BARDSLJR

And here is the brisket flat when I took it off for wrapping. I'd have preferred a bit thicker bark (I used Lawry's Seasoning Salt and coarse ground pepper for the rub) but at this point at least it is nicely moist and smells amazing. Stay tuned for the final version within the hour.

Okay, guys (and ladies) I have cooked LOTS of full brisket, and I think I am just about getting the hang of it. However, I have never done just a flat alone, and today I brought home a nice 6-lb flat (choice) from Costco, because my sister-in-law, our guest, has requested brisket, and I did not want to have to start it at midnight or 3 AM. Usually, a 15=lb full brisket takes me between 15-18 hours, following Franklin's recipe and approach. So should I assume that a 6-lb flat should take 6-7 hours or so? 8" My guess is this does not scale exactly. 255-265* (F) sound about right? Tips, suggestions.....? Thanks, y'all,on a beautiful Fall day here in Denver......

It was, as you can see, a pretty busy weekend on the KK, doing babyback ribs first for a few other couples we had over Saturday night, and then pork shoulder for pulled pork on Sunday, because my wife found the pork shoulder for $5 off when she went to Costco to procure the ribs. I am pleased to report that all went as planned,and the ribs and pulled pork were pretty great. (Apple wood for both....) Even better than the $5 off....babyback ribs are back down to pre-"supply-chain-hell" levels: $2.99/lb. (Thank God!) I was back in Costco yesterday and checked to make sure this was not some kind of discounted clearance price.....it wasn't. It looks like we are incrementing back towards sanity. (Gas prices are way down, too......it's all good.)

CONGRATULATIONS from sunny Denver, Colorado, USA. I have a 32", also- copper/bronze. You are going to have a great time cooking with it. It is unbelievably efficient and versatile. A tip I learned from Dennis (the owner of Komodo-Kamado): when you have your charcoal and wood in the fuel basket, start by lighting up a tennis-ball sized area in the middle and open up the upper vent just a quarter to half a turn. Let it ramp up gradually and then adjust with the vents to level off before it reaches your desired temp. The KK is VERY efficient and if you start out with too much of the charcoal lit up, you can overshoot your desired temperature and then it is VERY difficult to get it down again....as I said, the KK is very, very efficient. It will be difficult to resist the temptation to cook with it right away, but you might want want to try a test burn or two to get familiar with it before you actually use it. Good cooking and good luck!

GROAN.......

Regrettably, Johnny Harris's closed some years back, and this recipe is close, but not exact. For store-bought sauce, I think Stubb's Original is just about the best on the shelf (their Sweet version is great on chicken), but there are thousands . You might want to go on-line on the Trader Joe's website and see if you can recognize any of the sauces there as the one you are looking for.

Developed this sauce recipe trying to get as close as possible to Johnny Harris's (Savannah) barbecue sauce. It isn't QUITE there, but it is in the ballpark: Johnny Harris- Style Barbecue Sauce 2 tbsp chili powder 2 tbsp fine ground black pepper 2 tsp white sugar ½ tsp salt 4 cups catsup 1 cup yellow mustard 1/4th cup Worcestershire sauce 1/2 cup real cider vinegar (may experiment with other vinegars, like champagne vinegar or sherry vinegar) ¼ to ½ cup packed brown sugar (prefer dark) (May substitute honey, and add dark molasses. Should be to your taste. 2 tbsp butter 3 Tbsps fresh lemon juice Directions: Combine catsup in mustard in large pot. Warm on low heat. Stir in all ingredients except butter and lemon juice and mix thoroughly. Cook on low and stir frequently until well blended- 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool for 15 minutes. Add butter, stir until thoroughly blended. Add lemon juice to taste. Best if heated before using. Do not boil. This is the base recipe, and it is good for all meats- beef, chicken, pork, etc. I also usually use both honey and dark molasses (as above) for the sweetener. Taste at the end and add more honey or sugar or salt if needed. You could add cayenne pepper or hot sauce if you wanted it hotter- most of the heat in the recipe comes from the black pepper. I have also added several shots of espresso sometimes; tried dark chocolate once to good result; tried adding (separately orange marmalade or raspberry jam to give it a more fruit base.) You can also experiment using different vinegars (like champagne or Spanish sherry), but this is usually a lot more expensive for very subtle difference. You could also try adding a little cinnamon, Chinese five-spice, or both (not more than a teaspoon.) In my last patch, I doubled the recipe, added one tablespoon each ground ginger and five-spice.

Poochie, we've never not had both spare ribs and babybacks at our Denver Costco's. I was getting the spare ribs for a while when the price on the babybacks got up so high ($4.69!!!) but now they are down to $3.79 or so and the spare ribs are the same (first time I have seen them priced the same.) I quite liked the spare ribs as well- quite a bit more meat on the bone. BTW, the babaybacks came out nearly perfect, and the country-style ribs were FABULOUS- with so much surface area for the rub and smoke, they were like a cross between the best smoked pork chop ever and burnt ends. I took some of the smaller crispier pieces and dipped them into a new batch of my barbecue sauce (see separate post) and it was eys-roll-back-in-you-head-and-see-God level good. I wish I had taken pics to post. I cooked both the babybacks and the country-style ribs at 225-235* for four hours, used apple wood for the smoke.

But I bet your Australian Costco lamb is better than ours.....'cause ours comes from Australia.....

But I bet your Australian Costco lamb is better than ours.....'cause ours comes from Australia.....

Many thanks, and sorry, I did not know Costco's reign extended beyond our shores.

Folks, Came home from Costco ( Australian friends: "Costco"is a GIANT grocery cooperative with massive purchasing and distribution power, which typically sells items at only a percentage point or two above cost. They also have excellent-by and large- meat, and good wine/ liquor deals in the municipalities that allow them to sell liquor.) with two three-packs of babyback ribs (am happy to report the price is down by $.80, to $3.69/lb or so) and a massive package of country-style pork ribs. I plan on cooking the latter tomorrow with the babybacks, in the 225-250* (F) range. Question: what would be an optimal temp for " done"? 200-205* like a pork butt? Would you bother to wrap them? Any suggestions for cooking method of these pretty mammoth slabs of pork?

Syzgies, all three probes- the KK analog and the two Fireboard, were all in the same close area in the dome. No grate measurement.

So yesterday I added a second temperature probe, this one one of the Fireboard food probes, looping the cord around the KK temp dial bracket inside the dome, so I now had three different probes, with their working ends all within 1" of each other. (Sorry, got the two photos mixed up- the previous one is of the three probes, the one below is of the two), and I put some fuel in the KK, fired it up, and set the Fireboard controller to 250*. And as you see, now all three temperature gauges are reading pretty close, with ten degrees, to one another, though the original Fireboard probe that I had problems with Wednesday is still reading a bit lower than the other two. So long as they are all dependably close, and so long as the Fireboard is controlling the heat within a narrow range, I am okay. BTW, to answer a couple of the previoous questions, (1) I got the air leak under control, and the problem Wednesday was not out-of-control temps, but rather, a misleading temp reading from the Fireboard. second, no I don't use a food probe when I am doing ribs. For pork shoulder or brisket, yes. For now, the problem would appear to be solved, but since I have the third probe already wired up in there, I think I will keep it there for a while as a security check.

Okay, lots of conversation to catch up on and a few questions to be answered: First, to recap the problem (which no,SWOFF1, I don't think is in any way "over-analyzed"): When I did the first cook on Wednesday, I used both the KK temp dial, meter, or whatever you want to call it, and the Fireboard temp probe. The temp probe I placed right up with the KK probe in the dome, looping the cord around the inside bracket to the KK temp dial, so that the working end of both (the pencil-type things) were within 1" or so of each other. So they should have been experiencing the same temperature, or very close to it. I don't know if this image helps or not. But during the cook, I was getting WILDLY different readings, with KK dial reading much higher-approximately 335 on the KK to 197 on the Fireboard..

Today, I am going to fire it up again and wire in one of the food probes and hang it next to the temperature probe inside the KK dome, and see how closely- or not- the three probes agree on temperature. It could be that the Fireboard probe is defective and just needs to be replaced. Stay tuned…..

Not sure where you are getting the idea that there are two probes. There are just, as pictured, the reading from the FIreboard2 and the temperature gauge that comes with the KK. In any case, I plan to use a second probe today- one of the meat probes that comes with the Fireboard 2, and hang it up on the interior bracket that houses the KK temp dial, and be able to compare the three readings. Of the six spare ribs that were "cooked" yesterday, the larger ones were still adequate for serving, but the smallest one, which may have also been subject to more direct heat, was a crispy critter (see photo), and I could only recover some of the meat from the center of the rack, which got used in a pork fried rice (which was yummy). The bigger ribs were dryer than I would have wished, but as I said, still, according to my neigbors/testors, still pretty decent. Stay tuned for today's calibration tests.

Here's the really weird thing: on the way down after the cook, I disconnected the fan but left the Fireboard 2 on: a couple of hours later, the two temperature measures are in synch, reading almost exactly the same on the way down......WTH?

Of course, there's always this:

Like this:

Temp dial on my KK reads 300: Fireboard reports 185. Fireboard temp probe is wrapped up around the inside bracket of the KK heat probe, near the top of the dome. Ideally, they should be exactly the same, more or less. What's going on? Who do I believe?

So, in follow-up, I did adjust the latch again, and checked the seal by trying to raise and lower the lid while it was closed. So far, I see almost no movement, so I am optimistic that I have a good seal. We'll see tomorrow when I do a batch of spare ribs. BTW, so far I am very impressed with the Fireboard: versus the BBQ Guru, is it maybe not as intuitive to use, but once you get the temp settings established, it is MUCH easier to monitor, as it uses WIFI instead of Bluetooth (which has limited range) and gives much more detailed temperature tracking if you are interested being really granular about tracking your cooking progress.Also, it is built like a tank- very tight construction and most impressive. It works just fine with the existing fan unit I had from the Guru. Fingers crossed.....

So actually, this haw been VERY helpful. I went out and checked the clasp before starting in on a full scale gasket replacement, and to my surprise, it was a lot looser than I thought. I could almost turn the nuts by hand. So I loosened it up, reset the position of the bottom clasp, tightened it, and it looks, like from what I can test, that I have a good seal.So maybe I have put off the gasket replacement for a while? I am going to make hash and chili out of the toasted brisket and count my blessings. Thanks, y'all. Stay tuned. Doing spare ribs, probably on Wednesday.

Okay, long story short: my wife, requested to bring home a prime brisket from Costco, returns with a mammoth nearly 20-lb brisket! Wow, I've never seen brisket this big, much less cooked one. Anyway, I prepared in the usual way- trimmed the hard fat off it, slathered with French's yellow mustard, generous application of coarse salt (Maldon) and pepper. Plugged in my brand-new Fireboard 2, made sure everything was working, and preheated the 32" KK to within 10 degrees of the desired 275*. Put the brisket on about 10-11PM or so. Woke up at 3 and checked the temps- KK was about 282, quite acceptable. Went back to sleep. Got up at 8, thinking this would be about time to spritz and wrap, and checked KK temp.....335!!!! WTH???? quickly checked the meat temp and it was 202, so pulled the brisket off immediately, Wrapped it and let it rest. Tried it a few hours later and the bark was excellent, the flavor pretty good, but, unfortunately, quite dried out. There goes the return-from-holiday meal I was planning on providing for my daughter's family of five. And approximately $60 worth of really nice prime brisket. Arrrrghhhh. So I think I have found the problem- see attached photo clearly showing air leakage, or in this case smoke, from the around the lid/body seal. I have a gasket kit that I had previously ordered from Dennis, so that is now on my project list for later this week, when the weather turns nicer again. My question is this: does anyone have any experience with replacing their main gasket, and any tips or words of wisdom I should know? (BTW, yes, I have already adjusted the clasp for the tightest seal possible.) Thanks, y'all!

My 32" KK, which is now 4 or 5 years old, came with a port for the fan prepared in it. And yes, the BBQ Guru fan (which, BTW, works perfectly with the Fireboard 2), fits perfectly.