David Chang

it's not a perfect fit due to the cover plate touching the fire ring. i would need to make a new cover plate to make it nice and neat. but i doubt i'll make one..

well, i spoke too soon. it looked good in the office. but when i took it home, i didn’t consider that the fire ring gives me no clearance for the cover plate. part of the edge is too long to rest on the basket evenly. its not a total fail, i think it still works. but in the horizontal position, i would need to fashion a new cover plate or make a foil drip tray as shown… in the 30/70 position, the cover plate needs to be grinded slightly to sit properly. in the 50/50 position, it sits ok. unfortunately i cant bring the grill to the machinist to test out. i’m going to run a small pork butt tomorrow, see how it goes in the 30/70 position. curious to know if that little charcoal will last a hot and fast cook with no refill.

this is a 19 TT charcoal splitter mod for vertical and horizontal splits. this is simply welding 304 ss hooks on the top of the splitter plate and grinding out grooves for the cover plate to sit in the horizontal position. the vertical split is not compromised. the hooks are placed in a 30/70 position but 40/60 or 50/50 splits can be achieved, but only held by one hook. so the same equipment is now modded to place rotisserie charcoal parallel but away from the meat as well as low n slow in the vertical position.

i'm not familiar with the 42 but it looks like you set it up with very little trouble. what did you cook on this setup?

reminds me to take some out of the freezer. bone in chops are so much better than boneless.

so i ordered the moulin salt and pepper grinders from weber workshops when i ordered my coffee grinder. it took ages and these arrived first. apparently, all their stuff is in high demand and wait time is in the months. in full ww fashion, these are probably the most premium s+p grinders i've had the pleasure of using. a simple 1/8 turn yields a lot of ground. so much that you need to really need to unlearn all the muscle memory from previous grinders that required lots and lots of rotations. one of the reasons i got these is the internals are all stainless and wont rust out if i leave it outside from a night of cooking. the salt burrs are ceramic as opposed to metal for corrosion resistance. i used the sample salt it came with but in larger grind settings, some of the salt just came out by shaking, so i would probably put in bigger rocks. they are expensive, but hopefully the last pair of s+p grinders i will need to buy for a long time.. these are made in taiwan by the way. i am completely blown away by the quality..

does anyone here use a flambadou? do you have any tips on what types of fats to use and ones to avoid? i have duck, beef, and pork tallow on hand as well as butter. will it also work if using hard fats from pork or beef trimmings? i recently got one in the mail from the uk but haven't had time to use it.

some recent pizza oven cooks while i wait for my kk charcoal basket to be modded..

@tekobo too late. already took it to the shop for work. but the mod is not destructive. i just hope the guy understood what i wanted because i don't really speak cantonese and he doesn't really speak english. 😄

@Poochie looking at this again for the 19, i want to mod the existing charcoal splitter instead of making new ones to fit it horizontally and vertically. it will somewhat be a 60:40 split. two u shaped hooks on the splitter to grab onto the charcoal basket on the 40 side. small notches cut to fit the shaped plate to fit horizontally on the 60 side.. there will be a gap between the splitter and the plate, but i probably will use a foil tray anyway and shape the foil to fill that gap. the 40 side is small for a charcoal basket but this is just for rotisserie cooks and the last two rotisserie cooks used very little charcoal. green markings in the attachments show where notches and hooks will be placed. what do you guys think?

i just roasted a shawarma using the 19 splitter in the horizontal position, but its not wide enough to hold onto the sides properly. i am bringing the parts to a metalshop tomorrow and see if they can fabricate a horizontal splitter, and maybe one that is width adjustable so i can move it forward and backwards in the basket.. running a rotisserie with the basket split vertically is strange to me…

i couldnt get the bubble pocket the pita. so they look like taco bell gorditas…

pork shawarma. whole wheat pita bread. not bad. cooked relatively fast.

i have a fireboard 2 pro. i chose this mainly for the large easy to read screen and the use of an external fans with guru ports. but for probes, i prefer thermoworks probes, they are much better quality than fireboard. avoid fireboard accessories. mostly garbage.

i used to make pizza on the kamado jr. smaller than the kk 16. it's kind of difficult..you have to get very close to the fire. it hurts like hell.

@tekobonice fish basket. i could see the turbot finished off basted in flaming tallow with a flambadou. @Poochieturbot will be similar to alaskan halibut. but turbot is smaller, and the texture will be more delicate.

@tekobo this is chicken fried chicken. thank you for making caesar salad from scratch and not use dressing from a bottle. chicken fried steak is fantastic with the gravy.

tonight was a series of high temperature bakes starting with: 1. levain chocolate chip cookies. baked on two levels. https://www.joshuaweissman.com/post/levian-chocolate-chip-cookies this was underbaked but i finished them in the oven. tastes good, but tastes better from the original levain bakery in nyc. 2. originally we planned on making pizza using vito's double poolish dough, but we changed it up to turkish pide. this was the wrong dough to use. i need a thinner, less leavened dough. although i took the kk to 550, i pushed it to 650 because it was just taking so long. at the end, i think i will leave these types of bakes for the wood fired pizza oven. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Hd6ZzKgBM 3. sourdough loaf. didn't want to deal with ice cubes so i used my trusty ceramic cloche. not enough clearance on the upper level so i used the main level grate with the baking stone underneath. came out ok. bottom got charred a bit. probably would have been avoided using upper grate..

so dome and stone temp at 550? stone at upper grate i presume..

Nice, i'm probably making pizza tomorrow. The question is whether or not to do it on the KK because I haven't made pizza on it..

yup, roberta's pizza recipe is really easy. i'm doing vito's double ferment poolish recipe right now... second ferment is in the fridge and i hope i used a big enough bowl to last until tomorrow morning. it's already huge..

@alimac23 the small one is an Katsushige Anryu AS Petty. it's pretty much a paring knife at 80mm..

a guest of mine asked for grilled chicken ass. i never refuse a challenge.. and grilled picanha for the first time today . it was delicious..

recipe here: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-hot-dog-buns-recipe i used milk instead of water. whole wheat flour instead of ap. whole wheat levain. no potato flour. no powdered milk. shaping could have been better. first time making these as hot dog buns are impossible to find in hong kong. upper grate. no stone. 350 was target temp. 20 min bake time. 25 min actual. had the kk at 365 but once i put in the loaf, temp floated around 335-340. maybe my sheet pan obstructed air flow, or the fact i used half a basket of charcoal. added extra 5 min in bake time as i undershot the target temp.

yeah i have some cast iron, but i prefer (or spoiled) by the lightweight agility of carbon steel. the smallest finex cast iron sauce pot i have is as heavy as the largest carbon steel roasters by blanc. yeah they are expensive, but my regret is not buying quality pans early in my life. i must have spent more $ on garbage pans and knives in my past than all the cs pans i've bought recently.