Pequod

Nothing says Memorial Day like Mediterranean food! I give you my Mediterranean’ish Souflima (my Greek Souflima recipe substituting Dizzy Pig Mediterranean’ish for the salt and oregano) and homemade pita on the baking steel. Also a great teaching moment in basic heat transfer! Radiation, conduction, and convection all on display at once. I believe they call that a heat transfer hat trick!

That’s a real beauty! Congrats!

I love these. They are my go to pellets.

Yes. That’s why I splurged on the Guru probe tree!

I actually splurged on the guru probe tree. Before that I would use a small potato with a skewer to clip the pit probe.

That sound like you have a faulty pit probe. The BBQ Guru folks should replace that for you. As far as why use a controller...I tend to agree. Only time I use mine is when I light the coals the night before and then idle KK at a low temp until morning. That way it is already heat soaked and I can put the meat on as soon as I get up. I could remove the controller at this point, but if it’s behaving then no need.

Can’t beat good roadkill. So...being in Hawaii, when are you going to school us on Huli Huli?

Weird on the pit temp failure. I had an issue once where the fan just stuck on high and it kept raising temp well beyond the target. Ended up unplugging and taking the controls myself. Never figured that one out.

Well...I failed to get pics of the finished brisket. Suffice to say it was one of the best briskets I’ve done to date. Truly superb. You’ll have to take my word for it.

Wife has to work on the actual day, so doing our cook today and having guests. Full arsenal today. The 32 smoking a brisket. Fired up the coals last night, hence the CyberQ to hold it at low temp overnight. Then ramped it up this AM for a Franklin style brisket using the smoke pot over coco char. Bad lighting, but the boys together. And on the 23 we have some ABT’s over coco char with apple wood. More later if I remember pics. Cooked ABT’s.

The key difference between the two sides -- direct and indirect -- is the heat transfer rate, not the temperature. I want a much lower heat transfer rate on the indirect side than on the direct side. Food cooks by energy being transferred to it, not by the surrounding temperature. That seems a bit counter-intuitive because we set our ovens and grills, etc. to a temperature, not a heat transfer rate. But bear with me. This next bit is going to get a bit technical. Can't help myself -- being an engineer who once upon a time did fluid dynamics and heat transfer for a living (mostly over that now, having moved on to other, geekier things). Feel free to skip it. Ahem. There are three fundamental mechanisms of heat transfer: Conduction, convection, and radiation. All are always present. The overall heat transfer is the sum of the three. None is superior to the other, although one may clearly dominate in certain cases. Examples: Conduction: food on a griddle or in a hot pan is cooked by conduction. We use the knob on the stove -- low, medium, high to tell us how hot it is (given time to reach equilibrium). When our grill grates get hot and we get grill marks on our food, this was achieved by conduction -- direct contact of the food with the grate. Note that the grate itself may be considerably hotter than the temperature reading on the grill. This is because the grate was heated, in part, by radiation...which doesn't care so much about your grill thermometer. Convection: food in an oven or on the indirect side of a grill is cooked by convection where heat is transferred by the surrounding air to the food. Sous vide cooking is similar, but the heat is transferred by water. In both cases, the temperature of the fluid medium matters because the temperature determines the heat transfer rate. Note that temperature does NOT cook food. Temperature -- specifically the difference in temp between the fluid and the food -- determines the heat transfer rate which DOES cook the food. The temperature in your oven and thermometer on your grill are indicators of *convective* heat transfer, but are not the mechanism by which food itself is cooked. Radiation: Searing directly over a heat source like a bed of hot coals is mostly done by radiation. The temperature of the heat source matters, but the distance from that source determines the heat transfer rate. The thermometer on your grill doesn't measure ANYTHING related to IR heat transfer -- only the temperature of the air which contributes to convection. This is what I do too.

Have posted this article before, but worth reposting here: https://amazingribs.com/more-technique-and-science/grill-and-smoker-setup-and-firing/how-control-temperature-indirect Says it better than I have: purpose of two-zone is to have one “hot” zone dominated by infrared, with the other, cooler side dominated by convection. For convection to dominate, first must have low infrared due to distance squared or IR deflector. The 23 can do the job, but in the 32 the zones are more distinct and with larger area in each zone.

Offset is carrying its heat primarily through convection. Especially in a reverse flow offset, the firebox isn’t directly exposed to the cooking chamber, although it will be hotter and, therefore radiate. Kamados, especially KKs due to the superior insulation over glazed pots, are characterized by being low flow. Not NO flow, but low flow. Convection certainly plays a role, but not the same role it plays in an offset. Also, there is no such thing as two-zone in an offset...at least not on purpose. Goal there is even heat throughout. Two-zone is associated more with grilling, not smoking. The hot side of a two-zone grill is most definitely doing its thing via Infrared...and maybe a bit of conduction from the cooking surface which was heated via infrared.

The 23’s round basket has the advantage of left/right or back/front configurations. The latter is particularly convenient for rotisserie, and I also like it in conjunction with the new warming grate to provide easy vertical mobility as well. Note that two-zone is mostly produced by the difference in direct infrared heating between the zones, which has more to do with distance (squared) to the hot coals. So, the greater the distance vertically or horizontally, the more of an indirect zone you have. The biggest benefit of the 23’s warming grate or the 32’s half main in 2-zone configuration is the vertical separation on the indirect side while providing a right over the coals direct side.

Woohoo!

Really nice looking KK! If not for the obvious superiority of olive & gold, matte black pebble would be my first choice.

Makes sense. So...when are you pulling the trigger?? Summer is a-wastin'!

Beautiful grill! Now go get the innards dirty!

Woohoo!

Woohoo!

I like this idea. A "National & Regional Cuisine" section would be awesome!

Peruvian’ish Dizzy Chook underway. Made a marinade of lime juice, garlic, soy sauce, and olive oil. Let that sit under the skin for an hour, then a heavy coat of Dizzy Pig Peruvianish. Spinning with a bit of apple wood. To be served with a homemade spicy mayo.

Those chips might get me to cave and finally get an air fryer. They look excellent!

Also, some of us like to use steam to bake sourdough in the KK. Do a search here and you’ll see how it is done. Try that in a Glazed pot kamado and watch the felt gasket melt off. In short, the KK as is outclasses any of the glazed pot add ons for baking.

Hmmm...still not tracking. I see everyone’s name as white.