orthoman

Re: Compare Komodo vs BGE One of my prior sentences needs clarification. The one that starts, "With most grills, including the BGE, can hone in..." What I meant to say, was that the Komodo can really hone in on a specific temperature pretty easily. I have not had the BGE as long (it is at my lake house), but I have not had nearly the success with a rock solid temperature that requires little maintenance on the BGE. When I a cooking with BGE, I know that I have to stick around and constantly mess around with the dials and the airflow. I also notice that the surface of the BGE runs much hotter throughout that cook than I typically experience with the Komodo. So, my theory is that the BGE loses a lot more heat to the environment than does the Komodo. So, by default, I believe that the BGE uses quite a bit more fuel over time than the Komodo, and the BGE has more trouble regulating its temperature than the Komodo. Also, I think the Komodo controls airflow better. I have had my Komodo for going on three years now, and I never cease to be amazed when I wake up in the morning, after having a nice, long sleep, and there is my trusty friend, still going, with a temp of 250 degrees. I know of no other barbecuing grill or smoker, that does not have a thermostat, that can do that.

I would like to share something that I see a lot of people ask about on this forum : Which is better, Komodo or BGE? I am the owner of both grills and have cooked a lot on both of them. I would like to say that both of them work. If your budget is limited, the BGE can cooks similar types of meals. But I have found that the Komodo build quality is several orders of magnitude higher - the Komodo's walls are thicker and much "beefier" if I can say that. The Komodo's stainless steel grill elements are SO much better that the grill racks that you get with BGE. When you have them side by side, in terms of build quality, there simply is no comparison. I get the feeling when I look at the Komodo that it will last for literally generations if taken care of properly. I am fairly confident that as a 44 year old man, I need to make plans for what happens to these grills after I die!!! I have three sons and only one grill. I need to get at least one more! But the main area where the Komodo excels beyond any type of grill I have ever had experience with before - This Grilling "Machine" EXCELS BEYOND COMPARE at the holy grail of barbecue cooking - the LOW and SLOW cook. With other grills, inlcuding BGE, the komodo can hone in on a specific temperature, and once it it "dialed in", it is usually ROCK SOLID for hours and hours, with minor adjustments in airflow from time to time. My favorite recipe on the Komodo, is Chris Lilly's "8 time World Championship Pork Butt" - found in the awesome book, Big Bob Gibson's BBQ book (which by the way has become the "bible" I always go to for crowd-pleasers). Since pork shoulder always takes so long, I will usually start one late at night, and let it go all night after filling the basket in the Komodo with charcoal in the center, wood around the edges. If I start at 9pm, it is an easy matter for the darn thing to go all night and maintain that 250 temp that works so well. While I sleep. No way could BGE do that ! I find that when I cook on BGE, I pretty much have to hover around making sure the temp does not get off track.

heat deflector Ihave never taken mine out of the pan it came in. I have always just set it down, pan and all, right on top of the basket. Recently, a top thin layer of refractory material just flaked off like a thin top crust, but I just peeled that stuff off and there does not seem to be any untoward effects from that. Doing a nice pork shoulder rightnow. BTW, every person with a KK must try Chris Lilly's Championship pork shoulder recipe from his book. Since I did that last year, I get regular requests for is all year long. That, and the roasting pan chicken. Awesome stuff.

Pizza setup T-Rex, the pizza peel I have came from Williams-Sonoma.

Pizza setup For toppings, one we really liked was canadian bacon, onion, green olives sliced, and mushrooms, mozarella. Awesome. Then we did a meat lover - you know, hamburger, pepperoni, bell pepper, onion, mozzarella. That was great as well. As for sauce, we just bought some canned sauce that was pretty good, can't remember the name - think my wife bought it at target, cams in a green can. Really good!

Just had a great pizza experience last night for the second time. Since I noticed other people may have a hard time with this, my setup below. First, filled the bowl with a central portion of regular kingsford (just to get the fire started), with the periphery filled with lump charcoal. Threw in some large wood chunks around the outside for that slightly smoky flavor that my family seems to like so much. Then, I light the central charcoal with a torch, and wait for the rest to catch, with both lower vents completely open and pulled out from the body of the cooker, and the upper vent completely open as well. Then I put in all the grill surfaces (the bottom two), then adding the elevated grill component that puts the pizza up into the dome. I did NOT use the heat deflector. I believe in this application that the deflector just takes too much time to heat up. On top of that, the pizza stone. It took about 30 minutes to get the grill up to 500 degrees. Throughout the cook, my temp hovered around 500 to 550. The 3 pizzas were already made up on tin foil. Then put each one ( with the tin foil underneath) right on the pizza stone with a pizza peel so that it slides right off onto the stone. Be careful not to miss! Each pizza took about 7 to 10 minutes to cook. I like to cook mine until the cheese on top is starting to brown. The tin foil made it easy to get the pizzas both onto and off of the pizza stone. It worked flawlessly. I have also used parchment paper, but I worried about that catching on fire. I would recommend the tin foil method to anyone. Results : each pizza was truly some of the best I have had. The underneath crust was perfect. Browned on the bottom, and the crust crisp. I should mention these were thin-crust pizzas, which is what my family prefers. They tasted great, the smoky flavor was there but not overpowering, and in general, better than the pizzas I paid a pretty penny for in a fancy restaurant the night before! Hope this helps anyone out there who had trepidation about making pizza on the KK - it's really easy!

temp control It is also important to pay attention to how you light the charcoal. You definitely do not want to light all of your charcoal at once. You should light just a small, central portion of the charcoal, then once you are sure it is going well, close down the dampers. For 220 to 250, the top one should be about .5 to .75 of one complete turn open, and the bottom one should just have the tiniest sliver open. With this combination, I have a relatively easy time keeping it at 220 to 240 without hardly even having to look at the temp gauge. I have done cooks where I set this and watch it for an hour or so, then I go to bed and get some sleep! best pork shoulder in the world is done in the morning!

Temp Control This weekend, I did a great pork shoulder at 225 degrees for 15 hours, and I had a rock steady temperature for the entire time, with no Stoker or BBQ guru. I used Cowboy charcoal from Lowe's, and I set the bottom damper to barely open (just a sliver), and the top opened from the fully closed position only one half turn. Also for low and slows, its imperative to only light one section of the charcoal. I do that in the middle with a Mapp torch. It's also funny to see the guests faces when I use the Mapp torch to light my cigar afterwards! This seems to work well for me. It worked perfectly the other night, but I think it could be because it was rainy all weekend, and a little cool (for Texas). Dr. Charles Whittenburg Orthopedic Center of Arlington www.orthoarlington.com

refinished That really looks great. That's funny you did this, I have been thinking about doing the same thing, because the finish gets a little dull after a few weeks, even though I polished it beforehand. Did you spray the gloss on or paint it with a brush? It looks great! Dr. Charles Whittenburg Orthopedic Center of Arlington www.orthoarlington.com

Thanks Dennis! I just got my pair of new knobs and installed them. I bet they work a lot better - putting refractory material inside the knob was a great idea! Also, thank you so much for the new spring. Somewhere on here, I saw a thread about the spring material, being changed unbeknownst to Dennis, and the spring had different properties. I installed the new one, and immediately noticed a big difference. The old spring really seemed to apply a lot of tension to the lid when closed, even though I carefully tensioned it according to instructions, such that it was a little hard to close, and the spring would creak right before the latch was deployed. But then for some reason, it would not hold the lid in the fully open position when lifted? I dont know about the physics of springs, but it would seem that one that applied a lot of pressure in the closed position would easily hold the thing in the open position. There must be some variable in spring tech called "excursion" or something like that. (The distance each coil travels from the closed to the open position - seems like that would have an effect. Anyways, the new one makes an immediately noticeable difference. Thanks to Dennis for sending all that stuff. I know the poor guy must spend a mint in shipping for parts and stuff like that. I was not sure when I would get that, but I was surprised at the fast response regarding the knob problem too. People, if you have any reservations about sending this company your hard-earned money, don't be. I, and others here, have all received far better customer service from this one individual at this small company than I have experienced with just about any purchase I can think of that I have made in my lifetime. When I get some more money, maybe next year, I would love to get another Kamado to go with my first! Thank you Dennis. C. Whittenburg (Orthoman)

Pork Butt I bought Chris Lilly's book, and it was such an enjoyable read. He really brought through his writing the "feeling" that people must get when they visit the restaurants and take part in the history of this famous BBQ mecca. The pork butt recipe - please people, if you BBQ only one more thing on your Komodo this year, you must do this recipe! It is the single best thing I have done on mine so far! In fact, since trying this recipe, I have been doing a pork shoulder every week for the last month - we have done pork enchiladas, pork sandwiches with white BBQ sauce (recipe also in the book), pork tacos, etc. The meat is very versatile! It some of the best food I have had in a while, and for 20 bucks for the meat, you can feed your family for a week! Also on your must - do list - mix up a batch of the white BBQ sauce. I am from Texas where everything is red, so I am walking on the "dark side " , but the white sauce it so different and it is absolutely wonderful! It was worth the 25 bucks for the book just to get these legendary recipes for both of these items - the pulled pork and the white sauce. I know I will be making both from now on out!

I live in Keller, TX, a northern suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth Metro area. I am not sure how many people with KKs are in this area. I would love to get some more coconut charcoal. I would be willing to take 20 boxes. I take it that one pallet carries 40 boxes. Anyone want to share costs?

New Book Yes, just a sliver of the blue komodo with a few letters, definitely a KK in there, doing a nice hunk o meat!.

wow! I post a question, I have 4 answers in 10 minutes! Thanks guys! A great forum! Using this grill is really fun, but there is definitely a small learning curve and an "art" to it - however, it is forgiving of mistakes. It seems that even the "mistakes" taste better then my best days on my gasser! CW

Thanks Thanks for quick reply. I thought that might be one solution. The deal is, I have not tried lump yet, and I just need to. I would assume that lump is easier to light? Thanks!