Braai-Q

That was one of the things that I always thought with the Lang stick burners - hugely labour intensive. More commitment than I think I'd be willing to make. Particularly on a long cook.

Sorry to hear about your travails but it sounds like it was well received, even if it wasn't to the standard you wanted. Electronic monitoring is great for post match analysis but probably more useful to trigger an alert, giving you a chance to intervene. I have been saved on one occasion where my temperature dropped inexplicably and the app alerted me to this at gone 3am with the urgency of an air raid siren announcing a Luftwaffe attack. It's disorientating being pulled from deep sleep to figure out in a split second whether the screaming alarm is your house or your cook in trouble. I appreciate that a stick burner (assuming something like a Lang) is going to have a lot less refractory material (defined by the gauge of steel alone I'm assuming) and ambient conditions outside the cooker will also exert influence on temperature. Not knowing how John Mueller cooks, he might be using baffles to direct airflow and bleeding off heat beyond what is being lost due to the difference in insulation so 300 could be a misnomer. Reason I mention this is because I've been having a discussion with an engineer at Meater about probe accuracy for the last week and he has been sharing some of their test data. I've been really surprised at the extent of temperature variations within various ovens they've tested and the differences that small changes in position make even within a heat soaked and controlled environment (open put over coals for brisket sounds like masochism to me by the way!). Anyway, the engineer sent me a photo of a cook they'd done which looked like a porcupine for all the probes sticking out of it together with the graph data from those probes. Even though they had done a cook at 300 in the test I'm thinking of, there was variation of 50-75 degrees around the cook - even though some probes were only a few centimetres apart. I'd have expected a lot more stability from an electric oven (which was their control) and which had been allowed to heat soak in their test. Forgive my ignorance as I don't cook with a stick burner but from my understanding, using reverse offset methods on a stick burner allows radiant heat from below as well so it'd be not dissimilar to a KK in the way. Or do I have that totally wrong? Appreciate air flow dynamics are going to be different due to the shape of the cylinder but just wondering based on your comment of cooking from above.

This is what I love about the forum. They look fabulous. Do you smoke them as well? I've regularly done pork with Apple wood and Pear and I think it might work well. Think we need a NSFW type label on these sort of posts. Perhaps 'NSIH' - Not Safe If Hungry.

Tong master is a recognised term in our family's vocabulary. Cooking with fire is a great skill to have though. You'll have to get them on to 20-30 hour slow cooks on the KK. I don't really know what 'boss level' is in BBQ terms - going the whole hog must surely qualify for complexity and commitment. Certainly on a Weber!!! I think you're right on the surrender. But I learnt a long time ago that you don't mess with vegans - they're angry to start with and I don't think the jokes help. 😁 Vesselfinder and Marine Traffic are both good AIS services and Dewi should give you the vessel name as part of the document set. You can set up alerts to notify you of activity and I remember the judgement I got when I did this. I think Mrs BQ called it 'the Santa NORAD tracker for grown men'. I then busted her looking at it a couple of times because she was 'interested in the route'.

I remember the time I followed a recipe with what turned out to be too much salt and it's what prompted me to research the ingredients. If it helps, these were the recommendations from the Neapolitan Pizza book in relation to salt (I just took some notes, but there are all sorts of graphs and diagrams supporting everything they say). - 1.5-2% total dough weight should be salt. - Sodium chloride acts on gluten composition making the dough more compound (less sticky) as gliadin which is a flour protein is less soluble in salt water and more inclined to gluten network formation. - During leavening, the speed of the secondary fermentation and the development of gas decreases, contributing to the alveolar structure of the finished pizza. - Too much salt compromises the fermentation activity of the yeast. - Salt increases the crunchiness and browning of the crust. Hopefully of interest and use. You'll have to let me know how you get on.

@MacKenzieI got a bit of a pizza bug and was struck by the variety in recipes for the dough (non sourdough). I just saw the difference in salt between your two recipes. Do you find that you can actively taste the difference? It was something that got me. I would see variation from 2g to 20g with broadly similar measures but I wanted to understand the science or rather the chemistry so I knew how to adjust the variables. I tried a recipe at one point which called for 18g of salt and it was excessive. I knew I needed a level of salt for the chemistry but I didn't know how much to reduce it by and removing it entirely changed the texture and there was a lot less air (bubble formation) in the crust. I did some research and found a book called 'The Neapolitan Pizza. A scientific guide about the artisanal process'. It feels like a dissertation project and was a bit intimidating at first - I hadn't seen a dough extensograph before but the graph showing the variation of mozzarella stringiness as a function of temperature convinced me that the authors had thought about this a lot more than I had. But going back to the subject of salt, the authors discuss how salt acts on gluten composition and how it affects the second fermentation. Too much salt alters the PH towards alkalinity and contrasts the fermentation activity of the yeast. They prove why you must dissolve the salt completely in water before adding it during mixing. Not a single recipe I've seen even mentions this or explains why it's necessary. While I haven't done Neapolitan pizzas in the KK, there is so much valuable information in the book about making pizza. I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking to improve their pizza skills. I'm also looking forward to the Modernist Pizza book as well. I believe it's out next year but delayed as their research (restaurant visits) have been curtailed. I wouldn't consider myself an expert (although I'm happy with where I've gotten to in terms of results) but thought the books might help others. Amazing how so few ingredients can create so many variables and different outcome.

Thanks @Basher. It's a little sad but having been catching up on the news, a bit of levity is needed. 0027 is the international dialling code for South Africa amongst some other 'lekker' references in case anyone wondered. Parts of it feel like a homage to 'The Braai' which was scripted by an old school mate. It's quite old now and features an English actor who became big on a daytime soap in the UK in the late '90s. In Australian money, he'd be Jason Donovan. Jake always claimed that 'The Braai' gave the English actor his big break and whenever I see pictures of the actor, I just see a kettle BBQ and that scene! 😁

Happy to. I really enjoy the Jamaican spice pallet but it's not an eat all the time affair. A friend of mine is from Trinidad and her mother runs a catering business. They had Trini Goat Curry (Goat Roti) at the wedding. I tried to get the recipe. I'd describe it as being in between Jamaica and India. But the bride's mother was having none of it. Even with a consolidated charm offensive. I have a friendship circle that is as diverse as it is eclectic and all the better for it. I grew up as the first generation in a newly independent country (Zimbabwe) with a very politically correct surname. I know this isn't the place for politics so won't venture that path but having seen the ruinous outcomes of divisive politics played out multiple times, it's galling that society seems perpetually doomed to repeat the mistakes of history.

No problem. Happy to share.

Happy to. I'll have to write it up as it's a combination of two recipes and I know it off by heart. The original came from James Whetlor's Goat: Cooking and Eating and I think I riffed off an Epicurious or Food52 recipe where a Jamaican food writer shared her grandmother's recipe. I think James confessed to having pilfered his from a Jamaican friend so they're authentic and similar but the other recipe builds the Jamaican spice mix from scratch and I think that makes a big difference and gives you more control over the flavour. If you check the Amazon preview I linked, you can see the recipes for Kid and Goat Curry.

Hah! Looks familiar. That's my 19. Looking pretty good for 8 years old. I'll take a picture of the 32 and send you that to keep you going until yours turns up. I think you'll be blown away by the quality of the KK when it arrives, particularly if you've ever looked at a Big Green Egg or Komodo Joe which are the only retail options I've seen in the UK.

You're right. I have a deep and abiding love of Africa and it is a shame to bear witness to the suffering it has endured over my lifetime. I'm not even that old to be saying that too. I'll dig it out for you, it's a really great recipe with real depth of flavour. I find it requires quite a lot of tasting to get the balance right because the key variable is down to the intensity of the Scotch Bonnets. One of the things I've increasingly enjoyed doing is using flavoured smoke to pair with the dishes. A long, slow cook curry in the KK is a beautiful thing. That sounds utterly superb.

Interesting, Liberia is a corner of Africa where the insurance company and Foreign Office forsake you. You'll have to look up @tekobo and her Nigerian Suya on the KK. I was planning on visiting Central African Republic this year but well, we know how that story goes. I have to get back to Africa at least once a year, even if it isn't home. Have you seen a KK in person yet by the way? I have a fantastic recipe for Jamaican Goat Curry (for the free goat) - it does feature Scotch Bonnet but you can substitute if that isn't to your taste.

I can get behind @Basher's sentiment. The beers sound great but I always thought that beer pairings were with food and not KKs! 😄

Out of interest - where did you live in Africa? My username probably gives a clue as to my origins. I should confess that I am conducting a survey at the moment - the intersection of UK owners with Africa connections who own KKs. It's surprisingly high! 😀

Welcome to the gang. You've not left the group much to work with as you specified everything. So, have you considered a Robin to your 42" Batman? 😀 I can confirm from my 51KK experiences (I have a 32+19 combination before anyone thinks Dennis is cooking up a new model) that black pebble cooks better, stabilises more reliably and imbues all sorts of qualities on the pitmaster owner.

As I said about 2 minutes ago to @tekobo the forum is free but it's expensive to be a part of the community! 😀 At the risk of trying to further inflate your spend, if the tiniest bit of you stirs at the sight of that rib rack that @jonjhas so cruelly placed in your path like forbidden fruit at the checkout counter, I'd add it in. I bought the 19KK and then was a bit reluctant to go crazy given I'd never seen a KK in the flesh. I didn't order the stand for my 19 and had designs of putting it in a custom outdoor kitchen. The kitchen never happened and the KK ended up being just off ground level. I was put off the idea of ordering due to the cost (due to weight) and the field day customs would have with duty charges. I laughed it off for ages. Anyway, when I ordered the 32, I ordered the stand for the 19KK reasoning that it would give me flexibility moving the outdoor kitchen about. After six years. It was both a revelation and moment of recognising my stupidity for not having done it sooner. I think the tables are a great shout and will be genuinely useful. Glad to have been of assistance. In all seriousness, the tables are incredibly helpful. Something Dennis mentioned to me is that he is producing a new design with a steel trace around the lid to save tiles from being broken off if you accidentally shut it on tongs. I'm not sure if you'll get that in yours or the current design. I can't say I've ever had that problem but might be something to clarify on aesthetics or to be mindful of in use. You could put it to a group vote on the forum. This forum has a depth of knowledge that I bet ranges from martindale count to maillard reaction and everything in between. 🤘 I'm looking forward to the photograph of you in the bronze silk jacket, embracing the new KK like a long lost relative. There will be no judgement, just appreciation. What beers you thinking and what's your first cook going to be?

It's not always like that, some days we rough it with caviar. It depends how big your steak sandwich is. From someone who had to break off from a conversation with me with words to the effect of 'My cow has arrived', I don't see you messing about with the minnow too often! As always. I'm glad to see your corrupting influence is being plied to @RokDok together with some sterling dying seconds of an order completion by @jonjon the rib rack. This forum might be free but it costs a lot being part of the community. 😁

It's funny, I really felt the need for a steak sandwich for lunch yesterday - stay with me on this story, it does answer your question. I was going past our local 'artisan' bakery who do excellent french sticks. They import T55 from France as the baker used to work in Paris and won't make them with anything else. Calling yourself an 'artisan baker' does mean you have to commit to standards. So I grabbed some French sticks, figured out what steak I had in the freezer and set about making a steak baguette for lunch with fried onions. I only had a 350g sirloin to hand (first world problem) - everything else was multipacked frozen. This was already a fanciful endeavour for a weekday lunch and thawing a multi pack of steaks was up there with hunting my lunch for the level of effort it involved. I set about defrosting the steak in a hot water bath and thought about how I was going to cook it. Char-grilled flavour was what the meat deserved so I fired up the KK - the 19 stepped up because anything short of a side of a cow looks lost in the 32. By the time that the meat was defrosted, the KK had a lovely bed of coals and the onions were chopped and the pan was at temperature. Medium rare steak (sliced) in preference to hammering it out was the order of the day. I fried the onions in Lescure unsalted butter (we're keeping it French) until they were caramelised and had just the smallest amount of bite. The French sticks were still warm (they'd just come out the oven at the bakery) so they were slathered in further butter. Sliced the meat, trimmed the fat and liberally accompanied with onion. Finished with a couple of twists of pink Himalayan salt. So about 45 minutes from idea to plate. I think my wife upset her colleagues by arriving late for her conference call while trying to finish her lunch and she was asked what she was having. So she showed them. I think they hated her for the rest of the call. 😅 For a quick grill, I find myself using the 19 but I did a Moussaka the other day and used the 32 for the sheer amount of grill area. Salting and cooking aubergines is a pain using the IDK but on the KK, it feels so much easier. Particularly when you atomise the olive oil versus pasting it on. It reduces oil in the dish (and yes, I know I just spent two paragraphs talking about cooking in butter). But I tend to bulk cook and freeze what I don't need for convenience. I've done a few low and slow cooks recently and have just used the 19 but I don't think I'd ever do pizza on it even though it can handle it easily and I have a 19 stone. If we ever get to entertain again, we'd certainly use both at the same time. I don't see the 19 as an inferior KK because it's smaller, it's just a different tool which comes into its own at different times. I'm glad I kept it. Good forum wisdom and peer pressure right there!

Don't forget the torque wrench if you really want to make sure! 🤘 👍 It sounds like you have your first cook lined up in the KK. The Yorkshires I think are a bit easier in the oven though. If you're buying one, get a Meater+ (with repeater). I think the standard Meater doesn't have the signal range much beyond the KK. Even then, I find that I sometimes lose signal on the Meater+. You may have to plan your table booking based on Meater signal optimisation!

Thanks Tony. If that picture is of your rotisserie chicken, they must grow them differently where you are! 😁 I expect a delta. Absolutely. But I didn't expect that much of a difference. Maybe 10-15 degrees. I don't know why I haven't dug into it before. Good shout on the cork to isolate the heat effect of the grate. I ordered myself a Fireboard 2 on Saturday. I haven't had any new toys in a while so I thought it was high time. I emailed Meater to ask directly - I expect they'll give me a link to the FAQ and a pat on the head. Who knows.

Hey Everyone I've been seeing some difference in ambient temperature readings and I just wanted to get a 'forum view' on my experience. I've had a look for information online and in the forum but couldn't find anything that answered my question. I did do some wider research and the most illuminating (and entirely irrelevant search result) was an interesting scientific paper on thermoregulation in Komodo Dragons although I did come across an interesting article on heat cycling and oven accuracy from Thermoworks that I remember using some while ago. So I did a cook yesterday - simple setup, 1.6KG topside in a foil tray in the 19KK. Centre of the grill and I used the middle grill so it was dead centre of the KK. Foil tray was a little bigger than the meat but not much and I positioned it centrally to get even convectional airflow. Popped the meat in at 200°C and gave it 30-45 mins to heat soak. I put a Meater+ into the joint and the probe tip was at the very centre - it was inserted horizontally i.e. parallel to the grill. I was aiming for rare with a target internal temperature of 50-52°C and the internal temperature at the start of the cook was 9 degrees. After I added the meat and the temperatures stabilised, the TelTru dome temperature stayed at 200°C for the entire duration of the cook. When I looked at the graphed temperatures, the ambient range on the Meater+ correlated in being constant but was much lower at 145-147°C for the same period. I know the refractory surface has a high thermal mass and should have uniform convective heat (reflected in the stability of the temperatures read from both gauges) but I would not have expected such variation on ambient when you consider that the measurement points are not that far apart. I could accept that they wouldn't be on parity because the probe is conductive and inserted into a much colder object but 55-57 degrees different? I had a look at Meater's website and they talk about their ambient sensor (FAQ quoted below) being extremely sensitive to microclimates but I don't see the air circulation patterns being that significant on a heat soaked and unopened KK. But I'm not an expert on thermal dynamics. I also can't see the meat exerting that degree of influence on the ambient sensor but I may be entirely underestimating the sensitivity. I've done an ice point check on the probes and they're all calibrated fine. I could do an ambient check in our range cooker as a control but I'm not sure the answer lies there. Can anyone offer a qualified explanation? Thanks

Ta! It was. I opened the fridge this morning to find that there were a lot more leftovers than I thought! Good start to the week.

The weather in the UK has been miserable. It's like someone flicked the winter switch and I don't think it has stopped raining in the last 24 hours. We felt Sunday would be a good day for a 'pub lunch' aka Sunday roast so laid in ingredients and set the challenge of cooking most of it in our 19KK. Despite it raining constantly. It was also 6 degrees. So, we cooked a 1.6KG topside of beef (sourced from a farm about 2 miles from us) and added the traditional Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes and decided to go with cauliflower cheese as another side. It was just the two of us and a dog who very much wanted in on the action. If you've never done a traditional English Sunday roast, it's about sequencing and timing if you want to eat everything hot. We did a rub on the topside and gave it 45 mins while the KK was bedding in - quite simple - salt/black pepper/olive oil together with tiny amount of oregano and braai spice (I made it a while ago and think I had cumin seed, coriander seed, cayenne, chilli, salt,thyme in the mixture). Put a small piece of coffee wood in once we were ready to cook. Took it off with internal temperature at 52°C but ambient on the Meater+ was about 50°C out on the TelTru in the dome. Not that much of an issue as I was only interested in the internal temperature but I would have expected them to be much closer in a heat soaked KK after temps had stabilised with the meat in. Yorkshires came out well - second time doing them in the KK (210°C for 20mins). Put some water in to increase vapour in the KK. We have a range cooker and all the ovens have a fan assist function which produces a lot of steam and makes for incredibly good Yorkshires. On our first attempt, we'd found the Yorkshires to be a little dry and the texture wasn't quite right - bubble size/density wasn't great and it wasn't particularly elastic and aerated. They should be light and fluffy. The additional water vapour created sufficient steam to resolve this. Be interested if anyone else has had the same experience or has a different method. Given we were cooking the potatoes in duck fat and the Yorkshires were being cooked with a duck fat base, I thought I'd cut out the cream for the Cauliflower cheese to reduce the richness. I didn't want to overpower the dish with smoke but wanted to get some coffee wood smoke into the cauliflower so I cooked the cauliflower separately in a foil tray as an indirect cook and threw coffee wood on to the coal for smoke. Gave it 15-20 mins at 175°C and it tasted fabulous - it was a little underdone deliberately but I was pouring a bechamel over and finishing in the oven. I made a roux, added whole milk, Cheddar Cheese and nutmeg. Topped with a little grated cheese and cooked in the oven. I could have done it in the KK stacking shelves but didn't want to end up see sawing temperatures and messing timings up. The cook graph for ambient temperatures on the Meater app showed a rock solid horizontal line once I'd reached target temperature. Would have been easy running with the 32KK as well but the oven was just as easy and the cauliflower already had the right level of smoke I wanted. Few pictures below taken on iPhone. We had it with a lovely bottle of Peyrouzelles 2017.