Gnomatic

Looks great Dennis, Merry Christmas everyone!

There are a couple local bison farmers within about 30 miles of me. Sometimes I can get it at local farmers markets, and if not, I'll just pick some up straight from the farm. One of the farms, the smaller one, will send out notices of their next bison harvest in advance, so their customers can order the cuts of their choice. They usually have the entire bison sold before its even slaughtered. Its in high demand.

Sous Vide bison, I like the sound of that already!

That looks phenomenal!

Dennis, while I've never done the Pepsi Challenge so to speak, I believe I could tell the difference with most cuts between bison and beef. Bison and beef are VERY similar in flavor. I've often described bison as having a 'beefier' beef flavor. It is much leaner than beef, and can be unforgiving to being even slightly overcooked with cuts like steaks. You do not want to overcook a bison steak.

Wow, that looks AMAZING! I'm going to have to give those garlic fingers a try.

Since I love bison, I've wanted to try a bison brisket for some time. Well, I was finally able to get my hands on one last weekend. To my surprise, it only weighed 5lbs. The front ends of these animals are HUGE, so I expected a whole bison brisket to be massive. At first I thought I just received a chunk of flat, but after looking this over and confirmed through slicing, it is indeed a whole brisket. There was a flat and a point, separated by a very thin vein of fat. Because bison is so lean, I made some decisions in preparing this meat that run counter to my preferred way to cook a brisket. Typically, I smoke my briskets low and slow, and NEVER foil, because to me, the bark is the bomb. There was very little trimming on this one. First thing I did was inject it with some Kosmos Brisket Injection I has laying around. After coating in 50/50 salt and pepper, I tossed this on my KK, hot and fast around 300F. Once the internal temp hit 165F, I put the brisket in a aluminum pan and sealed w/ a sheet of foil. Once it hit 203F, I pulled it and let it sit 25min before slicing. About 6 1/2hrs total. (CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE) All in all this turned out very, very good. The bark wasn't completely mush, which was a pleasant surprise. While it was by no means dry, injecting and foiling were the right call I felt. The flavor was excellent.

Great pics, looks like a wonderful trip! And I LOVE me some beef ribs.

Good tip, Tony! Thank you

Oh yeah, Bosco, these babies get rip-roaring hot in no time. I started my 23" up the other day and opened the vents wide open, planning to return 10-15min later to adjust. I got side tracked and when I finally made it back to the grill, the needle was burried all the way around, reading 0F. And climbing. The temp came down fast once I turned the vents down. I was kicking myself, but I don't think I hurt anything. Lesson learned.

PHENOMENAL setup Bosco, congrats!!!!!!!!!!!

You are right Dennis. Replacing a traditional hard drive with and SSD should be upgrade priority #1 for just about anyone not already running their system off an SSD. As you said, once you experience your computer running off an SSD, you'll never want to go back to a regular hard drive. This can't be emphasized enough.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'm debating if I should use my roasting pan with a rack, or cook my bird on the main grate with a drip pan resting on the lower grate. What's everyone's favorite prep method, dry brining, wet brine, or injecting etc.? I've almost always injected my birds in the past.

I have yet to do a rack of lam on my KK. Gonna have to change that!

I really got turned on to bison after having a slab of bison prime rib during a visit to Jackson Hole, WY about five years ago. Absolutely incredible flavor. After returning home, I did some digging and found local sources of bison and have been eating it fairly regularly since. Flavor wise, its very, very similar to beef, just a bit stronger. By stronger, I don't mean gamey or anything like that. I describe it as a beefier-beef flavor. Bison is much leaner that beef(also much healthier), and matters a lot when cooking steaks. A bison steak is much less forgiving than beef. Even if slightly overcooked, a bison steak will get VERY tough. Cooked right though, its delicious. If you can find some bison, give it a shot!

I like this, I can envision using this technique with a variety of cooks.

My first cook on my KK was Pepper Stout Beef, which I had yet to try. Turned out great. If liked it with beef, I knew I'd love it with bison.(yes I'm a big fan of bison meat) I went out and procured this beautiful bison chuck roast from a local bison farm. About a 2.5 pounder. To season it, I kept things pretty simple - rubbed it w/ oil and coated w/ 50/50 kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper. With the KK humming along at 250F with coffee char and a few hunks of cherry wood, set up with the deflector for indirect, it was time to put this bad boy on the cooker. A few hours later ... At this point the roast was at about 165F. I chopped up a red onion along with an orange bell, and tossed in a 1/2 size aluminum catering pan. After pouring in a Guinness, I put in the roast in the pan and topped off with some fresh chopped garlic. Sealed the pan with aluminum foil and finished on my KK until the bison hit ~200F. After pulling .. No fancy plated pics here, LOL. This Pepper Stout Bison got loaded up on plates, bowls, and sandwiches and disappeared in a flash. If you have a source for bison in your area, I recommend giving this a try!

Hogsfan, what size drip pan were you using for this cook?

I have to agree, pressure cookers are GREAT for making stock.

Either the latch has loosened a bit with some more use, or I've gotten used to it. I'm just going to leave it alone for now. Cooked up some bison ribs along with some babybacks the other day. I love bison, but had never had bison ribs before. These turned out great!

Wow does that look spectacular!

I have coffee charcoal from Dennis and have been searching for some coffee wood chunks. No luck so far.

Thanks for the heads up!

So I guess I'll jump in. This is more a summery of my (limited) experience with the grill thus far than it is a review. I got my KK a couple weeks ago, sooner than I was ready to place it in it's new home. So I left it in the crate for over a week while I got a lot done on my KK-inspired fall landscaping project(still not finished). I didn't want to be it moving around. That ended up being a very looong week+ wait. For reference, I'm coming from a POSK #5(which somehow held up pretty well over the last 10-12 years) and am very familiar with BGE's, Primos, etc. My first reaction seeing it in the crate was "OMG its HUGE." My plan was to take a bunch of pics during the uncrating process, but it was pouring rain that day and I was more focused on getting it done as quickly as possible. Anyway, hear it is, my Terra Blue KK - the pics really don't capture how cool this looks. I had agonized over color choice, but now having my grill and seeing it in person, I know I'd have been happy with any of them. I was afraid Bronze would be too blingy, and I wouldn't like the side view of the tweed patterns. Etc etc. What I know now, there are no bad choices and I was a bit foolish getting so hung up on that. I strongly considered waiting for Dennis to build a Dark Autumn Nebula(the color I liked most), but Dennis didn't have enough of that particular tile in inventory to start on a new cooker and was unsure when that would be available. Lets just say I'm glad I didn't wait. My first cook was yesterday, I had been wanting to try some Pepper Stout Beef - boy is that delicious. I used a little Royal Oak I had leftover from the burn in, along with some coffee char and a few hunks of cherry. Man the produced a rich smokey flavor along with a real nice smoke ring. My nephew even asked if I was sure the meat was cooked because thick red ring on the outside. Smoked the roast at 250F for several hrs till it hit 165F internal, before sealing it up in a pan along with peppers, onions, and Guinness. Finished in the pan at 375F until fork tender. Turned out great! I'm no food photog like many of you here, but here's a peak. It was raining again so I didn't get any pics of the roast on the grill itself. One thing peculiar, about 1/2 way through cook, a significant leak developed around the handle and latch. I thought there was a gasket issue and did a lot of searching and reading here last night. Then I came across this old post by Dennis. Turns out I've not been fully closing my grill!. Got it closed today and now know the look/feel of it, but man that latch is stiff! I hope it relaxes a bit as it gets more use. Anyway, I couldn't be be more pleased with my new grill so far. Its an absolute pleasure to operate. I can't wait to learn the nuances of my new cooker as I gain more experience with it.