tekobo

The party was just great. The weather was fantastic and we were sat outdoors until almost midnight. Quick run down. Banderillas - one set topped with anchovies and other with cubes of prosciutto. Amazing pockets of flavour to go with welcome drinks. Lardo on thin slices of French bread and topped with sweet anchovies. Not really anchovies, a nice sweet Swedish cured fish that I don't know the name of. Super delicious. We had a big pile of seafood skewers. I just put them by the side of the konro and folk turned up to grill their own. Everyone enjoyed that and it took the pressure off me. Deconstructed potato salad. Looks much nicer in the making than when mixed up. Other sides were available but I didn't get around to taking photos The beef. Took about 7 hours to get to temp. Here is the KK shot. I browned it in the other KK. Made big fire with the dripping fat. Won't do it that way again. Beef in the kitchen And starting to slice. A Every bit of beef got eaten up, bar two slices and some people had room for dessert!

Wow that looks just great. You lucky man. I can see you putting off that move to Florida.

So, I am feeling more confident about things. I have a running order and a plan for the beef. In love with Spanish restaurant Sabor and am indexing their cookbook for Eat Your Books. All the sides for this meal come from that book. So, here goes: The Husband in charge of drinks. He has proposed Aperol Spritz. And mojitos for people like me who don't like bitter. To go with drinks we will have banderilas - basically short sticks with stuff on them to eat in one mouthful with your drink. Olives, peppers, ham, stuff like that. Will also be trying an on bread tapa with lardo and salted anchovies. Will trial run tonight to see how that tastes. Sides for BBQ will be a roast/grilled cauliflower dish with dried spanish chillies and nice Marcona almonds, a tomato, avocado and fennel salad and a green salad. Green salad will have my non-Spanish favourite dressing of the moment - black garlic vinny courtesy of the Le Pigeon recipe book. Will have skewers with monkfish, prawn and tuna and a bit of courgette on. Planning to let guests grill them themselves on the konro. Hoping that works out OK. Now for the beef. I weighed it on bathroom scales this morning. It comes to 8.5kg. Not massive and includes bone. Going to try something in the KK that I have done in the IDK before but never outdoors. Will sear the raw meat in the 21 and then move it to the 23 to cook at 60C. Holding the KK at 60C may be a fantasy but that is the level at which it is supposed to cook for about 6 hours to reach internal temp of about 50-55C. Then it needs an hour to rest. I think I will smoke for the first hour or so but not longer because I don't want to over power the meat. What do you think? Any additional advice before I embark on this mad task tomorrow will be gratefully received. And I am sure I will panic about quantity of food and add something in when The Husband isn't looking. Maybe sliced smoked goose breast will make a nice tapa.

Mac. Welcome to the dark side. Great eh? @Tyrus, just loving your old school tech.

Nice looking spread @Tyrus. Looking forward to seeing pictures of their operation when you return.

Thanks @Basher. I'm slowly getting more comfortable with the idea of the cook. I agree, I will have to go up to 50-55C to meet general taste. The weight will be important. I am not certain that I have enough meat for a good feed for all so I may have to do more than my current plans for tapas and seafood skewers. Searing in the KK will be interesting because that will be a big hunk of meat to manoeuvre. Will practice on Friday when I have it out of the freezer.

Sabotage! Some people actually LIKE seafood, Mac.

I am not at home at the moment but I have stolen the below shot from @Adventureman82's post to illustrate my "problem". To fit my cold smoker I took out the bolt in the middle and slotted the tube in. The only problem is that the smoker was not very stable that way. So... I took out the two little bolts using the supplied Allen key and screwed the bracket that comes with the smoker onto the KK with these two bolts. Super stable but a pain to remove when you want to dismantle the smoker. I will take photos when I get home. I may be over complicating this so any help/observations gratefully received.

So, the time has come to cook the lump of rump. I have not seen it since I put it in the freezer in December. I am worried about this cook. Instead of the select group of 10 that I anticipated when I wrote the post above, we are having a BBQ for 24 for a good friend's birthday. No pressure. I will get the lump out late tomorrow to defrost and will weigh it then. Not sure how to tackle it. I have a low temp recipe for beef from Heston Blumenthal that sees you with rare beef through out the joint rather than a grey to reddish gradation. Could sear on outside with a torch to keep the edge to edge rare effect. Timing also critical as this is not one that you would pull and wrap for long. Aaaargh. Will be brave. Won't over feed guests before hand. Spanish theme with some limited tapas to go with drinks to start. Going to let guests cook seafood kebabs on the konro for themselves. Then the beef. And breathe. Any tips gratefully received.

Thanks @MacKenzie. I am wondering if I need to drill a round hole at the bottom of each of the two vertical slots in the bracket to make it easy to slip the smoker off when done i.e. without needing to fully remove the bolts. Will see if others with similar configuration come up with a magic solution. If not, holes will be drilled.

That looks like one fun hobby. Happily, I am not planning to move anywhere dark anytime soon so no KK shopping channel effect here.

Those wings look yummy Mac. My favourite too!

Thanks @tony b. No. 4 is particularly helpful. I don't have a decent pair of gloves - the ones I have get warm too quick - will look out for some better ones. What I wasn't sure of was whether there is a secret, quick way of detaching the smoker from the KK. Do I need to undo the bolts and take them right out of the KK in order to get the smoker off?

That sounds like fun. Fingers crossed that it all works out!

Good to hear that your new life is starting to become a reality @Pequod. I looked at your list and suspect I would have found the teak side tables and extra charcoal basket useful if I was anywhere nearby AND you were willing to split the lot. Wouldn't make sense to split it, I know. What I then wondered was whether there was anything on that list that you never used and would not bother to buy if you were starting over. Speaking of starting over, the $4,500 would be a really good seed fund for a goat enabled KK.

First, a big thank you to @ckreef for initiating this post. The pictures at the start of the post made it very easy for me to assemble my new hot/cold smoker this afternoon. It didn't take long to set up and the 250V air pump that Dennis' team sent with the smoker worked just fine in the UK with an adaptor on the plug. My 1lb bag of pellets was the right size - didn't quite fill the smoker to the top. I lit the pellets from the side using my MAPP torch and they stayed lit for the whole of my two hour cook. Things to note/ask: 1. Too much smoke? I was surprised by how much smoke got pumped out, right from the get go. I turned the pump right down. The goose breasts that I smoked are cooling. Will see if they ended up with the right level of smoke. 2. Too little smoke? When I closed the top vent down to a 1/16th turn to keep the temperature down, I noticed that the smoke from the smoker more or less stopped. Maybe I should have turned the pump up at that point - will experiment next time. 3. Don't need the pump? I took the pump off and found that the smoker continued to smoke when I opened up the KK vents for my next, higher temp cook. Guess the KK vacuum pulled the smoke through? 4. Hot hands? How do you get the smoker off when you are done? Do you have to undo the Allen key bolts? 5. Off switch? How do you turn the smoker off? I think I saw a post in which @MacKenzie but hers in a KK to cut off air supply. I wanted to do the same but see 4 above. Instead I just left the smoker attached to the KK with the vents on the latter closed. Seemed to work. Happy to have my smoker and looking forward to smoking all sorts of food with it.

Two reasons I didn't try the beer. I don't have a beard and I don't like beer. I am a cider girl.

I was in a new town the other week, perusing the cider/beer shelves for a drink and came across a brand of beer called Beardo and thought of you: https://www.robinsonsbrewery.com/store/beardo/c-24/p-2674 "Beardo Cultivating the finest facial furniture is a complex task. The discerning beard wearer deserves a tipple of hoppy intensity to complement their efforts. Cut through the fuzz with hits of a fruity citrus zing. An IPA for serious Beardos."

See? No eyes.

I have avoided rising to the bait. Until now. Fly Eagles Fly.

Yum!

Let that be a lesson to you Mac. Don't go buying food that you don't like!!! It just ends up sitting in your freezer for ever. Although, I would love to cook you a seafood feast to see if I could convince you to like a wider variety of underwater food. No eyes, I promise.

Welcome to the blue pebble family. That's the big sister and mother to my two, rolled into one!

Very beautiful indeed. Congratulations.

Where is your sense of adventure @Tyrusand @Steve M? Ignore all the helpful online advice in English, rig up your phone with Google translate, point your camera at the foreign text and prepare to be entertained. The instructions are much more fun when translated, badly, from foreign into English.