johnnymnemonic

@tailcyou still love your 42 after 4+ years?

It's not about need. My wife thinks I'm crazy and she is right. My dad had a friend that said "anything that's worth doing is worth overdoing" - I guess that is the principle I am going by.

Anyone have pictures of how big of a pig you can get into a 42" and a finished product? Dennis called me yesterday and he had a cancelled order for a 42 in the same matte black pebble as my 32 order and I took the plunge. It'll be on the way soon. I was just dreaming of calling a neighbor of mine and organizing a little pig roast for Halloween. Main thing I need really is advice on what size of a pig to get for the 42. But - I love pictures.

@tekobo That Pro Q stuff that you use looks really good. Thanks for the link.

@tekobohere are some pictures. In the first picture I put a pencil in the picture to reference the box size. It's 20lb in a very small footprint. You can tell this is some dense stuff. In the second picture you can see the average sizes of the pieces. Some are broken, some are whole. The one in the bottom of the picture is standing on end so you can kind of see a cross section. A "log" is 6-10" in length. They are not very uniform. Looks like they are pooped out of a machine and dried in an oven or kiln. In the 3rd picture I have a piece of kindling from the box. It's kind of nice that they provide a little wood kindling you can use to start your fire or put underneath your charcoal chimney. In the 4th picture, I'm holding a "log". The fifth picture is my cold green egg with leftover blazing coco. Looks pretty good at first glance. The sixth picture is after I just stir the firebox up with my hand a little bit. Note that all the logs are just crumbling. In the seventh picture, I'm holding a partially burnt log. In the 8th picture you can see how it easily turns to dust. I crumbled it very easily. Here's a video I found containing Dennis's CoCo Char being lit. It looks much more uniform and higher quality than this stuff. Maybe it still turns to mush after it is partially burned, IDK. My personal preference for a kamado is a charcoal that doesn't turn to dust after being partially burned.

I tried Blazing Coco. I will post pictures if anyone is interested. The reason why I'm not posting any is "it's not worth it". Price/performance of this product is not worth it. Just use a high quality regular lump. Cons: A - it's not as odorless and pure as y'all describe Dennis's CocoChar and looks very different. It doesn't have a hole in it. It has some kind of binder or filler in it. B - Previously burned pieces of the charcoal want to turn to dust. I think the ash content is probably low if you actually burn all of it, but when you're on your second cook, you find yourself with a BUNCH of unburned black powder in your grill. I hate it. (In other words, maybe this is an "OK" charcoal for your weber b/c most kettle grill users let the charcoal burn out - but - if you are a Kamado user and want to reuse charcoal, this stuff is "the pits"). I felt like it was almost like a low quality briquette with how much powdery mess was left over. C - not as great for grilling. I'm used to my kamado being able to "ramp up quickly". This blazing coco stuff takes forever to get ramped up if you give your grill more air, even after you have had it going a while at 300-400. I hated trying to grill with it - I'm sure if I wanted a really hot fire I could spend an hour or two getting this stuff going but - not worth it. Regular lump is better for grilling. This may be typical of all coconut charcoal, so I'm not as concerned about this point. Pros: - Due to the density it lasts a long time, so it's good for low and slow (as long as you don't mind crap-tons of black powder in your grill when you are getting ready for your next cook). I Successfully cooked a really nice pork shoulder on my BGE with this charcoal. - It does have less flavor than most lump, so you still can get a more pure flavor profile. I used some premium pecan wood chunks from Cutting Edge Firewood. The Pecan came through. It had almost no other smoke flavor. Conclusion: "As a Kamado user" -- I just don't think this charcoal is worth the money and the hassle of all that black dust. You can reuse pieces that don't turn to dust, but that's only about 50% of it. Wait for Dennis's CoCo Char. I've seen live videos of that on youtube. It's a far superior product to this junk. Do not buy (unless you just want to experiment and see if my review is any good).

the surcharge is more than fair; I certainly don't want you to be "eating it" on my order (which hasn't shipped yet). Thank you for being transparent/public with the info.

@DennisLinkletter original price or new price for those who have put down the deposit and waiting for Oct/Nov delivery? Anyway. If you need to raise it, raise it.

@LudicrousSpeedawesome. I'll be getting mine in October/November. I'm in Morningside. Haven't seen many KK's in ATL but I know they are out there. Now I know you're out there. Cheers!

great job!

@BigOI do like and I did subscribe. In future videos, describe your equipment. I figured out that I think you're using the 3 tier jerky rack from Cabelas, but what type of slicer do you have there in your video? BTW great video. I also watched your burn-in one - loved it. Very informative. Thank you for doing what you are doing. Keep it up.

This is all that matters.

@Donowill do. The only issue is since I have never tried CoCoChar, I won't be able to give any accurate comparison. Maybe I'll take a couple of pictures of it out of the box and burning in the firebox of my BGE and people can tell whether it's comparable or inferior by the look of it.

One of the things I look forward to cooking on my KK when it gets here is Iberico pork raised in the US from this place in my home state. Maybe the real thing is irreplaceable but I'm going to give this a shot when <kk name pending> gets here.

just ordered some blazing coco. we'll see if it's any good.

I can confirm that epicurean cutting boards are decent. A friend gave us one for a wedding gift. It is the only cutting board that my wife and I have had our entire 13 years of marriage that we have not yet replaced. I think we are harder on the plastic ones and are quicker to throw them out, but the epicurean we have has held up for over a decade. The size of this one is not good for trimming / slicing large chunks of meat. We use this one for veggies. But I'd consider getting another (bigger) one based on how well this one has performed over the years. My wife isn't into nice knives so we haven't shredded the board. If I get into knives, I'll keep in mind that these are not really the best boards for my finer cutlery.

Anyone tried this stuff? Does it compare to Dennis's CocoChar or is it blasphemy to even speak of using a different Coconut Charcoal?

can't wait to try cocoChar

This guy (in the video above) said he's not getting scientific but this is a lot of work to evaluate charcoal. Is it worth it to do all this work? I guess it depends on the "level of obsession" you have about this hobby. I've done enough cooking in a kamado over the last dozen or so years - I probably cook once to twice a week on average, that's a lot of cooking. I haven't gotten my KK yet so take me with a grain of salt. I never use gadgets when I cook. OK - I have one gadget - an instant read contact thermometer. No probes, no air regulation jobs that go in the bottom vent of the green egg. I have learned the hard way and get great results. This is not to say that when I get my KK I'm not going to get a probe (b/c once you've spent this kind of money, why not get one), and that's not to say that in the future I'm not going to start sifting my charcoal b/c of the way the KK firebox works, and using better charcoal all the time - b/c again - once you're at this level, why not have the best all the time - but - My opinion is that "I can cook with anything". I'm a value shopper - if you can't get "really good" charcoal or don't want to spend the money, learning how to "cook with what you've got" is a good skill. What people say here about removing the ultra small pieces and just getting to know your equipment and how it works with different loads of charcoal - more small pieces, more large pieces, etc - what does your grill do? Once you cook a few hundred times on something - you'll know. While I can't completely argue against the notion on charcoal bags that charcoal is an ingredient to your food -- "the first ingredient" as some say -- I find it might be more important to learn about how fire behaves under different conditions (and different sizes and with different amounts and types of wood) in your equipment than it is to choose a certain charcoal. ESPECIALLY when you're not using a BBQ guru and probe. You need to know how to lay a good fire in your particular grill - one that will go the distance. It seems like this guy is fishing for a sponsor or something. My opinions based on all the cheap charcoal that I have used - The only charcoal I really dislike is Cowboy. I've found nails and other metal debris in the bags. One time there was an old hinge in there with screws sticking out of it. Even when there's nothing metal, I invariably find one or more rocks in every bag. It's just crappy charcoal. That said, I have had several successful low and slow cooks with Cowboy charcoal, including a really good brisket only a week ago. Just because it's the crappiest doesn't mean it doesn't work. I have to work with Cowboy often because my father in law is a Costco member, and he always buys the big bag of cowboy. He sometimes gives me a bag, and instead of turning it down, I use it. If you want to go cheap, the best charcoal to me is a tie between Royal Oak and Frontier. Royal Oak of course is at home depot - most people are familiar. Frontier is at Sam's club (when you can find it). I also find that Publix Greenwise charcoal is "OK". I've used a lot of that because my wife found it easy to pick up a smaller bag of that at the grocery store. I can't complain - she bought me charcoal without me asking her. I give a slight edge to royal oak b/c all of it seems to be made of the same wood whereas it seems some other cheaper charcoals can vary in their flavor profile due to a mixture of woods. Also it has a milder flavor. But it's rather light and burns up quicker than other brands, so I feel even Cowboy can be better than royal oak for low and slow. Shocking right. Frontier is the most dense of these (at least the bag that I am currently using is). To me, the green egg brand is basically just royal oak - I quit using it a long time ago b/c it costs too much for what it is. If there's a medium end, I think the best is the black Fogo. It seems like a good value to me just b/c it's not the most expensive charcoal, but I feel it is very good based on the 3 bags I have used. I've not used the better Fogo. I've not used JD. Have not tried rockwood - will try it if I can get a hold of it. If the flavor profile is as good as this guy says it is, I look forward to it. On the higher end I wish I could get weekend warrior - it used to be my favorite but the Ace Hardwares in my area quit carrying it. Maybe I'll find out how to order it.

One of the reasons why I waited so many years to buy a KK was because I knew that I would move and I was worried about moving the KK. Mine will be here this fall. @PWK5017I ordered a BB32 in Matte Black Pebble in late June. This forum has put any 'buyer's remorse' at bay. Don't forget the community of KK owners. I have been a big green egger for about a dozen years and often look to the web for advice. I have gotten more well thought out answers from experienced hobbyists about grilling, smoking, and vacuum sealing (and why KK owners do things certain ways) and I have seen more great examples of cooking in one place in 1 month of being on this forum than 12 years of searching elsewhere. That's because everywhere else they're either trying to sell something or you have people who just love to go on and on for an hour on their youtube channel. I'm thankful to have found the komodo kamado forum, and I have concluded that this group of people is one good reason to buy one. The other is, I believe in the value proposition. - An over-engineered grill that is sold direct to consumer makes me feel that more of the price tag of my KK goes into the materials, whereas who knows what % of a BGE or KJ or a Primo goes to profit for the middleman.

Good info for someone coming from BGE land. My KK doesn't get here for another little bit but I will be ready thanks to all of you. It totally makes sense that you would burn more fuel with a ceramic deflector in, but I never thought about the airflow. What does resonate is that it's another piece of dry ceramic, which would be like a fire proof sponge inside the grill.

Great idea / travel tip. "unmarked weight". Scales can be digital but the real truth is analog.

I don't like spending a huge amount of money on knives so I am going to sharpen some old wusthofs that I have, and I think Opinel boasts a good value. I'm thinking about getting one of their forged 1890 series.

@tekoboI love geeking out on stuff like this. HM I hope the police were not watching when I ordered a fair bit of saltpetre on amazon.

A lot of modern stuff contains nitrates. @tony b @tekoboone of the main reasons why you don't see potassium nitrate or saltpetre more often these days is that it is white and looks like table salt. It was removed from mainstream food use because of this. There were issues with it hurting people that mistook it for table salt and sprinkled it on their food directly and used it often in this manner. My bet is that somewhere you could find 'curing salt' that contained the proper proportion of potassium nitrate along with regular salt. The most common is curing salt containing sodium nitrate (like the link you shared about pink curing salt). Fun Fact, when I rubbed the meat, the salt and saltpeter started reacting and turning pink when exposed to moisture. I am pretty sure that in my recipe that I just made, I could do 9 tablespoons of pink curing salt instead of 7 tablespoons of salt and 2 tablespoons of saltpeter and it would come out pretty much the same - same flavor and everything - so if you prefer to just get curing salt, that is fine. I just wanted to make my recipe the same as my "Nanny" used to make it. Pink curing salt is roughly 90% salt and 10% sodium nitrate, so the proportions in my recipe are probalby heavier than necessary on the saltpeter. If I wanted to try to minimize, I would do something like 8 tablespoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of saltpeter to get it more in the same proportions with curing salt. But I doubt that at either of these concentrations that it's detrimental to health in curing one roast. Some of it goes into the meat but a lot of it goes down the drain when the meat gets washed before smoking. Research I did before I made this recipe basically says meat that is cured with nitrates is not good for you in large quantities. If you consume them once a month or something, it should be fine. In other words there's no reason to worry about curing one roast and eating it. There's definitely heart disease risk if you do it on a regular basis. In general staying away from mass produced cured meat like corned beef, ham, bacon is a good idea. With vacuum sealing there probably isn't any reason to even use it. It just gives that nice pink color that lets you know you're eating corned beef/pastrami. Potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate do the same thing and have the same health benefit/detriment. I'm sure you could find bacon or ham products with potassium nitrate in it, although sodium nitrate is more common. I would imagine the appearance of Sodium Nitrate is the same reason why you find pink curing salt, but it is hard to find sodium nitrate by itself. It's probably white and looks like table salt. You can confuse pink curing salt with himalayan salt as well, but himalayan salt is not pervasive, and the curing salt isn't pure sodium nitrate. (90/10). I just thought of this - maybe you don't see much (if any) curing salt with potassium nitrate because sodium nitrate does the exact same thing and is cheaper to manufacture? IDK would be interesting to find out. I had to go ahead and cook this thing b/c the refrigerator I kept it in had an issue. It cured for about 6 days. The first picture is how it looked after a couple hours on the smoker before I wrapped it. The second is the final product. It is delicious. I think it would be better with a brisket. But this comes out as a very similar texture as boiling it according to my grandmother's recipe, but tastes much better smoked. \\