Beeps

I have such fond memories of cooking turkeys on my KK.

Here's the link to my first efforts, they turned out well! (need to do it again)

http://www.komodokamado.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3324

Thanks for the tips, guys.

Current favorite recipe for burgers:

1/2 lb pound brisket

1/2 lb pound flank steak

1/2 lb short rib

All into a grinder or food processor. After meat is ground, mix in 2 tablespoons red miso for umami madness, and form into 1/4 lb patties.

Sorry I don't have a finished burger photo, they don't last very long.

I had wrapped mine in foil for a while to keep it clean of drips and juices.

Due to the sheer amount of use however, it became a nuisance to re wrap foil to keep the heat deflector 'clean'.

Now mine is a beautiful black just like the rest of the interior. I flip it over after cooks, with vents wide open to burn off the bits.

I think being lazy was my motivation

Been a while since last post, been cooking a lot here's a catch up post of some cooks! Thanks for making these forums informative and fun guys.

Pork Loins with Homemade Soy Marinade! (and one wrapped in bacon)

Fresh Tuna Steak Sear with Honey Mustard Glaze:

Chicken Mojo Criollo @ 225 degrees for 2 hours (Homemade marinade ala Gary Wiviott)

Thanks mguerra, per your post was delicious:

I have done a couple turkeys, I agree with using the stone.

I spatchcocked the birds but have not tried the bird intact. I can't comment on the whole bird. With spatchcocking, the cooking time was surprisingly fast, gravy is smoky to echo mguerra. I personally like it, but my wife doesn't.

Here was my post: viewtopic.php?t=3324

Reverse seared some filets!!:

Hey! Another Bay Area KK!

I'm sure you'll be fine. I was nervous at first too, and my wife thought I was nuts. But it's pretty easy to get going and it was a lot of fun for me to experiment and practice. Everything that comes off the cooker tastes great! There is a lot of good info here on the forums for you.

Congrats on the cooker!

These look delicious!! I have to get around to doing pizzas.

Noob Question: How long does the stone take to heat? Looks like a pretty good fire going underneath, full basket?

First Brisket! Used Claude's Marinade on a recommendation, left it on overnight, first time for that too!:

It turned out pretty well. The ends were a bit dry but not the middle. Practice makes perfect

Here might be a different off the beaten path item, Soup! I started with a 2/3's heirlooms with 1/3 romas:

You know what's coming next! Smoked and grilled them until soft

At this point softened up 1 onion finely diced with 3 cloves of garlic, added 2 cups of chicken stock after translucent, brought temp up and added tomatoes and took off the heat. A minute with the hand blender made this:

Garnished with a bit of cream, pepper cherry tomatoes and thyme. The brisket was ok, the soup was amazing! Nice smoky flavor with the tomatoes.

Tried out Sanny's post and it was wonderful!!! (Salmon is my favorite) Thank you for posting, I have tried Pyro's sauce and it is fantastic:

Nice TV Remote, I know (Bacon and Brussel sprouts and mushroom risotto!)

Larry: Your birds looked beautiful! I'll have to give the soup recipe a shot with the remaining bird leftovers that I didn't dump some Sweet Baby Ray's on.

mguerra: I liked the looks of your recipe, I'll have to give it a shot next time I do turkey.

Sanny: Isn't Cook's Illustrated awesome? I love that resource.

Thanks for sharing all, hope you had a wonderful day!

I only had the chance to take 2 pictures in the fray:

Here's when I cracked the lid about 30 mins in to check temps. I was afraid I was going to need to double stack the birds, but 2 15 lbs fit with no problem:

Leggy goodness, meat was about the same as before, moist and tender:

Thanks for all the help. I hope everyone had a wonderful day. I think next I will try pizzas!

LarryR, I'm not sure why I didn't think of that. I'm going to dig around to see if I can't find a pan, that's a very simple solution.

Mike:

I think the original post can be way better, thanks for the feedback. I'll update my post. Where part = Tablespoon so:

4 Tbs Thyme Leaves

2 Tbs Sage leaves

1 Tbs Rosemary Leaves

1 Tbs shallot chopped (or 1/2 small onion)

1 Tbs lemon zest

1 Tbs dijon mustard

For the above, 2-3 gloves of garlic. If doubling the recipe, 4-6 cloves of garlic to taste. Depending on your bird size you may need to make more, which is what I had to do, so that's why I put it into parts. I think that backfired on me and certainly hurt the clarity of my post.

I got the recipe from Cooks Illustrated where I could not link the actual recipe as I subscribe but they do not allow links to recipes outside their forums. Maybe I can copy and paste but I'm not sure I'm breaking rules.

I'll email them. It's fun stuff I just dumped my birds into the brine!! Pics inc.

Congrats on your cooker, looks amazing and so do your ribs!

Thanks for the kind replies!

Thanksgiving is a couple days away! My plan from what I've learned with everyone's kind comments are:

2 15 lb turkeys, in brine for 12-16 hours with 1/2 cup of sugar and salt based on feedback here and research. I think I didn't let it go long enough with the dry run bird.

I will dry them in the fridge for 24 hours. The herb paste recipe is amazing, I have done it with a chicken as well and the results are incredible.

I plan to heat soak my cooker before I put them on (it's cold here recently), and plan to allow 3 hours of cooking time so probably putting them on at 2pm for serving at 530 with 30 mins of resting before carving.

The thing I'm not sure about is I will have to double stack the birds with the top 2 grills, so the bottom one may get soaked with the drippings of the top bird? Not sure if that will just make the bottom bird totally awesome or fail.

I may be able to get both on the same level of grill. We'll see!

Edit: I noticed in my excitement of the original post I butchered Drunk_J's format so I'll edit to conform.

So what's your brine recipe? I've seen 1/2 cup sea salt per gallon water called a "light brine". This is what I always use (with 1/4 cup sugar), and I haven't found birds get too salty, even overnight. People also use 1 cup/gallon, but for me that's too much.

A possible shortcut to air drying is to use a hair dryer. I've done this with other birds, e.g. before deep-frying a duck for Thai cooking. (For another cooking application, Dennis likes to use an old hair dryer as a very directed fan after lighting charcoal.)

That could be it, I was using 1 cup per gallon. I like the sugar idea too! I think my wife would freak out if she saw me using a hair dryer on a bird haha.

Thanks for the link LarryR, that's a great resource about brining and how to better do that.

Thanksgiving Dry run -

I'm hosting Thanksgiving for my family this year. There's going to be 30 people here. I wanted to see if I could grill the turkey. I bought a small test bird for the first pass (15 lbs).

Recipe:

Brine 1 Turkey in any manner you choose. I have tended to shy away from heavy salt

Remove from brine pat dry and let air dry in refrigerator for 24 hours. Air drying I've found produces extremely crispy skin and worth the time and effort. I doesn't stink up your fridge by doing this if you've cleaned the bird well.

After dried, breast side down remove the backbone, flip and bust the chest bone with a knife.

Herb Paste:

4 Parts Thyme Leaves

2 Parts Sage leaves

1 Part Rosemary Leaves

1 Part shallot chopped (or 1/2 small onion)

1 Part lemon zest

1 Part dijon mustard

For each part, 2-3 garlic cloves

Put all above in processor and drizzle olive oil in to make the emulsion.

Rub this all over the cavity between the skin of the breasts, legs and wings, then rub the remaining all over the outside of the bird.

The starting dome temp was 400 deg F and I left it there for one hour, then shut off the vents. Let sit for 40 more minutes at 350 and it was done, 160 deg F internal temp. I put hickory chips in 2 times at start and when I closed the vents. Pretty easy and it cooked fast.

Here's the results from this morning, I'm really surprised how fast it was done:

First peek of daylight. This is at 1.5 hours, I took it off 10 mins later.

Carved up:

I ordered my KK from Dennis during a hectic project at work and I have just now got the time to get going on it and I figured I would share my experience and adventure.

Delivery Day! The driver was intensely curious about what was in the crate.

Got the first part of the crate off. Of course I didn't read till after this was all over that the crate comes apart in one piece. One of my neighbors came over and he couldn’t believe it. ‘This is a………cooker?’

Now for the hard part - getting it through the garden path.

Many boards were sacrificed in the move. Sucker is heavy.

Done deal! All assembled and in it's final resting place. If I ever decide to sell the house, this is coming with it.

At first cook, I grilled up a bag of chicken with a simple dry rub from this post -

http://www.komodokamado.com/forum/viewt ... sc&start=0

It was beautiful last night and outdoor temps were under 100 deg F so I went and got some fresh King Salmon and dumped it into brine for 20 mins:

Got some cedar planks soaking, fresh citrus from the garden and some dill:

All assembled, zested the limes and finely chopped the dill, applied to the steaks after soaking them with the freshly squeezed lime juice, salt and peppered up:

Got the fire going at a low temp:

I think I left them on a bit too long, was hoping for an opaque medium rare center, check out the juicy fat!!

Here's when I pulled them! The texture of the fishy had a nice crust from the outside, but almost creamy on the inside, very moist. It was almost spreadable, skin just fell off:

Mmmmmmm!! Wait, what's that biting my leg?!

Eva of course:

It been a good time

Hello everyone!!

Dennis - Thank you for your outstanding help and service. I am a BBQ noob and your suffering through my battery of questions and concerns was very much appreciated.

Thanks to all making a great forums community, I've been learning a lot. I'm still working and have questions on temp control, high temps and doing the low and slow.

P.S. I live in Napa, Ca, so if anyone is in the market for a Komado and in the area that would like a preview, please feel free to shoot me a message.

I'll post up pics soon.

Thanks for the post guys! Just starting out and this has been very helpful.