mguerra

Little 4 pounders cook faster than a big picnic. If you figure about two hours/ lb. for a big one, twelve hours should be more than enough for the little ones. Make sure there is a little space between them; that they don't touch. If they are not done at the 10 hour point, kick the temp up to 300 plus. Butts are super forgiving. And they will probably be done by 10 hours anyway. A finish temp anywhere between 185 to 200 will be fine. You are going to look like a star at the party, I guarantee! Nothing makes you look like a BBQ master more than a pork butt on a KK, the guests are going to be gushing all over you. And please give us the feedback of how it went!!!

makes me sick Dittos Firemonkey. Kill it and grill it is God's plan. Kill it for sport, for show, that's a sin.

rainproofing And here is a re-post of a little trick for the rain: Stoker Raingear Photos should be self explanatory. Unfortunately the Stoker isn't rainproof, but here is the 84 cent Wal-Mart solution. And I'm using it tonight because thank God in heaven it's raining in Kerrville!!!! We are in the the worst drought in 50 years. We've had about 6 inches of rain in the past 2 years. http://gallery.me.com/mpguerra#100119 _________________ Michael Guerra,M.D. Kerrville, Texas

try this Smokey, check out the hot fast brisket trick in the "Techniques" section! It is actually much easier and more tender than a low and slow. And a beautiful set-up you have there!!!

revolting The cruelty and inhumanity of bullfighting is just disgusting. I have no empathy at all for the matador, but as a physician I would treat him. Matador, literally translated is "killer". Note the injuries to the bull, not just the POS matador.

too excited The day my KK arrived, we had to put it in the driveway until I could get help moving it. I tore the crate off, started a fire right then and there and threw a pork butt on it straightaway. I may have the record for fastest first cook after delivery! The thing is, my wife was pissed as hell I spent the money, and I wanted to wow her with an awesome meal the first day. It worked.

long story This buddy of mine is fixated on cooking with gas. Every so often we go over there and he cooks a tenderloin or filets on his Ducane gasser. He thinks he is serving us the finest meal, and it is just awful. I can barely choke down this flavorless ruination of a fine piece of beef. I have been trying to flip him to the KK, and he staunchly resists. The reason is we both think we are the smartest guy on the planet, and he can't admit I might be right. One day I sent a KK pork butt down to his place as a lunch gift. He admitted he liked it, but his wife and nephew really flipped for it! So on Monday he is having a combo Memorial Day party combined with his mother in law's 85th birthday. Lo and behold his wife calls me up and asks me to prepare the meat on the KK. She does not want him cooking on the gasser!!! Oh man, that has to stick in his craw. I am going to cook a Mojo Pork Butt per the Naked Whiz, a hot fast brisket marinated for 12 hours, and whatever else I can think of to make him wish he never cooks on gas again!

fill'er up Fill the basket. Whatever doesn't burn up, use again. It's a royal pain to run out of fuel during a cook. You probably won't notice it at the moment it runs out and will therefore find a partially cooled off cooker and partially cooked meat. Then you have to take out the meat, restart the fire... Having done this, I can tell you, you don't want that. Simple and easy to just fill it up with charcoal every cook.

He was a blessing I knew Art Linkletter, but he never knew me. He touched my life in a positive way, an uplifting way. The world was made a better place by virtue of his life and all your family should be well pleased in that. My condolences.

ideas My preference is to keep everything I'm not using out of sight. As such I would make places for the grills, heat deflector, pizza stone, rib racks and so on surfaced with stainless for easy clean up. Either shelving to store them horizontally, or vertical slots, or both; with doors for concealment. Retaining the external teak structure for beauty and warmth, except the top work surfaces stainless or granite. I think your KK shaped cut-out is perfect, don't lose that. I had such a cabinet designed by a custom stainless cabinet shop, it was $3K and change. I'm still mulling over that purchase. The stainless is perfect for easy clean up and heat resistance, but your teak is more beautiful. My teak tables are filthy from grease and oils, and charcoal spark burns, so I would like to have working surfaces from stainless. Just some ideas.

Meatloaf is super on the KK. You don't really want to make it in the oven after your first taste from the KK.

yet again I did another fast hot brisket this afternoon and it was super as usual. Someone mentioned the thought of doing the second part of the cook, the foiled part, in a pan with foil on top. I tried it and it works great. No worries about losing your juice! Once the brisket hit 165 I put it in a big baking pan and sealed the top with foil. Then cooked til probe tender. I did the first part of the cook at 235 to get a little more smoke and smoke ring on it, rather than the fast hot method of 300 plus. Then after foiling, kicked it up to 310. 5 hours total cook time. The pan makes it easy to carry, too. After pouring off all the juice, you can deglaze the pan with a couple tablespoons of red wine and then pour that back in to the juice. I dribbled some juice on the meat and do another trick as well. Separate the point from the flat and scrape off all the fat. Slice some point and some flat and include a little of both with every bite. Oh baby that's heaven!

KK wins Hmm, that sounds a lot tastier than a San Antonio Riverwalk restaurant steak!!!

carnivorous beauties Well, that peacock started walking up the stairs. We can only speculate about its motivation. My guess is that it was moving toward the humans who it associates with food, not the smell of frying bacon! But it's a pretty funny thing to contemplate big packs of peacocks hunting down their natural prey item, wild feral hogs!!! There is a huge problem from Texas to Florida of wild hogs wreaking havoc on property, fences, feeders, crops and even attacking people. It's up there with the damn fire ant problem. Maybe we should start releasing peacocks all over the south to try to get these hogs under control. Nice photos, BTW.

snap People already do that kind of thing anyway.

redux Here's another topic revisited. Mainly for all our new KK owners who have just come on board. We talked about this at great length last year. The foiled brisket. My point of emphasis is the juice you capture with this method. If you foil properly you'll collect well over a cup of juice, sometimes two or more. When you reheat your brisket leftovers with some of the juice, it's delish! I did a high temp brisket on Sunday and saved all the juice, just had some with todays leftovers for lunch. Takes a really good brisket and pushes it right over the top. For those of you new to the forums, check the "Techniques" section for the high temp brisket sticky. This method gets such excellent, moist, reproducible results that I am doing at least three a month lately. And they are so fast you can do one after work if you get home early enough. Remember a while back we were talking about how a chuck roll is so much easier and better than a brisket? Not so, with this trick. If you haven't tried it yet, grab a brisket this week and give it a whirl!

raw Yep, sushi sounds right to me. Doubt I'll ever order a steak again at a restaurant. Unless they open a KK place like that big Weber restaurant in Chicago!

white, then black Yeah, I did the same, used a homemade deflector for quite a while!

said before We have talked about this before, but the point was re-empahasized to me the other night. We went out to eat at a reputable upscale place in San Antonio. I ordered a filet, medium. As we have repeatedly observed, once you learn to cook well on your KK, restaurant steaks just don't cut it. They are not even close to the quality of what we do with our KK's. With each bite I kept thinking "This is the blandest filet I ever ate!" Your KK totally ruins you for "outside" beef. I marinade my steaks in Worcestershire, soy sauce and garlic for a while before grilling them on mesquite. Morton's, Ruth's Chris, whatever, they don't come close to what we do!!!

chix Chicken seems to take a really long time to cook if you do it indirect. At any temperature. Maybe he did it indirect; Larry did you?

thermometer port You can use the thermometer hole plugs or not, it's a pretty small air leak. I put them in right on top of the thermometer wires when doing a cook. They are super flexible and conforming. Or, sometimes I don't use it. You could just open a free Flickr account to put up photos, that would create a link in your posts to the photos. Or use the "Add image to post" tool below the posting box.

custom stainless These guys will make you a custom stainless cabinet to your exact specs. And it ain't cheap. http://www.lasertrondirect.com/ But way more aesthetically appealing than those cheap plastic outdoor storage boxes.

mistake over a year out! You would think by now I would not make this mistake, but I did. If you want a sub 300 degree cook, don't start too much charcoal. If you have a large amount of lump fired up, even tiny vent openings won't keep the temp down. I started a fire in about three spots and left the lid open to go prep ribs. By the time I got back to put them on, there was a raging fire going. No problem I thought, the KK isn't heat soaked because the lid was open; I'll just crack the vents, put on the cool heat deflector and the cold ribs, shut the cool lid, and get the temp at 250. The temp stabilized about 305 with just tiny slivers of vent openings. I could not get it lower. I really thought that airflow control could keep a lower temp with even a lot of charcoal going, but that is not the case. The ribs were OK, but the point is just start a little lump for a lower temp cook, shut the lid, narrow down the vents and don't let it get away. It will come up slower this way, but not get too hot.

shapes all go down the same Alton Brown did a pizza show the other day and suggested not worrying about making a perfect circle. Just get it kind of roundish. That's how my grandmothers' tortillas came out, sort of round. Pizzas and tortillas don't know if they are round, and neither do your taste buds. Hell, make a trapezoid for me!

value for money Yeah, it's expensive. But once the money is gone from your account and the KK is in your garden, you'll never think twice about it. And it will last your lifetime plus someone else's.