tekobo

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.

So far, so fun. More cold smoking tomorrow.

Hi @Jman. Slightly hit and miss but the attached thread documents mine (and other's) journey with setting up their rotisseries. Quick answer to your questions: Q: But I’m having issues attaching the motor and attachment seems too long OR this motors socket isn’t deep enough. A: Motors vary so Dennis sends out a standard length that has to be cut to suit your motor Q: Also - there’s a stainless steel pointy bit - im mot sure when u use that and unscrew the other.... A: That's for screwing on, temporarily, if you need to push the rod through your meat. You take it off again before fitting the rod in your KK. Q: Assuming it’s the motor - any tips for one which will work with 240 volts in Australia would be great A: You will likely need to cut the rod to fit any motor. If you are looking for another motor I have used this Only Fire motor in the UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072HPVRTB/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_qftrDbEV6CN26 Have fun!

Hi there @ThreeDJ16. I bought this book: The Cooking of Germany https://www.amazon.com/Recipes-Cooking-Germany-Foods-World/dp/B0007EUSI8/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=cooking+of+germany&qid=1564814495&s=gateway&sr=8-4, when I was looking for a recipe for smoked goose breast. I have not cooked anything else from the book but you may well find your old favourites there. The index of its contents can be found at eatyourbooks.com if you want to check out what recipes it contains. My favourite German/Austrian dish is good old wiener schnitzel. I've never tried to make it at home, don't want to spoil the memory of the perfect versions eaten in Berlin!

Now that I have Dennis' hot/cold smoker, I decided to try smoking my own bacon. In the UK I have only ever eaten cold smoked bacon. On this site you folks tend to hot smoke your bacon. Time for a side by side test. First deviation from norm. My favourite bacon is collar bacon. It comes from the shoulder and I think it is what Americans call pork butt. Here are my two collar joints, at about 3.5kg each, after curing for 8 days in Surfys traditional curing mix. I used up the last of my curing mix and so bought these two for future bacon loveliness I searched online for guidance on cold smoking. It ranged from hysterical - you will die from botulism - to complicated and fun. I went for complicated and fun. There is no fixed end time so I smoked for six hours with pecan and then wrapped in greaseproof paper. Advice is that you rest in fridge for a few days and then smoke again for a similar time for best effect. Here is the bacon cold smoking. I took out the fire basket and hung the meat off the half grate in the 23 using meat hooks. Wrapped up for its rest Today I started with the hot smoking on the other collar. I turned it upside down and around to the other side half way through the day. Let's hear it for the KK. I went out to run errands for a couple of hours and it stayed rock solid at 100C. In fact it stayed rock solid through the day. The smoke generation stopped because I had underestimated the amount of pellets required. That was easily fixed. I topped up with additional pellets and blasted with MAPP torch. I am smoking this cut with apple. After 11 hours the hot smoked bacon is ahead in the looks department. I pulled it at 65C. Cooling To be continued.

I thought I might have misremembered the brand and so went looking online. Here is a review from someone who bought some on Amazon. More eloquent than my holes in skull description but same effect: "This ginger beer may not be to everyone's taste, but for those who like theirs spicy and not fruity, this is the only one. If you inhale through your nose right after pouring the ginger will sizzle your sinuses. For me, this is the only ginger beer I ever get, and it's kind of hard to find. It makes a *perfect* dark and stormy when mixed with Gosling's or Kraken rum and a squeeze of lime. Without the rum to cut it, it can be a bit biting. Yes, that's right, it's better when you cut it with booze. That's how snappy it is." Indeed

Wow. Thank so much for sharing @PVPAUL. I am definitely going to try this out. I have a good cast iron pan that I bought in India for making their rotis and parathas. I think it will be perfect for this. The Husband is off to NYC in a week and I know for a fact that the market near his hotel sells Goya products so he will be detailed to find the flour. Have you ever had the Goya ginger beer? Blows my nostrils off and makes holes in my skull but I always try it when I find it.

Hi there @Basher. I have never done lambs fry but a quick look at my recipe books came up with a "paprikish of hearts, livers and tongues" from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (some versions available online) and a more KK friendly Morrocan liver and heart brochettes. Keen to see how you get on.

Lovely looking cooks, one and all. Happily I had a good breakfast before I ventured onto the forum this morning so not in my usual desperate post viewing state! I'm intrigued by those blue things too Tony. Can't really see the point and I don't have enough of them. I bought them really cheaply in a US catering store and may well not use them again. They were part of the search for the square ends that @ckreef has on his metal kebab sticks. Being able to turn a kebab a quarter turn a time would be awesome but the brand that he has appears to be out of production. Yes, I like those flat skewers that were on your link. I get them from our local Chinese store and they are really good. Used up my last batch at recent party, must get some more.

That looks seriously hot Pequod. How are you doing with lighting the binchotan these days? Any tips to pass on?

Must be konro season! I made beef skirt and chicken wing suya for my visiting Dad and Aunt last week. No pics of the board sauce but I capitalised on @Pequod's innovation and chopped up the tomato and red onion with some shredded basil in place of the large chunks of tomato and red onion that normally accompany your newspaper wrapped suya in Lagos. They both enjoyed it very much and didn't criticise me for being a deviant. Result.

Hi Paul. Your travels sound like fun. We are rediscovering the UK as a holiday destination and are finding that there are many beautiful places to be explored, right on our door step. Do get in touch when you are next headed over to England or Wales and I would be happy to supply any tips that I have and even meet up with a fellow KK'er if the timing is right. Texan friend brought back some soft corn tortillas on Friday. We have been eating tacos ever since. I am interested in your family recipe tortillas. Are they different or better than store bought and do you have to have to have learned the technique over years to get them coming out right?

So good! I would order from your pizza hut any day @ckreef.

Those steaks look gorgeous, cooked pretty much how I'd like them. Ref your pizza challenges - any more details? I am sure the pizza afficionados on the forum would be happy to help if they knew which of the 100 wrong turns you might have taken. Trust me, I have tried at least 25% of those wrong turns!

What a shame Tony. At 2 ft you might be in range to try a trick that I use to beat blight. You give up on expecting a long season and instead cut the leading shoot off, two leaf axils above the first set of flowers you get. That means you get just one bunch of tomatoes per plant but they are forced to form early and quickly because you have stopped the plant putting energy into leaves. Helps if you have a short season too. There is another trick that I have not tried: making new plants from the little shoots that you pinch out between the leaf axils. Should accelerate new plant production if you want another round of plants before the season's end. Might try it myself.

Thanks for the tip @PVPAUL. I used the Vindulge recipe. They are super yummy and I have had left over burnt ends for breakfast a couple of times to counter pangs from looking at photos on this forum. Why were there any left over? I didn't tell anyone about them when I first made them, that's why.

Reminder of/intro to this sauce for those who may have missed this post. I made a batch at the weekend and followed @Pequod's instructions for smoking and tweaked @ckreef's recipe with some English mustard and half and half sriracha and ground smoked chillis. Two hours of smoke using some strongly flavoured pellets (the lumberjack competition mix) may have been a little long but you do get a distinct smoky flavour. Super sauce for BBQ meats, including brisket and it goes well on ribs too. A friend is taking a jar to the surprise BBQ that her son is having for his wife this weekend. She said she is excited about trying the sauce and watching other people's reactions to it. I have promised her a second jar if she likes it. Bonus was using the left over blueberries to make blueberry syrup for this cocktail from the New York Times. I offer you Delft Blue.

Looking awesome @MacKenzie. Jealous of your haul @Syzygies, my toms are still green and vulnerable to blight. A few more weeks....

I agree, this grill is gorgeous in your setting. You are missing out on the best bit. Get cooking!

Lovely looking meals all. And yes Mac, you have made me overeat at breakfast. Again.

Two things to stop Mac. First stop posting mouth watering photos of food that interfere with my breakfast. Second, stop hoarding food. Next time you find a fish or sausage at the bottom of your freezer from more than two years ago, you have my permission to chuck it. I want you stay alive and I don't really mind if you ignore my first rule.