quedog

Re: Just in time for the summer... Sanny, you're the second person to make that reference. My 8 year old daughter named her. This is Alice: The little one wanted a name that was related to the blue color. She loves Alice in Wonderland, when I told her that the color of Alice's dress is actually called Alice blue she decided the grill would be Alice even though the color is darker. The name stuck. We have been so pleased with Alice, she is unlike anything I have ever cooked on. I've noticed that when I walk past her I give her little love pats. The other day I was out on the porch, my wife walked past Alice and I noticed her doing the same thing.

Re: First Brisket Ever My favorite brisket rub is the Big Bad Beef Rub from amazingribs.com, here: http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/rubs_pastes_marinades_and_brines/big_bad_beef_rub.html The Texas Barbeque Mop Sauce on the same site is a perfect compliment to the rub. Every time I have cooked a brisket following Meathead's instructions it has been a big hit. http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/texas_brisket.html I really like the site, it has lots of background information as well as recipes. I've only had my KK for about a month and I haven't done a brisket on it yet. I'm sure it will be happening soon though.

Re: Just in time for the summer... Whoa, she looks nice. Did you get the cabinet from Dennis too? I know you are really going to enjoy her. My KK (Alice) arrived about 3 weeks ago and the family has been very pleased with her. Everything we have cooked has turned out well. I cooked some Mahi Mahi steaks on a cedar plank for lunch today and have pizza dough ready for supper tonight.

Re: First Pizza bobvoeh, I used Grillmark lump from the local Ace hardware store. It's cheap and it did just fine for the pizza but I have noticed an off-taste in a couple of items that required a longer time in the grill. I don't don't know if that is more related to the charcoal or my technique yet. I went by Walmart this week and picked up a couple bags of Royal Oak lump to see how that performs.

I cooked my first pizzas on my new KK this past weekend: n68188 Everything went pretty smoothly. I initially had the dome temp up to about 600, but the pizza toppings were fully cooked before the crust got nice and brown. I closed down the bottom vent a bit and let it cool to between 500 ad 550 before cooking the second pie. That worked out a lot better, crust and toppings were done at the same time. This was my first time making pizza dough from scratch. It was pretty good but I think next time I will add more salt to the dough, it was sort of bland. If anyone has suggestions for a good dough recipe I would like to hear them.

Re: First Wings Johnnyboy, I made a quick buffalo style sauce for them: 1/4 cup melted butter 1/2 cup Franks or Texas Pete hot sauce 2 cloves of minced garlic Heat it a bit in the microwave to release the garlic essence and it is ready to go. Loquitur, I had never tried this before on a grill. On my old kettle I think the grill was too close to the fire for it to work well. I used the main grill on the KK so that even though they were cooked with direct heat they were further from the fire and up close to the hot dome, getting heat from all directions. I also had a pretty full charcoal basket and lit the fire from the bottom, so I think the heat at the main grill was nice and even. I got the idea from an Alton Brown show, he steamed them first to render out some of the fat then roasted them in a 425 degree oven. There is enough fat in the skin that they do pretty much fry. I've used his method before, but if you don't render enough of the fat by steaming it will start smoking in the oven. That's not really something you worry about when cooking outside so I skipped the steaming step. They were much better on the grill and I didn't have problems with flare ups from dripping fat.

I decided to cook some chicken wings as a way to start getting a feel for higher temp cooks on my new KK (Alice): n68185 I let Alice soak at about 450 while I gave the wings a good sprinkle of Lucious "The King's" Barbeque Seasoning and then put them on the main grill. The high temp lets the wings essentially fry in their own fat so the skin gets nice and crispy. I didn't time the cook but I'd guess they were on the grill about 15 minutes. The texture and taste surpassed anything I ever cooked before Alice arrived. I am still amazed how much easier it is to control the cooking temp on the KK than my old metal kettle grill.

Re: Taste Differences Thanks for the tip mguerra, I have been reading old posts about using the Guru and Stoker. I thought I would have to close down the fan damper based on what others have said, but I didn't have to this time. I started a small fire, closed up the KK and let the Guru bring it up to 225 slowly. I noticed on my first cook that the top vent really had a big affect, if it is open much at all the natural draft will be too much. This time I had the top vent barely cracked, a bit less that 1/8 turn. Once the temp stabilized and I put the pork but on it stayed rock steady for about 18 hours. Then I noticed the temp dropping so I opened it up and saw that most of the charcoal was gone. I used the cheap stuff this time, it didn't last as long and the basket probably wasn't completely full. I added more lump and closed her back up. The wind had picked up and she went up to about 230 before coasting back down to 225. I have the small 4 cfm fan for my Guru. On their web site they recommend the 10 cfm model for the KK but I know several folks on the forum use the small fan. Maybe it has a smaller throat and doesn't need to be closed down as much. Or maybe I just got lucky with my top vent setting today. I took note of how the wing on the vent cap lined up with the tiles on the lid so I will be able to repeat the setting. I expect it may change as the vent gasket gets some wear though.

Re: Taste Differences Thanks for the comments guys! Alice's low and slow cook number 2 is in progress now. It will be my first overnighter. Everything is identical to the first cook except that I am using less expensive charcoal. I want to see if I can taste the difference and also I don't want to use up my good stuff just yet. The BBQ Guru will babysit for me overnight and even though I didn't have any real problems the first cook, getting this one started went much better. I have a lot better feel for the top vent settings already. By the way Syzygies, Dennis mentioned your method of salting based on the weight of the meat on the phone when I was discussing purchasing the KK. I found it in the old forum posts and have used it in these 2 cooks. I am very happy with the results I have so far. Thanks for sharing! Johnnyboy, Alice looks quite fetching in the pajamas you made for her. I noticed my wife patting Alice as she walked past this evening. I believe she is as impressed with her as I am.

In another thread I mentioned a taste difference my family noticed between my first pork butt done on the KK and previous ones done on my old metal kettle setup. Here is my original comment: The biggest difference we noticed from the old kettle setup was a lack of a funny aftertaste that seemed to accompany everything cooked low and slow on the kettle. My theory is that the kettle holds much less fuel and burns through it much faster so you have to ad fuel at least every couple hours. Every time you add a new load of fuel it goes through a cycle of volatile compounds and impurities burning off as the charcoal heats up. Over the course of a long cook it adds an off taste to the food. Since the KK only goes through that cycle once at the beginning of the cook and most of the compounds may evaporate before the food goes on the food tastes much cleaner. What do you guys think? I have 3 main suspects: 1 - The difference in both the amount of fuel used in each cooker setup and the way the fuel is added. Neither cooker has a full load of lit fuel at the beginning of the cook. For the KK all of the fuel is added to the cooker before the fire is lit. The fuel capacity of the kettle is smaller and it uses more fuel per hour. Unlit charcoal is added to the fire about every 2 or 3 hours. I'd say that overall the KK used less than half of the charcoal required by the kettle for the same cook. I'd also like to propose that since all of the fuel is in the KK at the beginning, by the time the KK is up to temp and food added all of the charcoal is hot, even though it is not all lit, and the hot charcoal has already released a fair amount of the volatile compounds that may affect food taste. With the kettle setup cold charcoal is added to the fire several times during a long cook. Every time the cold charcoal is added there is lots of smoke and the smell you get when you first start a fire. Could the addition of cold charcoal during the cook affect food taste? 2 - The off taste may come from the drip pan being hotter in the kettle. Neither setup has grease from the food dripping into the fire. The kettle setup I have is this: http://www.smokenator.com/ The drip pan sits to the side of the fire and the meat above it. So the drip pan is pretty close to the steel baffle that has a fire on the other side of it. In my KK set up I had the heat deflector stone between the fire and the drip pan. The drip pan should be exposed to far less radiant heat in the KK setup. At the end of a kettle cook the stuff in the drip pan is pretty nasty. The rendered fat is brown looking. I've only done the one cook in my KK so far but the drip pan looked very different. Sure, there was some stuff pretty charred and stuck to the pan, but the fat was still clear and nice looking. Could the difference in the heat exposure of the drip pan cause a difference in the taste of the meat? 3 - I used more expensive charcoal in the KK. In the past I have used whatever lump was cheap at the hardware store, usually Pioneer or Cowboy. This Spring I heard about the Halls Hill charcoal and I decided to order a bag. They are close enough to me that I could drive over and pick up a load if I thought it worthwhile. I used the Halls Hill charcoal for the cook. Could the difference between a premium and an inexpensive charcoal cause a taste difference in taste of a pork butt? One more tidbit, no smoke wood was added during this cook, it was charcoal only. So, which do you guys think had the biggest affect on the taste of the food? You can tell I'm very curious about this. I was expecting the main advantages of my new KK to be that I could leave it alone for longer and that it would be easier to control during the cook. I was not expecting the food to taste so much better. I would like to have a better idea what causes the difference so I can take full advantage of it.

Re: Alice is HERE!!!! Hey guys, thanks for the replies regarding the taste. I have some ideas that may be fun to discuss further, but I think I will start a new thread in a different area. I've gotten us a bit off topic for this one.

Re: Alice is HERE!!!!

Re: KK on Best in Smoke I was really interested to see Chris Lily on the show when this thread started. I watched the first episode, but I probably won't watch anymore for the same reason I rarely watch Food Network these days. The shows aren't about educating the viewer or letting a chef show off some skills. They are designed to force the chefs to fail. At the beginning of the show I was really into it, I mean they had Chris Lily and THE Famous Dave on the same show for goodness sakes. All of the contestants looked really good. I see no reason to get these great Q'ers together and subject them to what they did. I want to see a show where they let these folks succeed, not fail.

Re: Alice is HERE!!!!

Alice arrived this afternoon!!! I told my 8 year old daughter that she could name her, she chose Alice because of her blue color. We have a back porch that is about 2.5' above the side walk. I had planned to build a ramp and use a winch to get her up on the porch, but my wife found a better way. We lost several trees in the storms that hit the Southeast a couple weeks ago. We were talking to the tree guy one evening and she asked if bucket truck could lift the grill onto the porch. He jumped at the chance to show that it could: The crate was narrow enough to fit between the stair rails so we didn't have to lift her very high. She was off the ground for about 30 seconds. The guys were so curious about her that they hung around and help unpack her. They were impressed. She is working on a dry run now, sitting at about 350: I've got a big ole pork butt to break her in with in the morning.

Re: New Member - Soon To Be Owner I think my KK will be delivered on Thursday. Just 2 days more to wait. I got a cover from Johnnyboy, it arrived yesterday and I must say I am impressed with the quality of his work. I'm in East Tennessee which is sort of a BBQ cross roads. There are a lot of different styles and influences from all over the place, but around here BBQ mainly means pork. We do have some places that cook briskett and I have cooked a few myself. Just like in North Carolina, a BBQ sandwich is pulled pork and it usually has slaw on it. Wet ribs are probably more common here than dry but a lot of places serve them both ways. I usually cook them dry, but sometimes I like to finish them off with a mustard/honey glaze. Last summer I started experimenting with sauce recipes from various regions and found several that are easy to make and very tasty. One thing that surprised me with homemade sauces is how much the character of them changes a few days after you prepare them, especially the Alabama white sauces. They taste completely different after a few days. I am hoping to be able to break in the new KK with a pork butt this weekend. I have a lot going on so it may be hard to find time, but one nice thing about the KK it that they can take care of themselves once we get them going. Not having to refuel every hour will make it much easier to whip up some Q on busy days.

Re: Old School Easter Ham Happy Easter, Paswesley! Your old school ham sounds excellent.

Happy Easter everyone. My KK is on its way, but not here yet. Here is a pic of her, we are still workin on a name. n68039 Please post pics of your Easter successes to build my excitement even more!

Re: New Member - Soon To Be Owner Yeah, I have been lurking in the forum for a couple of years, waiting for the time and money to be right. Based on what I have read in the forum and elsewhere I am comfortable that I will not regret the purchase.

Re: New Member - Soon To Be Owner Hi Joe, I live in Chattanooga, in the Southeast corner of TN. My KK is dark terra blue. Johnnyboy is making a cover for me and I already have a BBQ Guru that I have been using with the old Weber. I will be READY when the new KK arrives. Rob

I confirmed my KK order this past week, now the waiting starts. I have been doing my que in a Weber kettle with a baffle installed to provide indirect heat for several years. I finally decided to make the jump to a kamado and after looking around decided there is really only one choice, the KK.