Paswesley

Hi, KK family. It has been a long time since I hazarded a sharing of one of my cooks. A lot has changed since my last post. For one thing, we have moved. We recently finished installing a patio and outdoor kitchen. Mabel will be doing all of the charcoal cooking and we have some Alfresco equipment to handle the rest, I decided to cook some butts today, and I will share a few of them with neighbors. Here is what I have done so far. 4 Boston Butts, wet pack with a total weight of 36.5 pounds Peanut Butter and honey based rub. Nothing fancy here. I whisked together 12 oz of creamy peanut butter with about 2 oz of clover honey. I added 4 T of mayonnaise and 2 oz of Mother's raw apple cider vinegar. Whisked some more. To this I added approx. 1 T each of turmeric, lemon pepper blend, garlic salt, and a few other odds and ends that my granny told me about. As I type this, Mabel is slowly soaking to about 220-230, while the butts rest. I am attempting to add some pics. I will update as the cook progresses. Note: I have included a pic or two of the outdoor kitchen section of the new patio, just in case someone may like to see it. @Dennis Linkletter: The company that I got the outdoor equipment from is called Affordable Outdoor Kitchens, in Millersville, MD. The owner is Kevin and I sang your praises to him. He was very impressed with the build quality and cooking potential of Mabel, especially when I told him about the wide range of sizes and that any of them can be built into the hardscape or counter. He said that he would look you up. Let me know if you want to follow up. that was about 2 weeks ago.

Thanks, Bryan. I need more info in the pre-starting technique.

We all know that the white colored smoke that issues from combusting wood initially is not desirable, due to its acrid quality and the bad flavors and odors that are imparted to the meat. I am curious about what you guys do when commencing a low and slow to avoid this problem. I most often distribute small chunks of seasoning wood throughout the charcoal, so as to provide for a fairly continuous infusion of smoke over the hours of cooking. Of course, I always wait until the smoke issuing from Mabel is of a bluish hue before adding any meat. However, I am concerned about those chunks of wood that are burned after the meat is already cooking. Does each chunk go through a white smoke phase as the fire reaches that part of the coals where the chunk is situated, or does each chunk just issue blue smoke as soon as it starts burning since the fire is already established? If I am not doing it right, or if there is a better technique that does not disturb the cook every few hours, then I am all eyes and ears! I would appreciate any wisdom shares. Thanks!

Lots of great suggestions, and I am thankful for each of them. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and didn't gain too much weight! I am sitting here as full as a tick on turkey hash. One more question: I am having a patio built using slabs of Pennsylvania bluestone. The pieces are going to be 11/2 to 2" thick and will be cemented to a four inch concrete slab. A section of the patio will be for Mable, of course. Will the substrate of the patio and bluestone be sufficient for her mass or will I need to put down some footings? If I need to use footings, how deep should they be? I am near Baltimore, MD. The ground freezes to a depth of 3 to 5 inches in winter. Thanks, guys, and Happy Holidays!

Hi, KK family. I have not logged on in quite a while. I have been occupied with many things, not the least of which was the building of a beautiful new home. We are only moving about four miles from where we were before. Yet, a move is a move, is a move! I love the new house, but I despise moving! We moved to the new residence a couple of weeks ago, but have not done the main move yet, so to speak. We have two SUVs and have been moving smaller items. In another week or so, we will do the main move. I know from previous experience that moving companies insist that a move is insured, but when you make a claim it is pennies on the dollar, because items are insured by weight, rather than by inherent value. I had a nationally advertised mover to manage a move a number of years back and they crushed the tweeter on one of my B & W Matrix 801 speakers. The repair cost was $650.00, but they offered me $10.00, based on the weight of the speaker! I was so disgusted with them that I told them they could keep their $10.00. How have members handled moving their cookers in the past? I am very nervous about trying to move Mable in general, and I especially do not want to entrust her to ham handed guys who may damage her. Ideas? Thanks for any suggestions.

Re: Re-Newed my Vows and on a US Road-trip Add my congratulations to the rest, Dennis. Sorry I was not sooner. I have not been keeping up with the forum of late.

Re: Got Married, KK Front and Center! Congratulations, Larry. I hope all the best for you and your lovely bride! May your bride, you, and your KK age gracefully together.

Re: 32" Main Grilling area - Scale That is exactly the number of cokes you will need for the guests who will be eating the feeder pig that you can cook on this mammoth missy!

Re: **Big Bad 32" Komodo** This renders me faltering for sufficient superlative adjectives! For the people who can find a use for, and afford to buy this, congratulations indeed. @Dennis: In your next photos, how about throwing a ruler or meter stick, even a whole pineapple, onto the grill? Now that we have the pristine purist shots, some of us need a point of reference for scale. Prospective buyers will better be able to appreciate its mammoth beauty with a size comparator, I think.

Re: New Owner Get the torch from Lowes that uses the camp stove type gas cans. One can will last for over a year. In my area, those cans can be had for a couple of bucks. That may be cheaper than the cost of electricity, for the same period, with the Looftlighter- depending on electrical charges, which vary.

Re: KK Arrived Today!! Not as I am aware of. I have been known to "frolic in the autumn mists in the land of Honorlei" myself, from time to time.

Re: KK Arrived Today!! Simply gorgeous! I hope that you enjoy thousands of wonderfully delicious meals from the maw of this beauty. You ought to name her, "Queen of Sheba."

Re: New Owner Congratulations and welcome to the KK family. Do a pork butt.

Re: New Member, New KK Coming. How will I move it? A hand truck with several helpers could work, if you leave the KK in the crate until you get it to the deck. You want to avoid scratches and stress loads on parts of the cooker not designed to handle them. A refrigerator dolly with strapping would work better than a hand truck. Just my 2 cents worth!

Re: Help on how to maintain grill temp I want to qualify my comment by stating that I do not use a temp regulating device. That said, I do have extensive knowledge of how to maintain KK temps using the simple physics that Dennis has engineered into the KK. I suggest that you do everything that you describe above after stabilizing the KK at the temp that you want to maintain. Heat soak the KK at 220 before you hook it up to your device, rather than letting the device do the heat soaking. I think that your KK continued to heat soak until it reached 300, based on how the drafts were set. Once these massive babies heat soak, it is very difficult to get them to shed heat so long as any oxygen is available. So, try heat soaking it first. Just trying to help, so please take this in a positive light. I could be bass ackward in my thinking.

Re: KK in the background shot for a PR campaign Thanks for sharing. BTW, our utility has become deregulated and the prices dropped. If you have anti-trust or anti-monopoly laws in place, perhaps you could lobby your governing body to open up utility competition. Just a thought.

Re: Pesky flies while cooking...shoot them with salt. Thanks. Great idea and innovation of the shot gun. I am on the pre-order mailing list.

Re: Meats. Info Worth Considering? Now I know how an ant feels in NYC when he crosses the sidewalk during the morning rush. You guys are too deep and ingenious for me.

Re: Brisket advice I have lost fire a few times in my two years with Mable. It is always due to my error. Heat rises, fire produces heat, but fire needs fuel and oxygen. In a low and slow at the temp you mention, given the info you provided, your fire may already have begun starving out before you went to bed. Remember, the KK heat soaks at a certain temp, in your case it was 225 degrees. That heat drops very slowly, espescially if supported by a slowly dying fire. For the KK to be cold, 7.5 hours later, but the meat still at 125, the oxygen starvation that Dennis describes is the only answer that satisfies what happened. It wasn't the cooker's fault, nor yours. Blame it on Physics!

Re: Brisket advice That absolutely depends on the temp of the meat. Variables such as the temp of the meat when the cook begins, the amount of fat versus muscle and connective tissues, and the outside temp, make it hard to predict the amount of time it will take. Send a PM to Cook_Shack or Doc Mguerra and see what they have to say. Until you hear from them, do a forum search with the key words "foiling brisket" and you will find a wealth of relevant posts. Good luck, and good eating!

Re: Another one for Melbourne Congrats! Oh, how I do wish the bronze metallic tiles had been available when I bought Mable two years ago! I do love and am thoroughly satisfied with the cooker that I have, though.

Re: Finally Arrived!!! Plenty of summer grilling left. Then comes fall grilling and winter and spring grilling! You can grill and cook year round, even in Canada. I have cooked during a howling nor'easter with two feet of snow and 20 degree temps. Wait till you try some snow brisket! Welcome again and happy cooking!

Re: Posting Pictures I am getting the same thing.

Re: Another argument for using grill-floss You can add me to the list of those who have lost their replacement grill floss tip. Eureka! We can form the ultra-exclusive sub-group of the KK elite-- the LRGFT club! (Lost their Replacement Grill Floss Tip Club) I nominate Firemonkey as our first LRGFT club president! Can I get a second to the motion?

Re: Another argument for using grill-floss Mine has never bent, nor would I call it flimsy. The steel that it is made of is thin, in order to fit between the grill rods. However, the steel is of a type that is similar to spring steel. I cannot speak for others, but mine is very strong, flexible, and does a great job. Piano wire, for example, is very thin, but tempered to be incredibly flexible and strong. I thought the whole idea of floss (as in dental floss) was to make it thin so that it could fit in tight spaces, yet strong so it would not break under load. Well, this is grill floss. I cannot imagine any instance, in the normal process of scraping food debris from grill rods, that would cause the product to bend. At any rate, I would rather straighten out the grill floss every now and then than to pick grill brush fibers from my, er, colon. BTW, sorry to mix my metaphors, but I often get passionate when taking a position.