tekobo

Cool. @Braai-Q got me onto these. He called them the KK quality pizza oven and has the 5 minuti. I just got the Allegro and am learning to use it. It's wood only so I am hoping that we don't end up with a wood fire ban any time soon! P.S. Your cooks are inspiring!

That looks lush @David Chang. Is yours an Alfa Forni wood fired oven?

Welcome @Caroline. I think someone has reported unpacking his 32 on his own but said it was difficult to do so. Do you need to move it at all or is it already close to the final location? I would suggest that you need at least one other person and possibly two. Just lifting off the crate needs two people given the size of the 32 and having someone to work with you to steady the beast as you roll it off the pallet is essential. Good luck and don't rush this critical phase!

Wow, what a beautiful picture @C6Bill!

Thanks @David Chang. Just realised I should have asked you what type of air fryer you have. Mine is rotary and moves the food around throughout the cook. I am guessing that is not the best way to get chicken skins crisp and flat(?) and that yours may well be more like an oven and static?

Good to know about this cut. I bought a few “forgotten” cuts from this website in Wales recently but they didn’t have any of the Denver steak. https://www.iforswelshwagyu.co.uk/category/14/Secret-Steaks-.html Your cook has reminded me about it. Looks great!

Hi David. It would be good to know how you air fry your chicken skin. I mince chicken thighs for my cats to eat raw and this last time I kept and vacuum packed the skins for future use. I get them crisp by roasting them between two baking sheets but it would be good to have another method. Crispy sheets of chicken skin goes well in chicken thigh burgers and there is a chicken skin taco recipe that I am looking forward to trying.

I started my kamado journey with a KK and I certainly have no regrets that I didn't do the BGE, Primo, Kamado Joe hop, skip and jump first. They are wonderful to cook and just sooo beautiful to look at.

IDK = InDoor Kitchen = a place any self respecting KK’er regards with disdain except for when it is raining, cold, snowing or just plain convenient. As for @C6Bill, I swear you just post those beautiful bread pictures to torment me. One day my loaves will be as good as yours.

@David Chang, I agree, it is a lot easier baking bread reliably in your IDK oven., That said it is fun, chasing the perfect loaf. I find that baking in a KK with steam does give a different crunch to the crust. I have had the most success in my 32. You do need to keep the fire live to keep the temp up. You do need some distance from the fire - something you may lack in a 19. You do need to turn the loaf during the cook to avoid burning. Using steam does seem to make the crust darken quicker so you need to be aware of that too. I mostly bake bread in my IDK oven because I don’t have the time to light the fire and manage the bake as actively as you need to over fire. I would use the KK for the fun of it and see how/whether your loaves improve over time but would put a loaf into your IDK oven as back up.

I know, it's gorgeous. No, it does not over dry the chicken meat at all. A few hours simply has the effect of drying off any surface moisture. I have dry aged whole chickens for up to a week and they are fine. Where I have seen the flesh get a bit dry is with a duck breast that I left in for a week. It was fine though. Super easy to score the dry duck skin and the flesh sort of re-constituted itself while being cooked and was well flavoured but not dry at all. How much do I end up slicing off steaks? I don't tend to dry age individual steaks for very long. The meat has usually been hung for a minimum of 45 days by my butcher so a week in the dry ager just intensifies the flavour and there is no need to slice anything off the end at all before cooking.

Hi @KK787. This is the dry ager that I have: https://www.dry-ager.com/en/shop/dry-aging-fridge-dx500/ I love it and use it all the time for short stints to dry out poultry or pork skin before grilling or long stints to age beef. Aged tuna was divine too.

Good that this worked for you @KK787. A few weeks ago I tried dusting one chicken with baking powder and left one without. Dried both in my dry ager for about six hours before cooking in the rotisserie at about 200C. Both chickens came out crispy. I was entertaining and didn't have time to take photos but it would be good to try out your method with and without the baking powder with chooks side by side to side to be sure that the dusting of baking power is indeed the key factor.

Painting fat was something that I learned from chef Gareth Ward's restaurant Ynyshir. They do a lot of long aging of meat and painting the ends stops them drying out during the process. I discovered that Lennox Hastie also does something similar. I looked him up on line just now and found this article where he describes what he does but not why he does it. https://www.cooked.com/uk/Lennox-Hastie/Hardie-Grant-Books/Finding-Fire/Meat/200-day-dryaged-beef-rib-recipe Ignore me Pooch. Lennox Hastie describes it as tasting like aged Parmesan. Hopefully that works better for you!

I started off using a wine fridge. Much cheaper than a dedicated dry ager but it broke down after about a year. I would not have had the confidence to use it for a really long aging process either.

Hey, you are starting an interesting journey @David Chang. Here's a link to other's adventures in this space.

Cool. Now let's see it in action!

You can’t go wrong with that Peruvian chicken recipe of yours @Troble. Let the fun begin!

The thing is Tony, I did my “prototyping” with the splitter lengthways in the 23 and so did not have to rig anything up. Dennis had already built a perfectly good solution for that KK but I needed to try it out to believe the up and down swing story. Now for something completely different: I bought some PBW as my birthday treat for myself last month. What concentration do you use when you soak your grates?

Glad to be of help Pooch. I don't have a pizza oven. I buy pizzas or, occasionally, make them on the 23 or 32. We have a good local Pinsa place with super tasty toppings. Their pinsas are good and they humour me and let me practise my Italian on them. The full immersive experience without the cost of my own pizza oven!

Ha. You made the mistake of reading the blurb @tony b. We went the experiential route. Basco sell three types of beer. I bought all three. The Husband tried them and asked me to order more of this one. Done.

From my perspective, the key understanding I gained from this hack is that if you get the "up" part of your rotation above the fire and the "down" part of your rotation above your empty side, you get fewer flames. So that means you can have a half and half split. The main thing is to make sure your down swing does not drip fat on your fire. @David Chang I would rig something up with foil and deflectors or a tray to see how it works for you before committing to a design.

Hi @Poochie. No, I did not get the pizza stone for the 16. It won't be a 16 inch pizza either. See below for dimension of the main grate.

Sorry @Poochie I am not going to give you the positive response that you would like. I find that the Bambino takes longer to get going. The air flow in the 23 and 32 gets the fire going quicker. I tend to need to go back to the 16 a couple of times to ensure it is lit and that takes more time. You will also end up with a relatively small pizza. All in all, I would recommend a 23 as a second KK if you already have a 32 and not the 16. I have all three but I accept that is a bit excessive!

As promised, here is a photo of the fish clamp in the 32. For UK folk who are interested, I bought it from : https://countryfirekitchen.com/products/turbot-clamp