Forrest

Boneless leg of lamb.

That looks lights out, well done!


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Fat side down in the KK gives moist and tender non-greasy results.

I’m more of a take the fat cap off kind of guy. More smoke, more bark, and Boston Butt’s have plenty of intramuscular fat anyways. The whole fat up bastes your meat thing is mostly a myth. If you place some pieces of fat just above the coals they will drip down burn off and give your food good flavor.


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”You can prolong it by spritzing the meat with a liquid to cooldown the surface temp”

Also every time you open your lid you are letting out precious heat and condensation that the KK does such a good job of retaining. I have a feeling the need to spritz is going to be completely eliminated with my future 21” Supreme.


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Peach wood smoked pulled pork, used the Syzygies smoke pot modified method.




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+1 for Pliny


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Wow you ended up going Serious Big Bad! Congrats your grill might end up on the same boat as mine.


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Peach wood homemade charcoal yielded from the modified Syzygies smoking method via the tin foil pouch. Couldn’t be happier with the results. The food is resting tell dinner can’t wait to see how it tastes!



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I’m 42.  We have you back.  

I guess that means you must buy a serious big bad now??? That’s how it works right?!


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This foil pouch has me 2nd guessing if I even need a smoke pot now. Literally turned out the most beautiful best smelling smoke like this for 3 hours.



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Good Choice!

Oh My God! These are some of the most beautiful cookers I have ever seen! I can’t wait.


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make sure to keep the box in the middle

Thanks for all the tips! You guys are awesome!


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I’m doing a Boston Butt today for the in-laws who are in town. I’ve read a couple places that people have had good success with the Syzygies Smoke Pot method by only using a foil wrap around their wood chunks with a couple of holes in the bottom of the foil wrap. I’m testing this method this morning and I’m shocked! Within a matter of 15 minutes I’m getting this absolutely gorgeous thin blue smoke profile. I’m using three large peach wood chunks and it smells wonderfully too. There was never thick billowy smoke at the beginning like I’m used to when I just throw the wood chunks by themselves on top of the coals. I guess we will see how long this smoke runs.



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So I was reading the KK manual and it recommends applying a car wax in the maintenance section. I was wondering what car wax do y’all use/recommend for your KK?

 

Also I’m assuming it is inevitable that some of the acrylic grout in between the pebbles/tiles is going to get the wax as well, I’m assuming this is not harmful to the grout?

 

I saw this Ammo NYC wax featured on the “Rum and Cook” YouTube channel, he uses it for his 32 Big Bad, anyone else use it?

 

 

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I’ll let you know how it goes.

Please post pictures!


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This will not be your last home but this KK will be with you the rest of your life. You may want to save the base and the top/ramp of the shipping crate so that you can easily move this to your next home.

This is really great advice, I will keep portions from the crate for future moves, thanks.


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Given that the cast iron DO is a lot cheaper than the KK cold smoker, start there and see how you like it.

I’m definitely going to build a smoke pot, I haven’t decided wether I’m going to go Stainless or cast iron. I might try both and see what yields better results. TBH the flour paste is the biggest barrier for me, I just don’t want to add that to all the other prep that is required for a BBQ cook, so I might start with stainless and see if it works out.

Additionally, I’m definitely getting the KK cold/hot smoker. The smoke it produces in Dennis’s videos looks brilliant. I’m still not totally understanding the concept of why it produces excellent smoke. But I’m sure the taste of the food will do the talking.

I’m a fan of wood on top of the coals and put the meat on after it clears up. Maybe I will have to do a head to head battle on these methods. Maybe even make a YouTube video out of it. Thanks for all the ideas thus far.


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2 hours ago, Pequod said:

 I'd expect you'd have plenty of room for all of the charcoal you need + 2 quart pot.

I'm more concerned with the fact that the pot goes right on top of the fire acting as a barrier for the heat to get around, kind of the same reason why no one recommends using the factory included KK heat deflectors down at the firebox.

2 hours ago, Pequod said:

"everything precisely wrong -- drilled the holes in the wrong place"

So the current proper method as I understand is three 1/8" holes in the center of the bottom (facing the charcoal). Is that right? Also I am curious what you smoke-potters think of the MSR pot with the holes in the locking lid and then inverting it upside down towards the charcoal? Do you think the stainless steel would work well or is cast iron required? Also is the volume of the smoke pot an important component to making it work well? I am wanting to get a small pot for my 21" with its smaller charcoal basket size I don't want the pot to take up too much space in the charcoal basket.

10 hours ago, Syzygies said:

I devised the smoke pot many years ago.

Thank you for your contribution with this. I’m excited to try this as I’ve seen many people say it has taken their bbq to the next level.

 

10 hours ago, Syzygies said:

There's an art to getting a smoke pot going. I've mastered it (school of hard knocks).

Can you share your method of madness? I’m curious what tips and tricks you use. Also what is your opinion on using the stainless MSR pot with locking lid?

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I'm curious to hear everyone's opinion on getting the absolute cleanest best tasting smoke in a Kamado. I think a big reason people don't like the taste of some charcoal produced BBQ is due to the mistake of adding dirty, thick, creosote, volatile smoking wood smoke to the food during the cooking process. I have seen many methods popular here within this forum for producing clean smoke:

1- Throwing wood on top of the hot burning coals and waiting for the thick white smoke to clear up and burn off all of the gross tasting volatile compounds in the wood before putting your meat on the grill. The advantage I see to this is that you get extremely clean smoke. The disadvantage I see with this method is that it's hard to control how long the wood will burn and it may burn up too fast not providing you with enough smoke throughout the length of the cook, for this reason I believe this method is better with larger wood chunks for extended smoke times.

2- Building a smoke pot made out of cast iron with three 1/8" holes drilled on the bottom and a flour paste glue to secure the lid or an MSR stainless pot with the holes drilled in the lid for the same purpose. I have never used this method but as I understand the advantage/concept of this is to smolder the wood in an oxygen restricted environment and create pressurized smoke to shoot out the bottom of the holes back into the charcoal fire burning off the volatile compounds in the wood within the charcoal fire before the volatile compounds make there way to your food. More advantages as I understand is that this method does a good job of producing thin blue smoke for extended periods of time and creates a little pile of homemade charcoal within the pot. The disadvantages of this method that I can see is I've heard throwing the pot on top of your charcoal fire can potentially extinguish your fire, it is also creating a barrier for the heat to enter into the dome.

3- Putting the wood chunks on bottom of the charcoal. This method is pioneered by Harry Soo a BBQ champion (he uses Weber Smoky Mountain's). I have ran meat probes at the bottom of my charcoal basket and it takes hours to get the temp at the bottom of the charcoal basket to get above 400 degrees when you are cooking at BBQ temperatures in a Kamado. Kamado's are just so well insulated that such little burning charcoal is needed to keep them at BBQ temps that I believe the smoking wood has a hard time getting to proper smoking temperature at the bottom of the basket. Steven Raichlen suggests that wood smoke production burning/smoldering at 590 degrees Fahrenheit is the ideal temperature for producing good tasting smoke. The advantages I see with wood chunks on the bottom is the wood smolders for a long time producing smoke over a long period of time and the smoke is somewhat purified when it travels through the burning coal burning off some of the volatile compounds.

4- Using the Hot/Cold smoker that KK manufactures. This method I'm very new to. Many have touted it as producing the cleanest smoke possible, others have said it is hard to keep lit. Dennis Linkletter tried to explain the philosophy of the Hot/Cold smoker to me and I don't know if I completely understand how it produces the best smoke. Dennis recommends microwaving your wood for 5 minutes to dry it out first before putting it in the hot/cold smoker. If I understand right Dennis said that it smolders the wood at low temperatures and the wood alcohol/volatile compounds in the wood burn out in the wood at a very slow rate (not all at once like if you throw your wood on top of the burning charcoal). Apparently a lot of the volatile compounds burn off at the sight of the cold smoker in very small doses that won't flavor your food badly. The advantages to this is that it is an external unit allowing you to have complete control over the smoke production during a cook. You can add smoke through the entire cook and stop it at anytime. The downsides I see is it does add some additional airflow to the cooker but this probably can be compensated by closing your vents more (the smoke comes through above the charcoal rather then through the charcoal so it probably doesn't fuel the fire a ton). The only thing I don't quite understand is does the hot/cold smoker really get the temperature of the wood you are supplying it to high enough temps to get the best cleanest tasting smoke? Curious to hear your thoughts.

So let me know what method do you use to provide the absolute best tasting smoke to your cooks? What method do you think works best and why? I'm nerdy about this stuff so the more details and technical you are the better, thanks.

 

2 hours ago, DennisLinkletter said:

I'll zip one out to you.

 

Thanks a bunch!

I've seen mention of a "KK manual" in a couple of threads here. Is there a place where you can download the KK user manual? I haven't been able to find one anywhere online. TIA

I am very pleased to say, Forrest, that you won't need that chimney configuration to light your KK.

This is actually one of the few times I’ve ever used the chimney (I wanted an even bed of hot ashed over coals on top for the caveman sear. I normally just light a small portion of the charcoal with my grill Gun inside the Kamado itself.




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Well I dropped some serious coin today (for me at least). If you are a young grasshopper like myself it is good to compartmentalize your funds when you got it. I set most of the cost aside for my 21” KK with a gift card to use once my KK is ready for the 2 month boat ride. So stoked for this cooker!



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Steven Raichlen’s caveman reverse seared choice grade NY Strip W/pepper medley (I added some Serrano’s for heat). Washed down with some Yuengling Lager and Heady Topper IPA. I can not wait to get my Komodo Kamado 21”!






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