Hi Everyone
Our KK (23" Cobalt Blue Tiles) arrived a few weeks ago now, and we couldn't be happier.
In terms of a name - it was pretty easy.... lots of things in Australia are called Bluey (Blue cattle dogs, blue bottle jelly fish, blue ring octupus, you can even get into a blue at the pub (aka fight), and my personal favourite is people with red hair are called bluey, and every name tends to end with a "y" Johnny, Mikey, Issy etc.....). So bluey it is....
After tracking the journey every few minutes (literally) for ~month from Indonesia to Singapore to Melbourne and finally to Sydney the delivery day finally came.
Unboxing the KK was pretty easy, was like a kid in a candy shop....
Unboxing complete, now to get her into position.
We decided to take the top off. Process was really simple and once you took the top off and removed all the internal moving the KK into position was a breeze!
Daisy chained a few planks of ply and it moved easily into it's new purpose built home (NB: Thanks to this forum we choose not to put it on our new deck, with lots of white, and instead built a new mini deck just for the KK. Based on first few weeks I think it was a very wise decision)....
Relatively simple move with my son (15 - big strapping lad) & I up one step...
And there she is.... In position and looking great.
You know the saying. "Happy wife, happy life".... We were tossing up between a KJ Big Joe 3 or the KK, and in her words "The KJ looks 'meh', the KK is very sexy"... Who am I to argue....
After unboxing we did the curing process which was really easy. Started at ~9am in the morning and took it really slow, ramping up 50F every hour until we reached ~500 - 550. We had some venting on the top of the KK but no big issues. A simple touch up with the supplied grout and she was good to go.
So now onto the fun stuff. Our first cooks. An when I say first cook, I mean first cooks. I love my cooking, but have never owned a smoker / ceramic cooker or any low & slow BBQ previously so we were entering unchartered territory. Previous BBQ was a "gasser" (never heard that expression before this forum!). Which was fine but pretty boring.
Cook 1 - Rotisserie chicken.
Given our amateur status, we thought we would start of something simple. So chicken it was... Got the KK up to temp and attached the rotisserie to the motor (pretty easy to do) an dafter ~1hr we had our first taste of cooking with the KK. It was pretty amazing....
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Cook 2 - 8 hour slow cooked leg of lamb
5 hours in the KK @250f then put it into the double drip pan, added some red wine, herbs, stock and covered with foil for another 2 hours then rested for 1 hour and fall off the bone lamb for dinner. Pretty good for first attempt....
Cook 3 - quick grill of marianted chicken breast.
Had some left over charcoal from the previous night, so thought I would try and see how I could reuse on a simple & quick grill. Pretty good, although next time I'll cook it on the lower level.
Cook 4 - Pizza
We bought a second charcoal basket, which i wasn't entirely sure i would use, but it was already proved useful. After reading the posts on this forum on best set up for pizza I hand selected some nice big chunks of Kamado Joe Big Block charcoal placed them into the second basket and then light in a few places (NB: I'm using the JJ George grill torch to get it going). Let the KK get up to 450f, added the heat deflector and the pizza stone (NB: Both we pre-heated in the oven). Added some pizza's for the boys and they were pretty good, but it took a while.
I removed the heat deflector as I think this was consuming too much energy and cranked the KK up to 650f and the pizzas were awesome. Faster cook time, better crust and all round hit with the family!!
Cook 5 - Beef short ribs
You read lots on how amazing the beef short ribs are, so we gave them a crack. We got some nice Angus beef short ribs from the butcher and the young fella got into the process of preparing the seasoning.
Set them on the KK @250f for ~ 8hours (wrapped at 5 hour mark, cooked for another 90 mins, then rested).
Used the drip pan and a pizza stone under the drip pan as a heat deflector (didn't use the big one provided).
Result was pretty good although I did make a rookie mistake. The heat deflector was not big enough for the total food area so 3 of the beef racks were amazing, one was dry...
Cook 6 - spatchcock turkey
We are on turkey duty for Christmas lunch, so we thought we better have a test run before the big day.... Used the double drip pan, added some veggies (parsnip, pumkin, onion, potatoes, herbs), spatchedcock the turkey, injected with butter infused with herbs & garlic, made a foil heat deflector for the lower grate (learnt from the pizza mistake) to cut the radiant heat, put the double drip pan on the upper grate @350f ~2 hours until at temp. Everyone loved the result (NB: Going to try a rotisserie to see which one we prefer).
So.... if you've made it this far thanks for all the sharing / advice on the forum, it really helps a novice like me. We are loving the experience so far, learning things after every cook and I'm sure we'll keep improving over time.
Thanks again & chat soon.
Sean
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