mguerra

P14P3 Now I have the pizza stone from Lodge, I should do some high temp pizzas and maybe clear out some of that tar!! You should go over to Amazon and read some of those reviews on this thing, people think it is the best dang pizza "stone" they have ever used. Can't wait to try it.

La Brea KK The walls are pretty tarry! I should take a little piece of wire and stick it in there as a depth gauge. Yes, there is so much play in the damper threads that the top sits partly on the gasket when just cracked, I have sure noticed that.

Hey T Rex! If the KK has only one use on this planet, it's for pork butts! Just sent two over to a meeting tonight of the Financial Women of Texas. Tonight was my wife's turn to host. They went absolutely ape shit over the pulled pork. Got some more good tar up there in my top vent, too. I don't exactly remember how to get your avatar attached , but one thing I do remember is you have to limit the pixel count. Anybody out there can tell T how to do it?

monster Yes, I remember your reaction to that photo! And I have recently removed that lava rock grease monster from my KK. Now I'm using the stock heat deflector. My guess is that the problem is multifactorial; a barely cracked open top damper, a LOT of low and slow pork butts, the grease monster, a fair bit of mesquite, and almost no really hot fires. I did two pork butts last night and tried to control the temp with a more open top damper and a more closed bottom damper, but that did not work; it couldn't keep the temp down. The top of my KK is even thicker and greasier with tar than the photos from a few days ago!!! Anyway once I install a new gasket and stop using the grease monster lava rock rig, we'll see what happens.

green cleansers I thought I would use a Magic Eraser with a slurry of gasoline, DDT, Freon, and some secondhand smoke to scrub it clean!

explain Surface reducer. What is it?

replace Yes, I'll just do the R and R, start with a nice fresh clean gasket. I'll have to rig a way to keep all the cleaning chemicals from running down the inside of the cooker. From cleaning the top damper surface I have found that a paint scraper removes almost all of the build up. But to secure the new gasket I want the mounting surface spotless clean ceramic. Probably after I remove the gasket, I will scrape first, torch a little, and then finish off with a chemical cleaner like Easy Off or similar. But I need to plug that opening to keep the chemicals out of the cooker.

WSM I would definitely use a WSM, and plenty of folks get great results with it. Even competition wins. But the insulating properties of the ceramic make it so much more versatile and useful. And we can get really long cooks with less fuel. Especially in the cold and the wind. The WSM folks have to cook up all kinds of wind deflectors and insulating blankets that we just don't need. I had a Brinkmann Gourmet Charcoal Smoker, but it was impossible to control the air flow. It has a loose fitting lid (on purpose) and the lid and the cooker are not perfectly round. So it was impossible to fit a gasket to make it air tight. Before I got my KK I tried like hell to mod that thing to get it air tight, and then add a daisy wheel top vent from the WSM. Could not get it to work. In fact, I just gave it to a local humane society resale shop yesterday. But, if someone could get it airtight, it's only about $50.00; so a lot cheaper than a WSM. It has a great charcoal basket, and the bottom vent can be readily adapted for a Guru or Stoker. I just got tired of fooling with it.

fix Unfortunately, there is no way I can burn the grease/ tar out of the top gasket. It's totally embedded and infiltrated in the weave. So I'll replace it after cleaning the top of the cooker thoroughly. Then I'll start cooking with the top a little wider open, clean the heat deflector after each cook, and do a few hotter cooks now and then. That will probably get it.

Weber Smoky Mountain No, not a steelie lover, but I DO read their forums, full of great info and recipes.

? So, for the forum members, how many people don't use the daisy wheel and just pull the whole door open?

ash By opening the entire door, ash can get in the mating surface and prevent the door closing. In order to snuff out the air and shut the fire down, you would need to remove the door completely after each cook, clean the ash out of the door opening, and replace the door. The door will be hot and burning embers could fall out during said maneuver. The daisy wheel requires no such shenanigans.

clarify Are you referencing the daisy wheel bottom damper? I think most of us are specifically referring to the daisy wheel when we mention the "bottom damper". Although sometimes some folks do actually pull the entire door open to one degree or another for a super hot fire. In particular when I said to open the bottom damper a coin width I meant the 3 daisy wheel slots should be about a coin width open.

ideas Once in a while I do a hot cook, but not over about 400 degrees. I do use plenty of mesquite. I use a basket full of lava rocks for a heat deflector and have never cleaned it nor changed the rocks. It is one scary looking hunk of black char! The grease has totally infiltrated all the rocks and solidified into one solid hunk. I just figure it burns off little by little each cook. However this may be part of the problem. Perhaps this massive accumulation of burned and non burned grease is vaporizing each cook and then condensing out on the relatively cool surfaces up top. So I took the lava rock diffuser out and replaced it with the stock heat deflector, which I keep cleaned. That may help. I have a spare top gasket but dread installing it because of having to clean thoroughly the mounting surface. That is going to be a chore! But the combo of keeping a clean heat deflector and opening the top a little wider might help the problem, plus whatever solution Dennis is sending me.

fuel I use Royal Oak lump and dry smoke woods. One time I tried to bang my lid open by beating on the metal tang with a hammer and a 2x4. Don't ever do that! Yes, nobody but me has this problem, I don't know what it is.

Tar I have had a major problem with this. Normally I barely crack open the top damper for a low and slow. Then I use the Guru or the Stoker to"push" the smoke out through this tiny little crack. This has caused a tremendous build up of tar on the gasket and its' corresponding mating surface on the damper. So much so that it is nearly impossible to get the damper open for the next cook because it is glued shut from the tar. I have had to heat the damper top from the inside with a torch for quite some time to get it freed up. To avoid this I have been removing the damper completely at the end of each cook and sealing the top opening with a clay saucer base. After the fire is out, I replace the damper top and don't screw it shut. Dennis came up with a solution for me that I will try when it arrives. But I do think it might be a good idea to try to control the fire temp with a more open top vent and then use the bottom vent or Guru or Stoker for temp control. This might prevent the smoke from squeezing through a tiny, relatively cool top opening and precipitating out the tar. Somehow I seem to be the only one with this problem, so it must be my technique of barely opening the top. So don't do that.

Lodge Pizza Wow, those Amazon folks love it! Just ordered one. And a great price, it's $56.00 at Lodge. Thanks for the heads up on the price.

simple Get a really hot fire going, don't worry about the exact temp. Open the top and bottom dampers wide open. Put the sear grill on the charcoal basket handles. Put a heat deflector on the sear grill. Put the Tri-Tip up on the main grill and cook indirect, with the KK lid closed, with a thermometer until it hits your target temp. Open the lid, remove the Tri-Tip and the main grill. Take off the heat defector and sear the Tri-Tip on the sear grill. You're done. No need to fool with the fire, just get it good and hot and leave it that way.

P14P3 Lodge has this pizza device: https://secure.lodgemfg.com/storefront/ ... oduct=3984 You could use it for lots of other purposes, so it's not a unitasker!

inquiry Out of curiosity, I have an inquiry in to Lodge asking them if they have ever experimented with using cast iron for pizza.

seasoning Good question. Certainly there is no reason to use cast iron other than just out of curiosity. There's plenty of stones available. But if I ever did try it I would just clean and oil the cast iron after use like any other piece of cast iron. So far I have not tried pizza on the KK yet anyway, just thinking out loud.

Fe I wonder if a piece of cast iron would make a decent pizza cooking surface?

1st comparison There's the first WSM comparo right there, on the first cook, moister bark. I thought "What, you aren't a fan of bark?!" Then realized you have been cooking on steel.

temp First realize you don't need the temp as low as you think for a low and slow. But certainly you CAN keep the temp under control. Do a Minion Method fire start. Just start a small amount of charcoal in the center of your charcoal basket and let it slowly spread. For sub 250 temps, the bottom damper opening should be very slight, the thickness of a coin. The top damper should be just cracked enough that some smoke is able to flow. That will ballpark your temps in the low to middle 200's for a low and slow. Believe it or not, any temp below 300 will yield perfect "low and slow" results.

idea After a few months of using your KK, give us a comparo relative to the WSM.