Paswesley

Re: Turkey Hash Time Again! You do know that I am a tidewater boy, right? I am from Newport News, VA. I was born on a flood tide, and was eating blue crab long before I knew what to call it! Man, I wish I could come over for tomorrow's crab boil! Eat a few swamp dawg Jimmies for me Cook_Shack. Anton

Well, we have not had turkey for months, so we figured it was time to whip up some good old turkey hash. I have attached a few pics of the cook. The bird is a 14 pound tom that I got from the neighborhood Safeway. I decided to stuff the bird, so I used a 12 ounce package of Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasoned Stuffing mix as a base. To this I added one pound of backfin crabmeat, four thick cut slices of hickory smoked bacon (chopped), and some thyme, oregano and basil from my herb garden on the patio, and a generous dose of my own spice blend. The pic below was taken when I put the bird on. I will update with a couple more. Here is an update pic, taken at 4 hours into the cook. BTW, the KK is soaked at 300 degrees. Almost done! Here is the done pic, sitting on the stove resting. I wish I could post the aroma, because it smells wonderful. Even my uber-finicky seven year old yelled, "That smells great, Dad!" when I brought the bird inside. Now, I need to make some gravy while Mom prepares the rice. Yum!

Re: Shipped our first grill to Hungary today.. Congratulations, Dennis! This first KK is the first of many, or I miss my guess.

Re: Thanks Dennis!....and I can't wait @mk1: Hello, mate! Welcome to the family! You are in Cook_Shack's bailiwick, so you should cozy up to him. He is a master of KK cooking. Here's to you, and to decades of delicious meals to come.

Re: Alice our new puppy is in the house! Nice pooch, Dennis!

Re: Hall's Hill @slu: The only known cure for stress induced by charcoal loss is, "a hair from the dog..." I hear that Dennis is selling the best coco extruded charcoal in the world. It'll blacken your mouth I'm certain, but should make for a good pacifier.

Re: Food capacity Thanks Cook_Shack. @MadMedik: What a delicious looking pic! I think you could have put on another butt. Air flow would not be as much a concern as doneness. Where the butts are touching, you want to make sure that they are all fully cooked. That could be what you meant by air flow, though. Since the meats shrink as they cook, kind of shift them around so that all surfaces of the meat are exposed to the hot air and natural convection. Man, but I do love these cookers and my forum family! Paswesley

Re: Food capacity Jeff, here are a couple of pics from last weekend's cook. Until I saw the pics I had forgotten that I also threw in a few country style ribs that we had not cooked a day or so prior. Sorry that the pics are out of sequence.

Re: Food capacity Last weekend, I cooked two ten pound fresh picnics, two nine pound fresh butts (bone-in), and two eight pound roasting hens simultaneously, with room to spare. Summer of 2010, I cooked four ten pound fresh butts and two eleven pound fresh picnics at once. I have cooked a twenty-five pound turkey. One forum member cooked an entire sucking pig! You should be able to find the string. I think, with careful space usage, at least seventy-five pounds of meat can be cooked on a Gen II. Which tile type/color are you going to get?

Re: KK extruded CoConut shell charcoal is Stateside Rock on, Dennis. There is no substitue for being endowed with know how!

Re: KK extruded CoConut shell charcoal is Stateside Ok. Talking specifically about extruded charcoals, I remember reading, in your review section Whiz, that one of the charcoals put out by a certain kamado company was softer than a previous offering by the same company. I understood that softness to be indicative of a less dense piece of extruded, and assumed that the lower density would render it more friable and therefore subject to breakage. Since I was misunderstood in my earlier post, I am attempting to demonstrate the thinking process that led to my earlier statement about the longer length of Dennis' charcoal indicating it is dense. If my premise is true, then it stands to reason that the practical length of a piece of extruded is limited, at least in part, by the friability of the product. (less dense= more friable; more dense= less friable- right?) Dennis' product is long, yet unbroken in the box, ergo it is dense.

Re: KK extruded CoConut shell charcoal is Stateside You are right, Whiz, so long as we are talking about extruded charcoal. But I gained the impression that some of the coco charcoal out there is not extruded, being only pressed into a briquette. These briquettes are soft and lack the density and structural integrity of the extruded charcoals. You guys are the experts though. I am ready to stand corrected if need be.

Re: KK extruded CoConut shell charcoal is Stateside Looks awesome, Dennis. I can't wait to get some. This is obviously a dense product. The length of the pieces is an indication of the density, I believe. If these were simply pressed briquettes, the length of the pieces would cause them to break and be otherwise marred. These pieces are dense and hard, or I miss my guess.

Re: It's here! I have developed a great fondness for my Mable, yet I must say that the bronze metallic looks stellar. It was not available when I purchased, else I would have gotten the bronze metallic. If I buy another KK, it will definitely be the bronze.

Re: It's here! It's absolutely gorgeous. Congratulations. Are you going to name him?

This forum has traditionally been very polite and oblique in our references to a certain infamous purveyor of inferior kamado style cookers. I think most of you know the guy that I am referring to. Well, do you know that he had the unmitigated gall to communicate with me, a mere 16 months after I last communicated with his "company?" (Read sarcasm here.) Background: In the late spring of 2010, I began to research kamado cookers. I was about to buy a traditional rolled steel type of smoker from a company based in Nahunta, GA. With my usual excess of caution, I began to research cookers in general. I stumbled across the term kamado and googled it. The company that has become infamous for a wealth of reasons was among the hits that I got. I fell in love with the beauty of the tiles and, not knowing any better, began a communication with their "customer service department." I decided to buy a stainless version of their largest cooker, downloaded the order form, and sent an email indicating I wanted to place the order. I got an initial response, after about a week, including an invoice with costs. Because my good God and Father was guiding me, I decided to try to modify my order. No one would answer the phone. No one would answer my emails. I got suspicious and began to research the cooker company in question and was deeply alarmed by the horror stories that I saw. I then decided not to buy from the people who were ignoring me and began to research ceramic cookers again. This is when divine providence led me to Dennis and Komodo Kamado. Mable is smoking away on the patio as I write this. Back to the point: Sixteen months after I tried to alter my cooker order, I finally heard from the president of the infamous company. He sent me, unsolicited, a digital copy of his October 2011 newsletter. Imagine my surprise upon seeing that email! He obviously does not know who I am. I guess my email account was on his hard drive. At any rate, I think it takes some brass kahunas to contact me in this way- given that he was probably going to pocket my money and not bother to send me a cooker. Even had I received one, it would have been far below the KK standard. One more thing- According to the guru of customer disservice, his cooker can heat soak to 600 degrees in 20 - 30 minutes. To be precise, he says, "After heat soaking a __, __ and __ to 600 degrees (in about 20 to 30 minutes) you can put a 12 to 15 pound turkey in the _ and close all the vents and in about 3 hours the turkey will be done to perfection by the retained heat in the thick ceramic walls even though the charcoal has gone out." This quote is taken directly from the newsletter. I am no thermal physicist, but what he says does not sound plausible. Yes, I do believe a ceramic cooker that is very well insulated and heat soaked to 600 degrees can do what is claimed. The bird would probably be unappealingly charred on the outside, though. What I do not believe is that his cooker can become heat soaked to 600 degrees in only 20 to thirty minutes- not from a cold start, which is certainly implied. Physicists, thermodynamic specialists, general geniuses and savvy KK veterans, what do you think? Is the nemesis of quality service blowing hot air, or can his cooker deliver a 600 degree heat soak (from a cold start) in 20 to 30 minutes? Thanks, Anton

Re: Some truly valuable information..... Wow! I won... what? Since the nails are rust colored, I thought you had burned the wood of the crate and dug the nails out of the ashes. I remember consigning quite a bit of my KK crate to the fire pit. It makes great kindling wood.

Re: Some truly valuable information..... I will bite. I say 312.

Re: Remembering 9/11 Amen, Dennis. I was employed in Alexandria, Va. on Sept. 11th. The dawn was the most beautiful that I can recall. The sky was such a vivid and rich blue, and crystal clear seeing for miles. I was at the Library of Congress when the first plane struck the tower. I was traveling back to my home base in Alexandria, crossing the 14th Street Bridge, when someone called to tell me about the attack. The second strike occurred as she was explaining the first hit, and I will never forget her blood-curdling scream when the second plane hit. I am a tough man, but I suddenly began to cry. She wanted to know why. I told her that I got chills because both towers were going to fall and thousands would die. She said, "How do you know?" I told her that I just knew. An hour or so later, they both fell as my coworkers and I watched CNN at my job site. We went outside because they said the Pentagon had been hit, less than a mile from where we were. A moment later, we heard the roar of sonic booms as the F15s from Langley AFB arrived in the air space. A woman that I once pastored lives 1/4 mile from the Pentagon. She was outside in her yard when the plane roared over her house, so low that the jet wash almost knocked her over. Those were troubling times, and I share these personal reflections because it is a catharsis. I feel a close connection with all the heroes, especially those who died in the Pentagon crash. Let us honor these heroes always, and resist forever the cowards who did these atrocious acts.

Re: Side Accessory Plate Grill Hangers Dennis: By my reckoning, you have a winner as is. A separate hanger as has been described has it's merits, though. Perhaps, for future KK upgrade, the area near the back of the hinge on either side could receive additional bolts for the grill hanging brackets, which would allow for grill hanging and side table use simultaneously. These bolts could be incorporated into the internal steel framework prior to casting of the insulation and ceramic layers. Just another thought...

Re: extruded loading question Lucky you!

Re: extruded loading question @fcnich: I noticed that you have purchased your KK recently. Did you already have a ceramic cooker? Is the ECC that you are using some of Dennis' earlier charcoal, or is this some of the Canadian coco charcoal? Thanks

Re: Would you have cooked this Chicken? @Syzygies: Thanks for the correction in spelling and pronunciation. I saw the movie as a child, so I spelled the word as I remember it sounding to my juvenile mind at that time. I haven't seen the movie since it premiered, forty odd years ago. Put it in the category of "nucular weapons!"Good lookin' out!

Re: Texas Potjiekos Festival The video was fun, quirky. It was misogynist in the most harmless and funny way. Kind of sad, though, that the smoky section of the grill perimeter is the last male bastion to withstand (so far) the flood tide of feminine incursion.

Re: Texas Potjiekos Festival I'll bite. What is "braii?"