Bunji

No in-progress photos because it was spitting rain outside, but did my first “real” cook for the game today. Made a spinach artichoke dip and a pile of wings, half with Holy Voodoo and half with Texas Sugar, both of which I purchased on a whim when I went to pick up more charcoal. I under-seasoned and had trouble getting to the right temp, but learned some and still wound up with a delicious end product.

Thanks all for the kind words! Absolutely adore my new toy. Spending time out with it has me itching to upgrade the back patio to get it on a matching level! @MacKenzie much to my cat’s dismay, I did not! I think he did sneak some licks of the plate as I went out to cover the KK though

I didn’t end up firing up the KK until about 6:00 last night. I fiddled with it for several hours trying different vent settings and seeing where they put me temp-wise before bringing it up to burn-in temperature. A few hours there and decided to do the all-important First Cook before shutting the vents down. At this point it was about 2:30 am and I was struggling to stay awake. It sure was delicious though. I did have one scare when I looked at the probe I was using to monitor grate temp from inside was showing 600+. I ran outside only to realize the dome temperature hadn’t budged. The fire had simply shifted to right below the probe so it was getting direct heat. Photos are the coal basket just before closing the lid, after about 35 minutes, after 2 hours, after 4ish hours, and finally The Cook.

As I was assembling my KK today, I ran into some uncertainty with regard to my installation of the side tables and their hangers. 1. When the side table backet is installed as shown in the attached photo. Does the hanger just rest on top as I have it? It seems very unstable in this position. I can see it is held in place when the table is installed, but when taking the table off to hang it, the hanger seems to want to fall right off. Am I supposed to remove the hanger when doing this? 2. According to the user manual, the top two bolts are to be finger tight, then the third bolt is used to level the tables. But the tables themselves came with an additional bolt which fits the bottom-center hole. What is the purpose of that bolt and hole?

After much waiting and anticipation, I finally got a crew together to move the KK out of my driveway! A local relative of mine has “a guy” for just about any service you could need, so when I had trouble getting a group of friends together on the same day, I went to her. The very next day she brought a man over to take a look at the KK and the path it needed to take, and the next morning he came back with his two sons to do the deed. It ended up taking almost 4 hours. Instead of leapfrogging on plywood through the whole yard, they took a pallet Jack and dragged the whole pallet onto the road and around the corner, so that it would be a straight shot to the side gate and the first set of not too steep stairs. That straight shot, with myself and the 2 sons pushing and the man pulling the jack, was pretty smooth. When we got to the stairs they constructed a ramp with some bricks, a couple 2x4s, and more plywood. Another round of pushing and the KK, pallet and all, was up the steps and through my side gate. I didn’t take any further progress photos, because that’s about where the simple parts of the process ended. From there, we needed to make a tight 90 degree turn, take it through an old playground set that came with the house, then approach the second, steeper set of steps at another tight angle, before pushing it up to its final destination. The plywood was still useful, but much harder to maneuver here due to the tight quarters. The approach to the tight turn into the stairs took several attempts, because one wheel of the pallet jack kept coming off the plywood platforms and getting stuck. Perseverance paid off, and we were finally in the home stretch, the big push up the steps. Again with three pushers and one puller, we went for it. Once, twice, three times we pushed, making a little progress each time. As the first wheel of the jack finally crested the top, the pallet itself stopped, having hit the lip of the step due to uneven elevation. We tried again, same result. We tried using 2x4s as levers to elevate particular corners of the pallet and get it over the hump. No luck. Eventually we carefully rolled the kk back down the ramp to strategize. The stairs were out unless we could get at least a couple more sets of hands. Instead, my crew suggested an alternate approach: remove the quarter-wall of decking next to the stairs, smooth out the dirt to form a hill, and roll it up that until it stands even with the concrete pad, and then roll it right over. Pretty soon there were scraps of wood everywhere and one less section of decking in my back yard. Those wood scraps became shovels to take out the sharp elevation difference in the dirt on either side, and then the plywood came back out. We needed to do some creative maneuvering to get one of our 2x4 levers out from under the pallet where it had gotten stuck, and then it was time to push again. Again we got close, but had to reinforce the top of the ramp with more bricks. Finally, another round of pushing and we made it to the concrete pad where my KK will sit until the end of time, because I swear if I have to move this thing again I will go insane. Photos attached (including up to the present, when I am lighting her up for the first time). One final note. You might be thinking “why use a pallet jack when the KK itself is quite maneuverable?” And you should be. I am convinced the job would have been much easier without the jack, which got stuck on ever lip and corner and tight turn. But I wasn’t going to tell that to the generous men who spent their morning toiling with me.

I had a few volunteers come over to help, but hit a snag getting the lid off! I have since figured that out, but between work and some travel, haven’t been able to get a group together to re-attempt the move! This of course means I have a beautiful KK taunting me in my not-quite-flat-enough-to-cook-on driveway. I am itching to get it to where it needs to go!

Thanks a lot Tony! Turns out a neighbor of mine has a set of utility ramps for a riding mower, so I’ll be borrowing those and maybe putting a sheet of plywood across them. I’m hoping that those, in conjunction with the pallet lid, should be enough to get the KK where it needs to go. I will absolutely be taking plenty of photos to post!

I’ve scheduled delivery of my KK for this coming Monday, and started to map out the route that I will have to take it to get it to the concrete pad in my back patio area. It’s relatively circuitous, going around the side of my house through a not-quite-flat yard to my side gate. From there it will have to go up two small steps in a row, before being rolled through a small flat mulch area and up one or two more low (but much more widely spaced) steps. For the initial roll through the grass, I plan to use the leapfrogging plywood method. But when I get to the two small steps, I think I will need a longer ramp than the pallet lid. Ideally I would place the ramp on the first step and it would allow the KK to roll from ground level up onto the second step. Has anyone constructed a longer ramp for a use case like this? If so, what materials and thicknesses did you use? I will almost certainly be doing the transport with the lid removed and with some helping hands, of course.

I’m going to go against the grain here… “‘Za” has really grown on me and I find myself using it on occasion. Now I have known one or two people who refer to a pizza as a “wheel” and I can’t get behind that one

No worries! My KK is scheduled to arrive next week, so I may have some results for you soon, we shall see

My recent trip down the yakitori rabbit hole has me thinking about trying to rig something up in my kk basket to be able to get skewers nice and close over the coals. I’m thinking I’d need something similar to the basket splitter to cover all but one section of the bottom (one of the middle quarters, for example), then maybe a few fire bricks across which I could lay the skewers, with Bincho or other coal between the bricks. I wonder if the coals would get enough oxygen in a setup like this to put off enough heat for decent skewers. An experiment for the future. I’ll have plenty of other things to cook first when my KK arrives, but something to try nonetheless

@Franck that hanger contraption is so neat, well done! I was just thinking today about whether something like that could be rigged up for tandoori chicken and the like. Should’ve known somebody here would have figured that out already @David Chang Fuel intensive or not, that pizza looks mouth watering! Very much looking forward to experimenting with pizzas in the near future

@johnnymnemonic Thanks! That’s the video I mentioned initially I believe! It’s been a bit since I watched it, but I don’t recall him talking too much about any particulars on how he set his KK up to hold that low temp. I do see that in the thread he mentioned that the temp was tricky, but implies that it’s mostly due to the mass and heat soaking. I’m guessing, due to the lack of any information suggesting otherwise, that he just set up like a normal low and slow and kept the airflow to a minimum. @Paul, I apologize for not asking sooner about your method! how does putting the few coals in the pan at the bottom differ from using a few coals at the bottom of the basket?

That’s fascinating! I’ll have to pass that tip on to my mother, who recently got a Thermomix and is getting her bearings with it. Thanks for the info!

double post, sorry!

@David Chang That is amazing looking pizza! I have been meaning to get a sourdough started up and running for some time. Sourdough pizza sounds lovely. If you don’t mind my asking, what function do the ice cubes serve? I don’t think I’ve come across that technique in any of the pizza dough recipes I’ve looked at. Finally, what did you cook that on?

I did indeed! I figured to use that for the smoke, but wasn’t sure about getting to and holding at the low temps called for here.

My KK is on the water and scheduled to make it to the states early next month! Of the many cooks I’m looking forward to, one near the top of my list is trying my hand at making some smoked jerky for an annual ice fishing trip in the early parts of next year. I’ve seen a couple of posts here on the topic. One (from 15 years ago if I recall correctly) was using grounding wire to hold a stack of extruded coal, with the idea as I understood it that as the lower coals burned down, the higher ones would fall into place so the fire wouldn’t spread in width. Another user posted a YouTube video which I’ve watched many times in the past, but which I don’t believe went into much detail regarding setting up the coals and vents for holding temps around 170 or so. In theory, I suppose it should be possible to start as you would for any low and slow cook, but with the vents choked down more than you would normally. Is this correct, or are there additional considerations which need to be taken into account for cooking this low? Thanks in advance, as always!

A couple of years ago I had to spend some time in Augusta, Georgia for work. A couple days into the trip I stumbled upon a Hawaiian BBQ spot near where I was working. I had never had Hawaiian food before, so I stopped in to try it out. I didn’t eat lunch anywhere else the whole time I was in town! I of course had my fill of kalua pig, but their chicken was also fantastic, although I’m not sure if it is true huli huli. Since you’re in northern VA, if you ever get the chance to check out the food truck called Kam & 46, I would recommend it. They do Hawaiian and Filipino fare, and the women who run the show are absolutely lovely. They mostly show up in DC, but now and then they cross the river into Arlington or Alexandria. I try to make a point to show up whenever they do.

As a Northern VA resident myself, I’m glad I took a look at this thread, otherwise I never would have known that Dizzy Pig existed! I’ll have to take a ride out there one of these days

I guess now I just need to figure out how exactly I’m going to transport the thing to it’s spot in the back patio. The conventional way would be up 3 steps and into the front door, through the inside (going down one step) to the back door, out the back and down one more step to the concrete pad. Or I could roll it around the side of the house (down a bit of a grade) through the side yard gate (after going back up the grade), but would then have to take it up a few wide stairs to reach the pad. The joys of living on a hillside!

@C6Bill that terra looks amazing, and certainly reinforces my decision to go with the same! @tekobo I hadn't realized that the accessories are typically available from US stock. That certainly eases my worry about getting everything right from the first order. I think @5698k Direct sunlight won't be a problem, the concrete pad the KK will be on is pretty well shaded by some trees in the back yard. I'm thinking, my initial order will likely be cover, basket splitter, stainless side tables, and cold smoker. Then down the line I'll pick up the roti to up my poultry game and potentially the pizza stone to help with bread baking. Thanks for the help everyone! I really couldn't be more excited

What an oversight on my part! My KK will be square tile in light terra blue! I considered going Cobalt, and was briefly tempted by the gold flake, but the photos I just kept coming back to were the light blue ones. EDIT: First of all, huge thanks to everyone for the input and suggestions so far! I hadn't even been considering the stainless-topped side tables! Those are getting a lot of love though, so I might have to opt for that upgrade over the standard teak, which I do love the look of. @tekobo @David Chang Do you primarily use the roti for chicken, or are you regularly cooking other stuff on it? If the former, are the results significantly better than just cooking the bird spatchcocked? And if the latter, what have been some of your favorites? I've never owned/coocked with a rotisserie, so it might just be my own ignorance that I'm not thinking of much I would use it for. Storage of the second coal basket was definitely something I had in mind, so I think i might skip that and if the single-basket-shuffle becomes too big a pain I can alwasy pick up a second basket down the line @tekobo, do you use a smoke pot instead of the hot/cold smoker when you're doing a hot smoke? I would be picking this up with cold smoking in mind, but with the thought to use it as my primary hot smoking method as well since I have it. Is it too inconvenient to regularly use for this, in your opinion? The baking stone I end up torn on still, since I do have the previously mentioned steels already.

I've finally moved out of an apartment building where I couldn't have a grill and as of this morning I've begun the long wait for a 32 Big Bad, after stalking these forums for a number of years. While I wait, I figure I should iron out exactly which extras I should pick up. I know there will be plenty of other stuff I'll need, but as far as the straight from KK list goes, am I missing any major must haves here? Or perhaps am I overvaluing something which isn't worth it? Almost Certainly Yes Basket Splitter - A lot of my cooks are going to be for just myself and my girlfriend, so this will be really handy for when I'm doing a small cook. Cover - It can get rainy here, gotta protect the KK! As much coal as possible The Probably Yeses Side Tables - I don't have much work space (or furniture in general since i've just moved in) on the patio where the KK will be, so having these will be handy. I would do a cabinet, but the KK will be on a small-ish concrete pad so I wouldn't have room for cabinets next to it Extra Coal Basket - I wouldnt have thought of this, but it seems to be a common and strong recommendation around here. Still not 100% sure that I need this Cold Smoker - I'm dreaming of smoked cheeses, nuts, cured fish, etc. If not for those I would just make a smoke pot The Ones I'm not sure I need Pizza stone - I already have a couple of Baking Steels that I've used in my oven to make pizzas (a 10 inch square, and a 14x20 inch rectangle). If I already have steels, do I need the stone? I don't think I've seen any posts comparing KK pizzas made on the stone vs on steel. I guess this would be good for bread though. Hmm. I'm starting to want to bump this up to the category above Rotisserie - This would be cool to have of course, but I'm not sure how much I'd use it, and I've heard cleaning up roti spits can be a pain. I'd probably just spatchcock poultry when I make it (which will be pretty often since the gf doesn't eat much red meat) Double Bottom Drip Pan - Couldn't I just use foil or disposable trays to catch drippings?

@David Chang Thanks for the welcome and the response! Interesting that the lower temp was suggested by the ovenmaker! I have definitely heard of those saputo biscotti stones in my pizza oven research. I have seen people on other boards replacing stones in various portable/home pizza ovens with them. I wonder how they would be in the lower pizza making temps a KK would run compared to one of those gas/wood fired dedicated pizza ovens. Then again, because of the lack of top-heat you mentioned I have to wonder if the results from the stone on a KK would be much better than the results from an indoor gas oven with a steel, using the broiler during part of the cook to get the top.