mguerra

A 30 second endeavor: click on Amazon, click on Grill Floss, click on "Buy Now". Having said that, I am the worlds biggest fan of "a project". This one has an angle on it, and you can fashion it to the purpose...https://www.amazon.com/Lisle-10900-Brake-Bleeder-Wrench/dp/B000CO87ZE/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=3%2F8%2Bbrake%2Bwrench%2Bangled&qid=1588276719&sr=8-1&th=1

I guess I'm a little late hearing about this. If you need to rebuild or make a probe for your Stoker, here is the link: https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1180672/make-or-repair-your-stoker-pit-probes#latest

The 8.3 pound bag of HEB Grand Champion Briquettes for about $4 is available for delivery, at the HEB website. The big 18 pound bag is curbside pick up or in store only. So if someone was curious about it, you could order it. https://www.heb.com/product-detail/h-e-b-grand-champion-charcoal-briquets/1480554

Royal Oak also offers briquettes made from their American 100% hardwood lump charcoal, different from their "regular" briquettes. Those are nationally available.

Those Walden starters burn a LONG time, I have used them myself. But I cut them in half for the KK because they actually burn too long. What they shine at is starting a fire pit, fireplace or bonfire.

I have used the MAPP torch, the Looftlighter, the electric loop thing, the various Rutland type cubes and wafers, a charcoal chimney with paper(huge mess, don't bother) and finally landed on the fastest, easiest, cheapest method. Weber cubes. For a low and slow just put one on the top of your charcoal pile and light it. For a hot fire, put one on top of your charcoal pile, light it, and put a chimney of charcoal over top of it. There's nothing faster, cheaper nor easier. Tumble Weed and its knockoffs work about the same but Weber cubes are far cheaper. $20 for 32 starters with Tumbleweed, $5 per 24 for Weber. After the fire is going a cheap blow dryer can get it raging, if you want.

Mrs. Guerra draping that noodle tender brisket over her finger and then doing the tug test on the HEB briquette brisket: https://youtu.be/ms8WsEIYfZI

I gotta tell you, I got extreme kudos on the briquette brisket. It was not the regular blue bag Kingsford, however. It was HEB Grand Champion Hardwood Briquettes. HEB is a HUGE Texas grocery chain. The label indicates "made from 100% natural hardwood lump charcoal" Well, I'm going to buy that characterization based on the performance. In fact, the notion of perfectly homogenous shaped and sized lump charcoal has a real appeal. You know we have talked before about dumping out our bags of lump and sorting it by size. Pain in the ass that. Having a full basket of all identically sized pieces of charcoal is very satisfying. Lump somehow finagled in to briquettes form? I like that. I mean we use extruded coconut in those weirdo hexagonal tubes, so why not fashion lump in to reproducibly sized briquettes? My go to since day one with my KK has been Royal Oak Lump, supplemented with some smoking wood chunks when the notion strikes me. However, I will be trying this HEB briquette product again. I'll upload a 13 second video of the finished product tug test ASAP. BTW, I always separate the point from the flat and remove ALL the fat before slicing. You'll get high praise for that presentation, sliced and plattered up that way. I reserve the point out in the kitchen, and once everyone is seated, I slice it up, keep some for myself, and then walk around the table serving up a little to each persons plate, explaining "This is the best part, the Brisket Reserve". They don't know there is a flat and a point, or what the difference is, all they know is this "Brisket Reserve" is the bomb!!! And they will let you know.

The concept is that the bottom vent is not as critical as the top vent. The top vent is the true rate limiting step to the combustion reaction. If you close the top vent and leave the bottom vent wide open, the fire might smolder a little. Very little air will flow both in and out the open bottom vent. But if you open the bottom vent full wide open and just barely crack the top vent, the fire temp won't run away. The air FLOW is the thing. And it flows in the bottom and out the top. Think of the top vent as a faucet, and the water flowing out as air. The more you open the faucet, the more water(air) flows out. And the air flow is actually the oxygen flow, that supports combustion.

I roasted some lamb chops today for my mom. Her 90th bday is tomorrow it’s a 3 hour drive so I cooked them ahead. Using indirect heat at 250, rubbed with salt and pepper. I put them on the fire after finishing a brisket. The lamb is for Mom but the rest of us will eat the brisket. They came as a 4 rib roast but I cut them in to 4 chops to get more smoke on them. Penny and I sampled one, it was luscious! Lamb on the KK is one of our favorites. Oddly, I used HEB Hardwood briquettes instead of lump, for both the brisket and the lamb. With a few big chunks of coffee wood. Yeah, I still have some of that left.

Hey Tony. I’m not too creative with my KK, just smoking briskets and pork butts over and over. So I don’t always have something unique to post. Maybe I’ll frequent the forum a little more.

REK is the bane of my life on the Fourth... Sort of. You see, I am the pyrotechnician who sets up and shoots the Kerrville fireworks. Well, it’s a big park and not everyone is down at the end where REK plays his concert. When it gets dark, everyone down at the opposite end, where I set up the fireworks, starts screaming and hollering, “Come on man, get it going, let’s light it up!” And the drunker they are the more”colorful” and obnoxious they get yelling at me. Because: we don’t shoot the show when it gets dark. We shoot it after REK finishes his last encore. Well the newspaper publishes a defined shoot time, not “when REK gets done” He’s an entertainer, what do those guys crave? Adulation, praise, love, and another encore. And that encore never ends exactly at the published shoot time. He’s got this signature song, his finale, The Road Goes On Forever is I think the name of it. Or at least those lyrics are in it. When I hear that, I know it will be go time shortly. I’m told the guy does the show gratis, so he gets props for that. Or he takes the money and donates to a worthy cause. Something. I don’t know. But apparently he’s a stand up guy. You can’t believe the nerves and butterflies in that last minute before you push the first button. One year my hands were shaking. You have spent all day in the scorching heat wiring up explosives, hoping you did not make one mistake. All the batteries have to be hot, the transmitter has to be synced on the right channel to all the firing modules, all the modules have to have good signal strength, and a whole lot more things have be perfect. By this time we have triple checked everything in the field, and the electronics, it’s stress city, you want it all to go off perfect, and more to the point, safely! When I push that button and the first product goes up, the relief is indescribable! Anyone who wants to come to Kerrville on the Fourth, come ahead on!!

Today I smoked a brisket, Franklin style, on briquettes instead of lump. It came out excellent. That is all.

First, only light a very small amount of charcoal to start with. One golf ball sized bit ,as you describe, should work. Next, check for an air leak. If you have a Guru or a Stoker and your 32" has a port for same, fire up the fan and check for smoke leaks. Close the bottom vent and be sure it is pushed all the way home. Crack the top vent enough to let a little smoke out. Now that the fan is running and the KK is pressurized there should only be smoke coming out the top vent. Check the lid/body junction all the way around, and any other doors, ports or fenestrations that a 32" may have. If you don't have a Guru or Stoker you might finagle a blow dryer to blow in the port, assuming you have a port. Any smoke leaks should be evident; if you find one contact Dennis for a solution. I have had air leaks cause the temp to creep ever upward to 350º exactly as you describe. And you wind up burning all your fuel as well. If you find a leak and fix it, problem solved.

Fat Daddios pots from amazon are perfect for pot in pot and they have one that is 7" x5" tall as opposed to all the other stackable ones which are 4". Let's you cook a little more.

This thing is fantastic. When you do pot in pot cooking, it keeps the inner pot off the heating element. You can place meat, corn on the cob, potatoes and all sorts of stuff on top of it as well. The honeycomb is perfectly sized to do boiled eggs, a superb use of the pressure cooker. If you are unaware of pot in pot cooking, look it up on you tube. You need it for things that don't have a lot of water that otherwise would scorch if they were in contact with the bottom of the pot, which sits right on top of the heating element. Lasagna, for example does great with pot in pot. https://www.amazon.com/OXO-11249500-Pressure-Cooker-Bakeware/dp/B07G418RSL/ref=sxin_3_osp32-db7bb984_cov?ascsubtag=db7bb984-be3c-4ff0-bbfd-ac7df9c95a4a&creativeASIN=B07G418RSL&cv_ct_id=amzn1.osp.db7bb984-be3c-4ff0-bbfd-ac7df9c95a4a&cv_ct_pg=search&cv_ct_wn=osp-search&keywords=pressure+cooker+trivet&linkCode=oas&pd_rd_i=B07G418RSL&pd_rd_r=ddb373d3-560b-4dc7-99f8-5a762d81eba5&pd_rd_w=d2vX5&pd_rd_wg=Z4eDY&pf_rd_p=53eff971-6e12-4016-9864-b6dfd929b2b3&pf_rd_r=YW72FDEANYJMD4TTCJ8Q&qid=1575593707&tag=thesprucepublish-20

After using almost every method, I have settled on the charcoal chimney fired up with a Weber cube. No flying ash, fast, easy, light it and walk away. No buying and schlepping gas tanks or cylinders, no need to stand there holding the torch or weed burner. You can just lay the cube on top of your lump without a chimney to start a small amount of fire for a low and slow. It’s a variation of the Minion method. Or fire up a chimney, filled to any level, for a hotter fire. No need for electricity like those different electric starters. As we have said many times, you will never get a low temp if you start too much charcoal at first. One Weber cube, with or without a chimney, and you have it made, easy peasy, for either a hot or a low fire.

Once the beans or stew are finished, you can leave them in the pot, on the "keep warm" function for as many hours as you like. This holds the temp at 140ºF, and will develop the base liquid. Doing so completely obviates the time saving aspect of the pressure cooker. You can also cook your beans or stew on the slow cooker function, without pressure. However time saving is not the only benefit of using the PC. You can brown and saute in the pot and not in a separate skillet or saucier. The ease of just throwing ingredients in the pot and walking away from it while it cooks without having to fiddle with it is huge. You can put all your bean or stew ingredients in the pot in the morning, fire it up, it will pressure cook for the time you set, then flip over to "keep warm" mode. You come back at 5 or 6 or whatever, to a pot full of awesome goodness! On the other hand you can use the speed of the PC to make beans and stew in less than an hour and eat it. Will it be as good as the all day cook? Maybe not, but it will be pretty darn good! You get something really good to eat in no time. Another thing you can do with perishables is prep all your ingredients ahead of time, put them in the pot and put it in the fridge. Then when you are ready, pop the pot in the PC and fire it up. For non perishables you can put your ingredients in the pot, set the timer for a start time well ahead, and it will fire up at the predetermined time. This is great for steel cut oats for breakfast, put in your ingredients at bedtime and set it to start a few minutes before you get up. Or put your water and pasta or rice in the pot in the morning, set the start time, and come home to a finished pot of same. Converts to this device just rave about it, and I am one of them!

I don't find it noticeably inferior for beans and stews, nor anything else. The pressure cooker has revolutionized our kitchen. And it is superb as you say for potatoes, sweet and otherwise. You will NEVER boil a pot of water for potatoes, rice or pasta again once you learn how to do it on a PC. Imagine throwing your rice and water in the pot, pushing a button and walking away, only to come back to a perfect pot of rice. Without the unitasker of a rice cooker. The applications for it are endless and the time saving is fantastic. Have you ever stood over a pot of steel cut oats for an hour endlessly stirring? Throw the oats and water in the PC, push the button for a 10 minute cook and walk away. Things you normally could not prep on a weeknight after work are easily accomplished with the PC. Now as far as the smoke ring, there is less of it with the PC. In this particular usage, getting turkey done at light speed, I am not concerned with that. Poultry in the PC stays moist and not dried out at a food safe 165ºF. It cooks extremely fast and you can put as much crispness, smoke and color on it as you want when you finish it in the KK. If you want to really smoke it, just cook it to about 140º in the PC and then finish it on fire. The PC is not the only way to cook, it is a fantastic addition to your array of methods. As far as beef, I have used it to precook ribs, roasts, and so on before finishing on the fire. I urge everyone to try it, it won't be the only way you ever cook beef but you WILL find applications for it, especially for time saving. It makes a pot roast in a flash. Doing ribs after work in an hour and a half versus 4-5 hours on weekends only is something! The flavor and tenderness equal or surpass anything you can do on a straight fire. The visual of the smoke ring is irrelevant if you get the flavor and texture you want. I have not tried it on a brisket. You would have to cut the brisket up to fit it in the PC. I will absolutely try it, however. Some days I want the long extended cook, the time outdoors, the adult beverages, a cigar, the company of the coonhounds. Other days I want superb food in a ridiculously easy and fast cook. For stock, broth and soup you can't beat it.I have been so smitten with using the PC I bought another one. With two PC's you have your stove and ovens freed up to cook and warm anything for a big party. Now for those who are unaware, modern electric pressure cookers have a browning and sautéing mode, a slow cooker mode (get rid of your Crock Pot), yogurt making, cheese cake making, cake baking, I really can't cover it all here. If you are curious, search Youtube for any recipe you ever make, but precede it with the term "pressure cooker" For example "pressure cooker chicken marsala" You will discover a new cooking life you never imagined. There is a learning curve but even your early learning missteps won't be disasters. There is an enormous wealth of tutorials on youtube, the web, and books. I honestly feel like I wasted a big part of the last 20 years of my cooking life by not having my pressure cookers.

Lately I’m not cooking full birds, but parts and roasts. These Butterball roasts, heretical as they may seem, are fantastic. Whether in the oven, the KK, or my hybrid pressure cooker/ KK method, I urge you to try one. Six minutes per pound in the pressure cooker for thawed product will get you in the ball park. You can pressue cook them frozen as well. We will cook one, cube it, and make anything like tetrazzini, chili, turkey salad, whatever your creative mind can come up with. Or slice for sammies or the plate. Check it out: https://youtu.be/uTST8Zgo49U

I think Walkerswood is one that Raichlen suggested.

Mid winter we are playing golf in shorts and short sleeves...

I could not find the ones mentioned by Raichlen so I used Adams Reserve Jamaican Jerk.

Look at Cameron's Stove Top Smoker. It smokes remarkably well, is cheap, easy (just take it out of the box!) requiring no DIY rigging. A neighbor introduced me to it and I was stunned that the food he served me was smoked in the house, not outside. It does NOT fill the house with smoke. You can rig one from scratch if you like : but it's easier to just buy one:

Try this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvfuAcjLGws&t=7s