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I'm happy to report that my wife came home yesterday afternoon. While my in-laws were helping out, I fired up the KK 32 to grill some vegetables and then later, some chicken legs. I emptied almost an entire box of coffee charcoal into the firebox and lit things up with 6 fire starter cubes. While I was preparing the vegetables inside the kitchen and chatting with my sister in-law, the grill temperature managed to rise to well over a thousand. When I went outside, I saw bubbles coming through the grout and the tiles were extremely hot. The grill must have been at that temperature for an hour. Then, it took a while for it to get to 700 after I closed some of the vents. I'd say it took one over an hour. It then took another hour to get to 650. It had been almost four hours and the grill temperature was still over 600 degrees. By that time, it had gotten dark and it was getting late and so, I threw all the vegetables in two aluminum pans and stuck them on the grill which was still at 600. I also decided to wrap some sweet potatoes and corn on the cob in foil paper and threw them on the grill. About 25-30 minutes later, I removed the vegetables. I waited 30 more minutes for the temperature to approach 400 degrees and then I threw the chicken legs on the grill. A few minutes minutes later a severe thunderstorm / tornado hit the area. It was so bad that I could not go outside for almost an hour. When I went to check on the chicken legs, I was surprised that they had not burnt. The temperature was still 400. They were not quite done. I went back inside and then 20 minutes later, another storm hit the area. This time, I dashed out and to remove everything from the grill. The chicken turned out OK, but a little dry. The sweet potatoes and corn were overcooked. From now on, I'll start paying attention to the weather before I fire up the grill.

Thank you all for the well wishes. I hope I will be able to get back to grilling very soon. Currently, I spend all time at the hospital and I make two trips to the house to feed and walk the dogs. Our son has traveled out of the area for a few weeks. With nobody around and no time to do anything else other than sleep, the KK 32 is being neglected.

Hello Komodo Family! There hasn't much activity on my end because my wife had a major surgery and is still in the hospital. Anyway, while picking up some cherries to take to the hospital today, I realized that the hardware store was right there and so, I decided to pick up some cotter pins. I was told they were called hitch pins. Anyway, I installed the smaller one. Now, my set up is complete I guess.

Bosco, This color rocks! It was not available when I was ordering my KK. I would have had to wait a few more weeks as was the case for the bronze metallic color. I am happy with my choice, but the pebbles are something to behold. Anyway, are those cabinets deep enough to house your KK 32 grates and other accessories? Also, I would like to know why you opted for wood cabinets instead of stainless steel. Don't you have bad winters where you are?

It's great to know that Dennis builds custom cabinets. Can any of you post some of the custom cabinets?

I still have not ordered the stainless steel Jamco cabinet. I thought I'd post a question regarding the storage for the BIG KK 32 grates. Do the KK owners build something custom to store the grates? Also, a quick update on the outdoor kitchen, that's not going too well as the contractor has gotten extremely slow.

Welcome to the Komodo Kamado family! This blue is stunning! Mine was delivered last Friday and I've been having fun with it. The customer service is out of this world and everyone on this forum is great.

The main grate is just under 22" deep and therefore, this cabinet will work.

I saw a video on another KK thread, looked up the cabinet and found this: http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/storage/cabinets/Stainless-steel-cabinets/all-welded-stainless-steel-cabinet-48w-x-24d-x-41h I am not sure if this is going to work because I don't have the exact depth of the the biggest crate. Is it more than 22"? I'll check it tonight.

The solvent venting will have to wait a couple of more days as I am pretty tied with this software release. On another note, I am looking for stainless steel cabinets for the outdoor kitchen. I need to store those grates somewhere, but the problem is that they are so big and it is hard to find quality outdoor kitchen cabinets that are spacious enough to house the KK accessories including the grates. Please let me know if there's anything out there for the KK 32 or will have to go custom.

When I resume the solvent venting process, I plan to use regular lump charcoal instead of wasting the good stuff. That was the recommendation from the architect of the Big Bad 32. I may do that tonight for 5 hours at 550 degrees.

Based on my conversation with Dennis, who, by the way, called me right after I posted the picture, that is solvent venting. Yes, the process had started after the temperature had been stuck on 430 for three hours. I let it go another hour before I started cooking again on it. I did not have to go high at all today. I'm really enjoying cooking on my KK 32. Here is what I cooked today:

Everything was closed properly. I made sure of that. Back to solvent venting, I'm trying to get the grill to rise to the desired temperature, but it's been stuck at 430 degrees for the past forty minutes. It has plenty of charcoal and the firebox is red! All the vents are wide open. I even removed the fan knob to get more air into the KK 32. Should I remove the ash cover as well? If the solvent venting does not get triggered until the temperature reaches 475, I'm afraid I'm just burning charcoal for nothing.

My KK 32 never turned off last night! What's going on? I shut off everything i.e both the top and the two bottom vents. The current temperature is at 350. What happened? Is it because I had too much charcoal in the fire basket?

I started a conversation with Dennis regarding a 23. Let's see what happens. I don't know if it's going to happen in a month or in a year. Maybe, I'll decide to go with the 42 which will be out in a month. It's now time for solvent venting. I want to cook later this afternoon, but I want to get through this solvent venting process. I want to starting cooking in 4 hours which should give me enough time to get this solvent venting out of the way. KK 32 owners, please chime in with your advice.