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Loquitur

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Everything posted by Loquitur

  1. My KK is a 23, not a 32. I hope I'm correct in assuming the basket splitter for the 32 works essentially the same way as the 23. The charcoal basket for the 23 holds a lot of charcoal so I can just imagine how HUGE the charcoal basket is for the 32, making the splitter basket even more important with a 32 for small quick cooks. I usually use the 1/4 splitter basket for grilling unless I need more surface area and then its the 1/2 horizontal splitter basket. Whichever I'm using, I pile the charcoal high to keep the same distance between the coals and the grate as a full basket piled high. It cuts charcoal use dramatically. Susan
  2. Madmedik: When I cook on the low handles of the sear grill, I put the food on as soon as the Tru Tel is between 425 and 450 deg. Of course its much hotter down there close to the flames. These are fast cooks - less than 5 minutes total - and barely use any charcoal at all. Despite the government recommendations my family likes the beef burgers rare so I'm careful about my sources. For turkey burgers or pork burgers, I pull them over to the indirect side of the splitter basket after 2 min per side, close down the grill and let them continue to cook to the desired IT. I think I get the same effect cooking at a lower temp closer to the flames as bringing the KK to raging temps and cooking a distance from the flames except I use less energy not having to heat up and cool down all that charcoal to get those high temps.
  3. Don't forget that you can also use the basket splitter to limit your charcoal use by splitting it horizontally instead of vertically so that you have the full width of grilling surface but only half the depth of a full basket. Just did this the other night for a quick cook of 5 burgers way down low on the low handles of the sear grill. Susan
  4. I wish I knew why my computer has so much trouble with this new forum. Not only does it crash when I try to post a picture but I can't copy or paste or make the quote tab work either. Anyway... I think its a marketing mistake for the KK to be known as primarily for low and slow cooking. I do many more regular grilling sessions than low and slow and my favorite feature of the KK, besides its beauty ad durability, is its versatility in distancing the food from the fire. And I use it ALL from my steaks and burgers inches from the flames on the low handles of the sear grill to my chickens way up high in the dome. In fact, I would say that the least used cooking level in my KK is the main one except as a support for the sear grill on the tall handles. Add to that the options afforded by the basket splitter - I doubt there are many grills out there of any kind that can compete with this for regular grilling. And this is what distinguishes it from a cooking perspective from other ceramic cookers like the Big Green Egg which also does low and slow very well but doesn't offer these options for grilling. . Susan
  5. You don't need it with a KK. BUT I love having a Stoker for cooks like my Thanksgiving turkey, or a pork shoulder or brisket. It saves a ton of time in not having to wait around to bring the grill up to temp slowly and then stabilize without the food and then stabilize with the food, etc. before you can truly leave it alone. Plus its so easy to see what's going on with the temps in the grill with a glance at a computer screen inside the house, not to mention its a very cool toy. I wouldn't be without it. Susan
  6. Amazing exercise of creativity and execution - and I'll bet your friends ad family are loving you!!
  7. My order hasn't arrived yet. The website says about 6 weeks so I should be receiving it soon.
  8. Loquitur

    Ribeyes

    Gorgeous steaks!! What level did you cook them on and at what temp?
  9. Loquitur

    Porterhouse

    One of our members once posted a link to a Heston Blumenthal video on You Tube where he has an interesting demonstration on the benefits of resting your steak. I don't know how to post the link but the title of it is How to Cook Like Heston S01E01Beef and the demo is at 4:25 into the video. Sure convinced me!!! Susan
  10. Loquitur

    Porterhouse

    Norm: Gorgeous pictures - especially the one in the flames!!
  11. Loquitur

    Porterhouse

    Tony: At what temp would you recommend Norm start the reverse sear? To be honest, every time I've tried the reverse sear I've ruined the meat by overcooking it. But then again, I'm not starting the reverse sear at 90 or 100 deg, which is probably where I need to be. I suspect Norm likes his steak just a hair more done than me since his 2.5 min/ side on the lower level was a little too rare but my 2 min per side on top of the coals is just right.
  12. Loquitur

    Pork Chops

    Norm: I'm hoping to do my cutie pie chops from Tony's Swabian Hall pigs exactly like that once they arrive - they look wonderful!!
  13. I did some experimenting with the wide shallow basket this week, which is the two horizontal splitter grates in the basket creating a wide basket which is one half the depth of the full basket. You do not need the vertical center piece. I did four large chicken leg quarters at 410 deg for 1 hr 10 min and had roughly one third of the charcoal left after the cook. Then yesterday I did a 2/3 wide shallow basket for burgers. My husband invited two of his buddies over after golf for burgers and the Masters. The 1/4 splitter basket is too small for 4 large burgers but I didn't need the full wide shallow basket for them and wanted room to heat pretzel buns without a any flame under them. So I filled 2/3 of the width of the shallow basket with lump and then propped the solid metal piece up against the coals to contain them. This gave me a perfect area for the buns. I fired up the grill, put the buns in and realized that I forgot my tongs when the Tru Tel was at 300 deg. and climbing. I was gone less than a minute and when I got back, the Tru Tel was pushing 625 deg!! So I closed the back door, front door and spun down the top praying that my buns were OK. I was able to get it down to 425 quickly and put the burgers on. The buns were fine and everything came out great. They were the short rib blend LaFrieda burgers and the guys loved them. The picture below show how much charcoal I used. This is an under 5 five minute cook once the burgers go on and I burned extra due to the high temp. But I still had most all of it left. Also is a picture of two rib eyes on a 1/4 splitter basket at 425 Tru Tel. Having a problem with the pictures. Will try again later. Can somebody tell me where the FAQ is so I can see why I'm having a problem posting pictures? I know I've seen it but I can't find it and a search won't accept FAQ since its less than 4 letters. Susan
  14. Murray's included some La Quercia products when I had the cheese and charcuterie clubs. The prosciutto was wonderful!! I can't say I enjoyed the lardo spread as well. I don't have any fat phobias and truly appreciate chicken skin, rib eyes and other fatty cuts but neither my husband nor myself could get by the mouth feel of that product.
  15. Oh boy!!! I think Swabian Hall is gonna get a lot of orders from us KK folk! I'm already thinking of my shipment as "cutie pie chops". I've spent a lot of vacations in Spain over the years and always used to buy the Iberico pork, which is from a special breed of black pig that has a natural diet of acorns. It was soooo delicious. I know how great pork can be and can't wait for my order to arrive.
  16. Norm is reminding me about another good thing about the pork tenderloin cook, part direct and part indirect with the splitter basket. I was able to monitor the internal temp of the tenderloin the whole way with my Thermoworks Chef Alarm once I moved it over to the indirect side of the basket. I had the empty side of the basket in line with the probe port and since there was no fire there and the overall temp of the grill was not that hot, there was no issue about me frying my probe. I definitely would have lost the probe if I had draped it over the hot side of the basket. Its so easy to cook to the perfect state of doneness without having to guess what will happen to the final temp after the reverse sear. Also there is not so much carryover cooking after finishing over the empty basket since the heat from the initial sear has already pretty much dissipated whereas with the reverse sear, you nave a lot more carryover cooking after the food is off the grill from the intense heat at the end which needs to be accurately predicted to avoid overcooking the meat. But I don't see why you couldn't do a reverse sear with the splitter basket, indirect first and direct at the end, if you wanted to.
  17. I want to minimize the amount of wasted coal. One option here for a gentle first cook is to use the heat deflector but it might use up a bunch of coal getting the grill heat soaked at 300 which goes against my goal of a quick week-night cook. My experience to minimize the amount of charcoal used for higher temp cooks is to cook close to the coals so you never have to create all that energy to reach 700 deg temps and then turn around and try to shut it down quickly. And, if you tried to sear a steak for 2 min a side on the low handles of the sear grill at 700 deg, it would be incinerated. You can get the same effect close to the coals at a much lower temp than searing at a high temp with the meat higher up in the grill. If you like to cook at those high temps its great that the KK handles it so easily but there is a price to pay and that is burning a lot of charcoal. I put my steaks and burgers on when the Tru Tel reaches 425 to 450, get a beautiful sear and use very little charcoal - maybe 1/4 of the charcoal in the 1/4 splitter basket. If you use a metal heat deflector, like an old pizza pan, the grill will come up to temp a lot faster than using the heavy ceramic heat deflectors that came with the KK. Susan
  18. Yes. My steaks are done after the sear on the low handles of the sear grill at about Tru Tel 450 deg. But if you have a thicker steak or prefer it more well done it will finish indirect on the empty side of the basket. I did this with a pork tenderloin the other night at 325 Tru Tel - a couple of minutes sear per side and then moved it to the empty half and finished it there in less than 10 min at 140 deg. It came out beautifully.
  19. Thanks for the reference Tony. I ordered 6 2 chop packs. I thought the prices and shipping charges were very good for a specialty product.
  20. So how do you join this Club!!!
  21. After rereading my post I don't want to leave the impression that the Stoker causes the temp to rise. But the temp can rise while using the Stoker from things like leaving the lid open too long during a cook or starting too hot a fire before hooking the Stoker up so the Stoker needs to wait for the temps to come down. All the problems I had with Stoker probes were all my fault and I've learned alot from those mistakes.
  22. Very interesting information, Firemonkey. I contacted Rock's BBQ to find out if the Type K thermocouples would also work with the older model Stokers and he said they would as long as the Stoker was not running the .5 firmware. This was shipped with the Stokers from May 2006 to February 2007. This is not an inexpensive mod,however, since I think I would have to buy the $40 type K adapter from Rock for each probe. But I did find lots of probes that go to 750 deg that are not expensive and even some that measure up to 2000 deg!! I've fried a lot of probes in the four plus years I've had the Stoker, mostly dropping them inside the KK while trying to maneuver them with heavy gloves. Now I load the grill at low temps, like 200 deg so I don't need gloves regardless of what temp I will be cooking at, and haven't dropped a probe since. One Thanksgiving I lost three probes all at once when I pushed them to the outside of the KK while they were still threaded thru the port and, while my back was turned, the tension on the wires pulled them all back into the grill. It was the horrible smell that caused me to turn around in horror! Also, I've melted the coating on the wires where the heat from the deflector comes up around the edges of the KK. But these probes continue to work despite the disfigurement. So I would be very interested in a sheathing that would offer a little more protection since I often cook in the 450 to 475 range, which could easily creep up to 500+.
  23. I've done 425 for a couple of hours with a 5 cm Stoker fan without any problems except I went through a LOT of charcoal. I did need to open the top vent another turn.
  24. Tony: It's so much easier just to swap out the baskets. The one down side is that you always will have a basket to store. I keep whatever one I'm not using, usually the full basket, with whatever charcoal is leftover in it, in a dedicated space in a large deck box next to the KK and tuck an old cheap old plastic tablecloth over it so it doesn't get wet if any rain leaks in the box. It takes seconds to change the baskets and is much less messy than trying to move leftover charcoal between baskets. I do give the basket in the KK a shake before I lift it out to get rid of loose ash but that's about it. I'm able to reuse the leftover charcoal in the stored basket when I go to use it again with no trouble at all. Susan
  25. Dan: My hat is off to you and also Tony, Hector, Peter, Firemonkey and all our other members who post those fantastic, mouth watering pizzas cooked on the KK. I wouldn't mind waiting for the KK to preheat for an hour or more for that knowing that the radiant hot heat off the dome is so important to the cooking process for Neapolitan style pizza. That is a specialty indeed and a unique feature of the KK. I just want prospective owners as well as our new owners to know that you can do a wonderful every day type cook on the KK from start to finish in well less than an hour. And, I'm not missing out on my adult beverages cooking fast either!! Susan
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