more grounded, less imposing, fits in better with the yard.

Thanks. Actually, using a guru is always different than not using a Guru. Your advice is a good translation to the KK of how to proceed without a Guru. With a Guru, one wants the minimum opening that creates enough fan-assisted draft, without creating the possibility of a draft that could run away with the Guru fan off. Because the damper fits so well, it would appear to me that even a 1/8th turn from closed shut is plenty. But I was curious what other Guru owners had settled upon.

Another transition question: For a 225 F low & slow controlled by a Guru, what fraction of a turn from closed do people set their damper? The KK is night-and-day tighter than my old K, and better insulated, so I do have a new learning curve (and 24 lbs of pork shoulder, butt is waiting to go on tomorrow!). Friends would red-line my VW GTI in first because they'd never had a gas pedal so responsive; I'm in the same boat here, learning again.

Yep, we ordered one.

The cooker is dead, long live the cooker This is a comical picture to stare at for a long time. On the left is the Komodo Kamado ceramic cooker that we just uncrated, on its inaugural test run. On the right is an idle cement cooker from a different maker, a bit worse from wear. Ask yourself which shape is historical accident, and which shape was carefully thought through. Considering that we need more room for the food than the charcoal, how would you have a cooker curve? Which looks bigger for use, without towering over the yard, or looking like it could topple in an earthquake? I must confess that at one time I thought the KK shape was odd, and the K7 shape "normal". The side-by-side pictures make everything clear for me. I can't tell whether I'm grinning or laughing. I only moved the K7 close for this comparison shot. Laurie wants it out of sight! I'm wondering if we should call the new cooker "Fellini". It's clearly not a seven, it's an 8 1/2. But Laurie reminds me, we're not naming the cooker.

As I've said elsewhere, your source exaggerated the K7 diameter by about an inch. Above is a trace of the grills for the K7 and the KK, on the top of my KK shipping crate. I've shaded the differences. On the lower plank, the KK bulges out; the shaded area is the extra area on the KK grill. On the upper plank, the KK cuts in, ending in a flat back; the shaded area is the extra area on the K7 grill. These nearly cancel out, but the KK in fact offers more, and more usable, surface area. I prefer the KK shape, which looks like someone actually gave it some thought.

Laurie and I wanted to make this as easy as possible, so we worked as if we were 98 pound weaklings handling a cooker that weighed a good part of a ton. As everyone has said, handling a KK is far easier than that. Still, the steps I took to be extra careful were satisfying to execute. For rolling the KK off its pallet, I screwed a 2x4 onto the side of the base, then screwed a scrap of ramp plywood onto the 2x4. I threw scrap 2x4 and 4x4 under the ramp for support, and the KK slid off easily. Our dome was crated separately. We moved it onto a cushioned table, then slid it onto place using another makeshift ramp.

So is one of these covers ample protection for a Komodo out in the rain all winter? I note that the material breathes. I used to use a plastic tarp with the old cooker, but I'm guessing that this will actually be far better protection. I'm old enough to remember tent camping under canvas. Breathes, waterproof, but the canvas leaked anywhere you pressed with your finger.

It would help if someone posted a link in this thread to details and ordering information. (I recall seeing an earlier thread that did, but it isn't coming up easily under search; this would save others time.) Also, the material used is sufficient protection for winter or rainy season? It sounds like the material used in our "Sky Chair", which is the less waterproof of two choices.

I have the same device, which I haven't used in ages. I found it in the Walnut Creek, CA Barbeques Galore. More interestingly, I also saw a curious thing there called a Green Egg, which brought me down a long and winding road (KoFF! KoFF! ) leading here, to our beautiful Komodo which I'm flying home to see tomorrow.

Fooled again, here I thought from the title you were stuffing chicken with some leafy green.

That's great. We've found that this method markedly improves indifferent tomatoes, presumably by concentrating flavors. Starting with our garden tomatoes, anyone we hand a packet off to in mid-winter raves about them. With farmers market tomatoes, sometimes the result can be a bit acidic, but easy to correct for when you use them: Just don't use so much!

Re: seriously long lag screws Err, because it takes this to get them off?