johnnymnemonic

Some more pics from the weekend.

Nice! I got the same grill. Loving it. Bout to post some pics of my cooks as well. I still can't believe it.

Thanks so much! I am not feeling too much pressure. I am counting on my experience with other Kamados and all my watching and reading on Kks to make this good, but also I have a couple of my oldest friends here who I am not trying to “impress”. I have a feeling it is going to be really good but regardless, a lot of fun. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Coming right along. I have friends coming over to get it off the pallet and I have all the wrapping removed now and everything removed from the inside of the grill so it is as light as possible. Man these things truly are amazing. It is difficult to put into words. So the picture I attached with the "foot" of the grill --- I am assuming I just remove the front piece of wood there and then I bump this thing down off the blocks. I don't see how else to do it. Anyway - it's coming down the ramp tomorrow! Sorry I couldn't provide more - I have kids running around and my wife is gone for the weekend. Ah yes - food. I am planning to fill up this firebox for low and slow and just keep the grill going at low and slow temps all weekend. Friday night: 3 racks of baby back ribs. Saturday - 2 briskets. Also saturday - got a friend coming over who was interested in smoking a whole chub of bologna so we are doing that for saturday lunch. The briskets shouldn't mind a little company.

will do!

Yep I bet it was great. I think it's really cool that you retro-lectrically fitted your KK. And I agree with your temps. 180, 200, 225 - 180 might be a bit low for huge pieces of meat but - you would probably still be close enough with most things to get 40 to 140 in 4 hrs or close enough not to be seriously risky.

You don't want to cook meat too slow in air. The rule of thumb is 40 to 140 in 4 hours. When you are using Sous-vide, it is possible to just use a ziploc and get your meat underwater in the bag - like for a steak or something that is only a couple of hours, sometimes I do this. but - it is not recommended to do long cooks without a vacuum seal. The vacuum seal helps with not allowing too much bacteria to grow. Over the course of several hours you basically pasteurize the meat. I would not cook with any apparatus that makes meat cook in air significantly slower than 40 to 140 in 4 hours. On the smoke problem -- This is just a hunch @jeffshoaf- I just got my KK today - haven't even uncrated it but - hearing your comments about smoke - I'm going to go with the cooking method I know best with other kamados (I'm a green egger) - and my first low and slow cook will have wood directly added to the firebox. No foil pouches. No smoke pot. If it ends up being "bad" smoke and I don't like the way my food tastes, then I will go to doing foil pouches or smoke pots, but I'm starting with the method that I know generates lots of smoke and then backing off from there.

It's raining here so I had to cover it. But it is going to be a nice weekend and the rain stops at 1pm. More to come.

@PoochieMine got off the ship over 3 weeks ago. I bet the 32 you have could be the one I originally ordered. Is it matte black pebble? If not, it's someone else's cancellation not mine. Anyway, my story is, I ended up getting a 42" in matte black pebble that someone decided not to get in the shipment ahead of mine, so Dennis was able to sell mine to someone else - maybe you! Anyway - you're on the boat I was originally supposed to be on. The stuff I posted above was from the ground freight people and the unloading terminal referenced is in Atlanta. It was stuck waiting to be unloaded from Friday until today - and I just got the call. My delivery date is tomorrow! I will be un-crating the serious bad boy on Friday! I will send many pics over the weekend and/or monday - I have friends coming over to celebrate over the weekend so I may not start posting until then. I was going to maybe have a google meet or something, but since the Braves won the world series, the city has canceled schools for the parade so I'm stuck with my children at home all day. I probably won't take the time to set all that up for the un-crating with them under-foot but I will take pictures.

it's not just the ports. The ATL unloading terminal is overwhelmed as well. KK been sitting waiting for unload at terminal since friday. I pulled this status report this morning. It's still saying terminal arrival 11/1 and delivery date wednesday, but there's no way. Anyway I hope it can get here by Friday the 5th. If not, got to change some plans. Lord only knows when my original order would have gotten to me. Original order was a 32. I got a 42 in an earlier shipment that had been cancelled. At least this way I'll have it by Christmas.

ditto @Poochie. I also thought about you today. A particularly terrible joke came to mind. "If you cook Bananas Foster on your KK, does it become Bananas Linkletter?"

Delivery estimate is 11/2. I'm going to see if I can get it Friday November 5 when I have a day off and I have some people around to help me get the thing uncrated. I will take lots of pictures and share here. If the crew I am hanging with is up for it, I can set up a google meet and let forum people join. Not to steal @tekobo's thunder. Your grill arrival was incredible, Tekobo. Anyway - I will advise next week when it's getting close.

I've decided not to get a controller for my SBB42 when it gets here based on things like this. I want to see how the grill behaves without one, first, and become an expert on my vent settings.

This

sounds like you did it right. write down what you do each time and that will help you remember what made your best one the best one and just keep cooking.

I agree with this. If you observe the way that fat renders out of a piece of meat then you'll also observe that most of the fat from the cap has to basically roll right off and into your drip pan. Whether it is on the top or the bottom makes little difference. Thinking about it from experience - where do you want bark? On the meat itself, not on the biggest piece of fat, so - it makes a lot of sense to do it fat cap down. Most of your bark is going to be on the top and sides of the meat, not on the part that is on the grate. This weekend I did a pork butt on my BGE that had a lot of the fat cap trimmed, so while I did it fat cap up, there really wasn't much of one there. It was one of the best "hot and fast" butts I have ever done. Low and slow is better / more moist, but you can get pretty OK pork butt going hot and fast. I don't have any gadgets with the egg. No fan, no regulator, no probe. I started this one about 9:30 AM for a 6:30 dinner. The egg was about 270-280 dome temp so on the grate was probably something like 325. Didn't wrap it through the stall. In the last 4 hours at 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 and 4:30, I sprayed it with ACV. Took it off around 195 degrees at about 5:30PM and let it rest for an hour before pulling at 6:30. Was about the best pork butt I've ever gotten in 7 hrs. Some people who are into BBQ get super obsessed with super consistent grill temperatures, etc. With pork butt I assert that it doesn't matter. I have made a lot of great pork butt on my green egg without any fan/regulator and without a probe. I'm in triple digits on pork butts on my BGE - just me, the grill, and an instant read thermometer. Many temperature fluctuations that would be "unacceptable" to some enthusiasts. Just let it go long enough and rest it and it will be good. I've only had one that I didn't like. It was too smoky and I overdid it. It has been a while. I think on this one I let it go overnight and woke up to a grill that had gotten too hot. I'm excited about my KK getting here b/c it will be even easier to regulate temperature without any gadgets. But I probably will also invest in some gadgets. But you don't need anything but you and your KK and an instant read thermometer to make a good pork butt. Pork butt is very, very forgiving. (I cannot claim all the credit for my product).

wicked good is the best. Wish I could get it around here - it used to be in every ace hardware.

Good advice. Yeah I do fat cap up on the BGE. I will try it fat cap down on the KK once it gets here. There's a lot of fat in the meat on a pork butt so it is very forgiving. You're going to love the results on this one.

I may be getting confused. I may never have had this before. I think I'm thinking of chicken and dumplings. This is sort of like chicken and dumplings without the dumplings.

I just realized the two places I described are not in the piedmont region, but in the mountains, tecnically. But anyway - North Carolina is great. My wife's family has always gone to the beach in the outer banks. We are going for 2 weeks again. My daughter was at summer camp in Brevard and will be doing the same this year, ending her camp in the middle weekend of this beach trip. Last year I drove all the way across the state on US-64 from OBX all the way to Brevard to pick my daughter up at summer camp. It's a great drive. But anyway more to your area if you're in the piedmont, I love Winston-Salem. My brother-in-law went to school there at Wake. Hard to believe the Deacs are undefeated this year in football. Looking fwd to seeing what happens there.

@jeffshoafI was in the great smokies just a week or so ago and went through your neck of the woods. We took US 23 / GA 441. Stopped in a little town called Sylva. One of the prettiest little towns I have seen. Reminded me a little bit of Fort Payne, AL but even prettier. My wife's parents have a place at Lake Burton, GA which is near Murphy which is kind of in the foothills. Western NC is beautiful, all of it. I think I have had chicken stew like you are describing - when you said saltines, the bells started going off. It is SO GOOD. I think I've only had this once or twice. But I'm trying to remember where I had it. Maybe my own grandmother made it. Her side of the family comes from North Carolina from way back. Or maybe it was like you said - in a big pot over a fire. I went to a lot of hunting events with my dad as a kid. Dove hunts in particular. Maybe I had this at a dove hunt once.

If last year is any evidence, they can still come back and win it. As a Braves fan I still almost feel like 2-0 is not enough of a lead against these guys. Great story @Syzygies - thank you for sharing.

This sounds like a really cool tradition @jeffshoaf- if you don't mind sharing, what area do you live in or hail from? Getting some of the veggies done over a wood fire is the easiest / quickest way IMO. I don't know if your recipe calls for onions or peppers or celery but - Like to get a little smoke in a pot of chili, I use my wok topper on the BGE (soon to be KK - it's on a train heading a cross the US now). 300-400 degrees dome temp. I throw a wood chunk on right before I put the food on - but I wait until the chunk has caught fire so that it's not the super thick white smoke - just saute the peppers and onions over the smoky fire. This usually yields not too little smoke and not too much.

Might have to change my thoughts bout my first cook on my KK when it gets here. That looks amazing (both of them).