jonj

The wine cellar art was done by one of our friends from college who is an artist. She and her husband are among our closest friends but we haven't seen them in person since last Christmas, due to Covid.

Most of our cellar is California based, primarily cabernet sauvignon and Russian River pinot noir, with a smaller amount of sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, syrah, and a lot of sparkling wine and Champagne. Sparkling wine makes every day better! We have just a few remaining Bordeaux from the 1990s, but really stopped buying when the first growths moved to four figures per bottle.

"A magnum of Champagne is the perfect accompaniment for two gentlemen at lunch, if one of them isn't drinking much," ascribed to Sir Winston Churchill. If he really didn't say it, he should have.

@Troble we play classic and garage rock, Americana, and oddball music which makes us smile. My main instrument is electric bass guitar, mostly Alembics although I do use Hofners when we do a Beatles set. I also play electric 6-string guitar, mostly G&Ls or Fender. I occasionally use a Theremin but am not at all proficient at it. Mostly just strange noises. TMI.

In a kind of weird moment of insight, I realized I bought one of my Alembics about a decade ago from Kevin Robell, who lived on Coronado Island at the time. 

Our wine cellar has a L-O-N-G way to go before we run into any difficulty, so we have that going for us...

Congratulations! Don't forget to order coco and / coffee charcoal. Hard to get right now if not with a KK order.

I've been playing golf once a week with a bubble buddy, although not on as nice a course as you have available. We try for tee times when we can play as a deuce, as there are a lot of mask/Covid conspiracy folks in this part of the country. And, oddly enough, high infection rates in the community (/s). We used to (now retired) work at the same hospital, which is now full of Covid patients, so we and our families are very careful in our behavior. I would consider it poor form to be admitted to my former hospital right now. We play unless the temperature gets below 40°F (we would probably be in shorts and polos if it reached 66°). 

We play music together once a week as well (we are in the same band when not grounded by Covid) to keep our skills up.

Finally, I do a lot of reading. I'm in a long standing (although now Zoom-based) book club but also go through several other books in addition to the selected book of the month. I typically do a fair bit of woodworking, but am finding it is really on the back burner since the pandemic. Not sure why.

And oh yes, cooking and working down the wine cellar. The latter will take some diligence.

I haven’t seen this device before. I use the Tormek system for woodworkIng and other tools and Japanese stones for knives. 

I think these alternative units of load measurement has some merit for future discussions. 

Nice work!

Those ribs look really good! 

Never in question, Robert.

Seeing your 16 on its nifty mobile stand (with teak!) reminds me I never did get around to building one like MacKenzie’s.

So many projects; so much procrastination...

Congratulations and welcome. I hope the time passes quickly for you.

I can’t speak to lamb, but with beef I have had better results with reverse sear keeping the interior medium-rare or medium without a lot of grey meat at the perimeter. So, I’m going to stick with reverse sear for this one. A great experiment.

It was a pretty swell (albeit early for me) morning.

Ssgt seems to have covertly added another 42. Very professionally done!

1 hour ago, tekobo said:

looking forward to seeing your Argie Barbie.

Argie Barbie®, comes complete with her own tongs.

1 hour ago, Braai-Q said:

So much to unpack in that sentence! 😁

That was my thought as well...

Either option (Zoom or YouTube) or both...

21 hours ago, tekobo said:

others who just want to be nosy

Coming from a family with generations of robust-nosed individuals, how could I not join in the fun? 

Yikes! 😧

Beautiful!

I have (and most often use) the Geekhom gloves. I originally bought some of the long fabric gloves with fluorescent orange silicone strips, but they were just to gaudy to use, even for me. The Geekhom gloves are completely silicone on the outside with the insulating fabric inside. I probably wouldn't use them to pick up a hot coal, but I don't think I would try that with any gloves. My current understanding is tongs are a uniform requirement and I don't want to be kicked out of the club.

At least not for that.

After 4 years, I almost used the heat deflector Thursday, but decided against it. Everything came out great.

To be fair, I don’t think it is big enough to be counted as another whole grill. Maybe 1/2 or 3/4...

Like MacKenzie said, I think it works best as a reverse sear, which is how I do mine.

Smoke at about 200 - 215 F grate temp until the roast reaches around 112 F (or slightly higher if you want it above medium rare). It will take about 2 1/2 - 3 hours depending size of roast (my times are for a 6 pound net trimmed boneless roast) and your actual KK temperature. Pull the roast and tent with foil while opening the top and vents to get a dome temp of 500 and sear all 6 sides of the roast for about 1 - 1 1/2 minutes each. Roast temp will increase to about 120 - 124F. Then refoil, wrap with towel and hold in a cooler until your desired is reached. It will go up another 10 degrees while in the cooler.

Dan, you have received lots of excellent advice from three KK experts.