tekobo

Wow! Congratulations @USUAggie. Big Blue looks like it has fitted right in. Looks gorgeous. As does all the lovely coffee char. Have fun.

Unlucky me, would have liked to get ahead this season. It's shaping up well, with some teams performing way below their talent levels and others surprising us. Not so much "any given Sunday" as "any given team".

Hi David. My experience is that the shaft needs to be cut to fit your particular combination of motor and KK. That was true for me in the UK where I bought my motor locally but if you bought all the parts direct from Dennis then it may be worth contacting him to check if there is indeed something wrong with your set up.

Sooo. Update on my new KKs. They left Indonesia week before last as planned. I am told they will be loaded on the boat to the UK in Singapore on the 31st of this month and that they should be in the UK by the end of November. Looks like an early December arrival. No vessel name yet but excitement is mounting.

Tee hee. Have driven a Porsche at scary speeds on a German motorway and don't plan to do it again anytime soon. Same with billowing smoke. No one has complained yet but I would rather not get to that stage. Tried to message you at the start of the season when you lost narrowly to the Hawks. Things looked promising at that point. Not so good now. My birds are rallying and I am hoping that we can run away with our poor division. Anyway, whenever I try to send you a PM the system says "Tyrus cannot receive messages". So, which is it? Is your mailbox too full or have you blocked me because your team is not doing so well?

Been meaning to post a recent steak cook but have had problems with synching across my devices. Will do so soon... I agree that it would be fun but I found that burning wood on the Argentinian grill created way too much smoke. You appear to have a much bigger garden than I do so you won't be annoying your neighbours with the smoke. Cooking over the solo stove helped to eliminate the smoke issue so that is my go-to for fun wood fire cooking.

Hi there @Tyrus. Interesting. I am using my Argentinian grill a lot more now and was initially worried about how much char I was burning through compared to the KK but have now got down to creating a single layer of hot coals and having more patience with the cooks. It doesn't look like I can get hold of these fire logs in the UK but I do have some Cuban Marabu on the way which I hope will burn hotter and longer than my current char.

Congratulations @alimac23 and welcome to the world of food Miss Adi Lou!

Hey there. Good looking cook @Braai-Q. You got a load more suya pepper than our friends over the pond - postage costs are a killer. Now, I don't want y'all to scare people off trying suya. Even in Nigeria people like different levels of heat and the street food guys use suya pepper at a level that just flavours the meat nicely before they grill it. Once cooked you get your suya sliced, placed in a newspaper wrapping and they then add extra suya pepper if you need more to suit your taste. And yes, I like it hot!

Hey there. Looking forward to your colour and tile choice. I liked the vibrant blue too but The Husband vetoed it so I never got to the stage of finding out it wasn't available. I had no idea what an L-7 was. A kind friend googled it for me.

@BOC there are unsubstantiated claims by owners of KKs with pebbles that say that pebbles cook best sprinkled through out the posts on this forum. Nobody, not even those of us who own KKs with pebbles, really believes this claim but it is fun to needle those with tiled KKs. Either way, your KK is going to be a revelation when you receive it.

The briskets that I get are not heavier than yours. I suspect not trimmed the same way?

@Basher is right. A 32 will make your life so much easier when you are entertaining for more people. If you are just cooking for your wife and you then I expect the basket splitter will allow you to save on charcoal use for small cooks. I agree that low and slow is great, particularly for big groups because you don't have to keep tending the food on the grill. With a 23 I found I could not fit a whole brisket on the grate and wished I had a bigger KK. Such problems are fixable though if you do go for a 23 - just split the flat and point on the brisket and away you go! P.S. I forgot to talk about cooking on charcoal. I used to have to wait for my husband to light the fire on our old barbecue so that I could use it. With the KK, lighting is so easy and efficient that I do it myself and it has really opened up my outdoor cooking options. I guess you can wait until your wife gets comfortable with the KK and then sell your gasser?

Ahh. I have an interesting clay device for clamping a spatchcock chicken between that could do a similar job. Or a pizza stone??? Or steel. Stuff to try.

P.S. Naan slapped onto the walls of a KK. That's a challenge I'm going to take on, particularly while my KKs are new and shiny. And no @Braai-Q, I saw what you did there with that link and I am not going to buy a tandoor no matter how beautiful.

I'll second the Pitt Cue Co book recommendation. Go wandering further afield for some fun. Francis Mallman, the Argentinian chef is charming and inventive while Charred and Scruffed by Adam Perry Lang brings some new tricks to the table. I have not got into my Lennox Hastie book yet but I am hoping that will open the door to some new places. We went to the restaurant he used to work in in Spain, Etxebarri, quite a few years ago and were blown away by how delicate smoke made everything, including boiled eggs, taste better.

Looks great @Braai-Q. Freezer is bursting at the seams at the mo but just as soon as I can make some space I will be getting some goat to try this out. That said... I do have some mutton. Hmmm.

Hey, patience is keeping me sane. Having gone through the waiting for KK to land excitement/stress before I know that it will be super exciting when they arrive and that I will forget this waiting phase once they are here. All good.

Oooh. Exciting!!! Unfortunately my KKs are still stuck in Indonesia. Apparently there was no room on the ship last week and they are now due to leave next week. Patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue...

Hi @Sir Bill. My limited Google search tells me kamados were originally designed for cooking rice in China and were then adopted by the Japanese. I have done some Japanese grilling on my KKs and this book is a great reference https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/205426/the-japanese-grill-by-tadashi-ono-and-harris-salat/. I have not done any Indian dishes on my KK and am loving the options that @Braai-Q described. Naan in a KK? Now that sounds great.

That sounds great @Boom Boom. That is an unusual cut. I recently had my butcher cut me something called a "collar steak". I think it might be similar/the same thing. Will certainly like to try them St Louis style if so. I usually keep the collar whole and turn it into bacon - a delicious and tasty alternative to lean back bacon or streaky belly.

yeah. I recognise that scenario.

Worth checking with Dennis to find out if you need to do one. If you do, it is only required in advance of very hot cooks and so would not affect an inaugural low and slow brisket cook. The manual and information elsewhere on this forum will help guide you through the burn in. Experience of the mad, bad things that can happy with delivery dates means that I would avoid trying to time anything to exactly line up with the arrival of your KKs. If you are able to cure the bellies and vac pack all or a couple so that you have some lee way with the delivery date, it should help to avoid generating unnecessary stress.

Recipe please! When James was first starting out I bought goat from him. He turned up in my kitchen and slapped a whole goat carcass on my kitchen work top for what felt like no money at all. I gave him some of my 55 day aged pork from Huntsham Farm for him to take home and he loved it. I really like feeding meat to meat suppliers because they know what has gone into producing the quality that they are tasting. No chance that he will be delivering meat personally these days but his website offers good options for those of us who are not near a West Indian community: https://cabrito.co.uk/about/. I see his website promotes kid goat. I asked for nanny goat because I wanted that maturer flavour for making Nigerian goat stew. Now that I have a dry ager I might see what that does for tenderising the meat. Yes, recipe. Please. Silly. Especially ironic for this black Nigerian 52 year old is communing with white Africans/Brits who lived in Africa and watching a video posted by an Australian on a forum established by an American living in Indonesia. A long way from anti-apartheid rallies in the 80s and all the better for it. I still want to cry whenever I think of the day I watched Nelson Mandela walk out of prison on my landlady's telly in Brixton. Human nature means that that pure moment of joy has not translated into long term happiness in South Africa but we all have a long way to go in our different countries.

Good tactic. I don't think the "Honey I shrunk the KK" argument will hold much water when your 32 Big Bad KK arrives. Although...if it ever comes to "it's me or the KK", you would be able to sleep in a 42. Great choice on colour and it sounds like you are a tile man in any case. I thought the same about metallic bronze tiles reflecting the garden but I am sure black will look lovely too!