tekobo

Thanks for posting this @Pequod. I love everything about her.

Ooo. I hope that means you may get the chance to use the KK sometime soon. Welcome to the blue pebble club. All the best KKs are blue pebble.

Interesting @Basher. I have made salt beef but have never tried a cold salt cured beef. What sort of texture are you looking for? Chewy like biltong?

That looks great Mac. That is one loaded nacho dish!

I like your recipes! Please post when you have refined. We don't get your lovely Californian peaches out here but I will look out for some good Mediterranean ones as the season progresses.

Hi @jruddy. It looks like you are pretty much set. The two things that revolutionised my fire lighting were a MAPP torch and a small leaf blower. There are threads elsewhere on the forum about the type of leaf blower available in the US if you are interested.

Having examined the smoker properly I now know that my proposal, as set out above, was flawed. The tube that fits into the KK means you cannot "slip the smoker off" without undoing the bolts (see picture below). I am now more relaxed about all of this. I load the smoker with just the amount of pellets that I think I need, they burn out and I leave the smoker to cool before unbolting from the KK.

Hi Paul. The Husband has returned from his foraging, sorry business, trip to NYC and he came back with these. Are they the right sort to be using for your tortilla recipe? I think they are, from your description.

Welcome @jruddy. It sounds like you are all set for your KK adventure. It is fun using different cooking methods. What accessories did you order?

@Steve M,the Husband saw a picture of your set up on Dennis' instagram feed and wanted to know more about the Evo and the drawers that you have underneath it. I showed him your series of posts about the build. Serious ODK envy ensued.

I was rehearsing lighting the KK as I sat on the train home on Friday night. Home safely and one hour or so later...heaven.

I love that. Having a connection with someone who lived in your house all/most of his life must have been interesting. I often wonder about the people who lived in our house and what their lives would have been like. Yay! What colour is it and what are the bells and whistles?

Tee hee. I knew there was something I had forgotten. I have not sealed the lid on the smoke pot with paste for a long time. The lid is good and heavy and fits well so I rely on that for sealing. I have to admit that I have not checked for leakage once it has got going so I don't know if I am undermining the effectiveness of the smoke pot significantly by not adding the extra seal. I remember @Syzygies saying that he found applying the seal was good work for hands that might otherwise be idle. Decided my hands would be better occupied with a drink.

Wow. I had never heard of estrattu. Just did a search on the net and found a few interesting descriptions including this thoughtful one : https://honest-food.net/essence-of-tomato-strattu-estratto-conserva/ and another that describes a tomato heavy hitter: https://www.ciaoitalia.com/my_weblog/2010/09/tomato-paste-with-attitude. I am not sure that I will ever have the tomatoes, sun, time and patience required to achieve these results but, just in case, can you share your method @Syzygies?

I hope it works for you Paul. For more information see the attached post and linked posts from @Syzygies. He talks about pre-heating on a Weber in one of the linked posts and I am sure he will chime in if any of the advice that I have given is wrong.

Hi @PVPAUL. I had trouble with the smoking pot initially but I have since used it successfully and consistently at low temperatures. I heat up the empty pot on a gas ring in the kitchen and then put in on the fire in the KK and add in my chips, taking care not to block the exit holes. That has worked every time for me. Now that I have the hot/cold smoker I don't think I will need to use the smoke pot unless I am using chips that don't work well in the smoker.

I have seen the warnings about eating too much cured meat on account of ingesting too much sodium nitrate. I have not paid much attention on the basis that I don't eat all that much cured meat. That is if I don't count all the bacon I make and the Italian charcuterie that I buy. This article is interesting and seems to suggest that if you eat more veg with your bacon you should be fine! https://firsthandfoods.com/2017/12/06/nitrate-free-bacon-myth-or-reality/

Lovely looking rib Mac. And you know I've got to ask - grapes? Were they for afters or did you eat them with the beef?

Thanks @DennisLinkletter. Nice looking bacon! Lots for me to follow up on. It took about three hours for the internal temperature on the hot smoked joint to creep up from about 59C to 65C in the KK. I did not monitor the temp after the resting period. Will do so next time given I like this slow cooking method and @Basher asked me a similar question about my lump of funky cow. It will be interesting to know what margin to allow in future. Yes, you are right, the hot smoked bacon can be eaten without further cooking. I like that effect because I can have yummy bacon goodness with my lunch at work with just a little light heating up in the office microwave. Your post prompted me to check what the difference is between ham and bacon. The answers were interesting. The term ham is usually reserved for the leg of pork and it can be raw cured, cooked and/or smoked. Bacon is for other cuts of pork and can range from wobbly cold smoked to rather less wobbly hot smoked. Happily that means I don't have to change the name of my post to HAM. Much less fun than BACON!!!!

I learned a lot from this experiment. 1. I am trying to figure out what types of wood smoke I like. I prefer the apple to pecan on bacon. So does The Husband so that's a win. 2. I had never had hot smoked bacon before. I like it. In fact I prefer it for this cut. Some of the fat gets rendered through the hot smoking process, making the resulting bacon more appetising. 3. The slice of hot smoked bacon did not need to be held down with a weight during cooking to prevent it curling, unlike the cold smoked piece. More recently I have been cutting the collar bacon into half inch slices and freezing them individually. They make for a really quick week night supper with potatoes or baked beans or salad. The two collars made a lot of bacon! The cold smoked The hot smoked And for @Alphonse, the side by side comparison once cooked. The cold smoked is on the right. I went for the hot smoked for today's dinner with bratkartoffeln and pickled cucumber.

That looks like a tasty combination. Happy Birthday for yesterday.

Good pun on the meat hook theme Bruce. I thought it was funny how the meat hooks were so much more exciting than the meat! Your comment made me think Tony. I decided we would cut half of the once smoked cold smoked piece into slices and then do the second smoke on the remaining half. I also decided to try cooking and tasting one of those slices. I decided that there was quite enough smoke absorbed already and so abandoned the idea of a second cold smoke. Patience is a virtue. The samples are undergoing intensive testing as we speak. Er no, I did not know it was his birthday. Would have celebrated by barbecuing a GOAT. In fact, if Philly win this year I promise to get myself a KK that comes with a GOAT.

Thanks for the tips on schnitzel. I love the plate sized versions with potato salad on the side. And love having someone else make it for me. Good excuse to go to Germany again soon. if you ever make it over to Berlin do stop by my favourite bistro of all time - Lutter und Wegner in Charlottenstraße. All this talk of German food has reminded me of one of my favourites. Bratkartoffeln. No recipe. Just cook cubes of potato slowly in fat for about 45minutes until they are sort of crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Divine. Mmmmm. I will be making that tonight.

@MacKenzie and @Tyrus are right. We did cut our rod and I am not totally sure that it shouldn't be a little longer but too late to change that. I recently asked Dennis for some extra rods because I have bought a new motor. Might try the grinding method this time around. This is not the right route to contact @DennisLinkletter, I know, but just in case he is reading this: it would be good to ship accessories like the rotisserrie and the smoker with a photo of the assembled product and/or the steps in between. They are awesome pieces of kit but I spent ages fearing and not using them until I finally got around to finding the relevant information on the forum. Much better to be able to get on and use them quickly out of the box using instructions from the maker.