mguerra

Re: Coffee wood too much for Coffee Cardamom Brisket? Coffee wood smoke does not taste like coffee. It is wood, not roasted beans!

Re: Bronze Behemoth Game On! 2 Well fellow  K kers, here I am standing out on the back porch grilling. It's a gray, overcast day, the mist is drifting through the treetops. I have a beautiful 1997 Bordeaux in one hand, and a beautiful coonhound in the other! The cool, damp wind is wafting the aroma of Mesquite through my nostrils. The dreamy sounds of Steve Winwood and Traffic are drifting through the air. As my old friend Russell always says, it's the simple things in life. As Steve Winwood gives way to Chet Atkins, the fillets are about come off the grill. It is a sweet evening in Kerrville Texas!

Re: Smoked Precooked Ham Is that a paella pan?

Re: Beef and Venison jerky Wouldn't count on it. Of course, pickling and salting are methods historically used to preserve foods prior to the advent of refrigeration. I generally adhere to the food safety recommendations. Religously when it comes to poultry and ground meats! All I am saying here is botulism isn't a big concern for us. But other food poisonings are certainly possible. One thing I have said here before has to do with pulling hot sterile meat off the grill with clean implements or gloves and immediately foiling in clean foil. I do violate food safety rules with that. I will let those products come right down to room temp and never worry about any food poisoning. That's my own personal practice which I don't promote to anyone. You can see my previous comments about that here in the forums.

Re: To Soak and Smoke, or Not - That is the Question The beauty of ceramic is you don't need the water pan. Thin metal grills flow far more air to keep temp. So the metal guys need water pans. We don't.

Re: Beef and Venison jerky The nitrites and nitrates are certainly applicable to the bacteria which are a threat. Clostridium is last on the list.

Re: Beef and Venison jerky If anyone can find a documented case of botulism arising from BBQ meat, please post it. Clostridium botulinum is an obligate anaerobic organism that grows in an oxygen poor or oxygen free environment. It is a soil organism so most commonly it's toxic effects are associated with fruits and vegetables stored in an oxygen free environment. Which is basically improperly heat sterilized canned and preserved fruits and veggies. We have a few food poisoning bacteria to concern ourselves with in the BBQ world, but botulism isn't on the list.

Re: Too many Colors to choose from........ There is a glass green color that is just stunning. Great near a pool and or a BGE.

Re: 23" KK On a somewhat tangential note: I usually cook salmon on the main grill, direct. Today I had a brisket and a chuck roast going on the main grill, indirect. And realized I needed to cook a hunk of salmon TODAY. So I put it up high in the dome on the sear grill resting with it's tall handles on the main, above the chuck and brisket. It was the moistest, juiciest, yet fully done salmon we have ever cooked on the KK. I may start cooking it this way all the time.

Re: KK extruded CoConut shell charcoal is Stateside If necessary, you can break the big lump pieces into smaller.

Re: another Brisket I just bought one at a not upscale market, choice grade, for $24.00. About 12 pounds I think.

Re: Rollin....Rollin....Rollin CA to oHIo! Funny, I got asked to do a funeral brisket just today. It's out there smoking right now. And I threw on a chuck roast for us since I had the fire going anyway. The rub on both is simple. Salt, pepper, cardamom, allspice, and some minced garlic. No marinade since it was a last minute deal. Mesquite wood, my usual smoke. I'll do the foil wrap at 165 for both, haven't tried that on a chuck yet. We shall see.

Re: Rollin....Rollin....Rollin CA to oHIo! My wife shit the proverbial brick when I spent on the KK. She raves and brags about it now, and volunteers me to cook for every party, funeral, club meeting etc. Post purchase WAF.

Re: Am I Crazy ? Get the KK. Keep one BGE as your secondary cooker for big parties. You may have a low and slow going in the KK while you need to grill some corn or something like that simultaneously. And sell or give away the other BGE.

Re: To Soak and Smoke, or Not - That is the Question Good thinking. I like the experiment. Why speculate when you can just get an empirical answer! But, in an experimental model we want to change only one variable, if possible. So you have to put both soaked and dry chip trials on the fire either direct or in a foil pouch, not a different way for each. And weigh out an equal amount when they are dry. If I get the energy, I'll try it myself.

Re: Best Pizza Temp Why didn't you make the big one?

Re: Bronze Behemoth Game On! 2 Got a "braai" going. Remember danioro posted about it? I have three links of duck boudin blanc going on a coffee wood smoke. It's from some humane pork and duck raised near Austin, TX. Mouth is watering in anticipation... We are going to eat a little of it straight, and put some in a jambalaya. Maybe get a pic later..

Re: Smoke Daddy We have a port already for the Guru/ Stoker. One would simply need to couple the output diameter of the Smoke Daddy to the input diameter of the Guru/ Stoker port.

Re: New KK in SIgnal MOuntain Tennessee (Chattanooga) Welcome!

Re: Short cooking time, runaway temps. Wha' happened? I have had this happen more than once and it has to do with your fire start and early management. Even at the start, for a low and slow, only open the Guru fan slider to less than 1/4 open. By setting a target fire temp of 235, and with a 3/4 open slider, the fan blew until way more coals got started than necessary. Once all those coals were going, it was over. Set the fire target temp to 190, open the slider to 1/4 or less, and get the top hat off it's seat just enough that some slight smoke escapes when the fan is not blowing. Then go to bed.

Re: Smoke Daddy Exactly so. Soak to give a time lag before actual smoking begins.

Re: Smoked salmon Best fishing trip I EVER had was fishing silvers in Alaska!

Re: Smoke Daddy There is quite a bit of dispute about whether or not there is any value in soaking wood prior to smoking. Check around on the net and see the arguments. We talked about the plateau on shoulders and briskets. Is there a "plateau" for smoke? The wood is only going to smoke after the water has evaporated. So at first heat energy is being absorbed by the water, which then vaporizes, and then the wood, which is now in it's original dry state, reaches combustion temperature, and starts smoking. So what did we gain by soaking the wood? We used energy from our fire to drive the moisture out of our soaked wood to make steam. Energy that would have been used to cook the meat and fire the smoke wood had the moisture not been there from the soaking. If you just want to use up some of your fuel making steam, you might want to soak your wood chips. I throw mine in dry.

Re: tortuga Digiscoping is a much cheaper way of shooting super telephoto shots using a spotting scope instead of an insanely expensive super telephoto camera lens. People get startling, phenomenal photos using a cheap point and shoot camera and a relatively affordable spotting scope. Plus the spotting scope can give you photos equal to a 9,000 mm lens!!! The biggest lens most photographers would have would be an 800. And they can cost $ 8,000 to $14,000. A spotting scope can be had for $1,000 to $2,000. I wondered if anyone here has tried Digiscoping.

Re: tortuga Beautiful background color! Anybody here a digiscoper? I shot a Lewis Woodpecker the other day with my 400mm lens and I discovered it was nowhere near long enough for birding! A Canon 800mm is $14,000. Ouch. So I thought I might try digiscoping. If anyone here has some tips or pitfalls to avoid, please advise. BTW, the Lewis Woodpecker does not belong around here! This guy is causing a frenzy amongst the local birders. And he's been hanging around for quite a while. I'm not a birder, but might be sliding that way. I drove an hour just to get some pics of this little bugger.