Tribeless

Re: Height of the 23" KK Comes up to about 1/3 the way up my beer pot. Seriously, I've not got a ruler: looking out the window, I'd guess about 1 and a bit metres. I don't think quite 1.5. Dennis or someone with a tape will be able to give some accuracy.

Re: Rollin....Rollin....Rollin CA to oHIo! Looking at your wife issues, Bob, it reminds me of how men have to start wising up. I'd just burnt another meal to a cinder on my cheap old bucket charcoal BBQ and my wife came to me and said I've found this BBQ on the Internet, I think you should have a look ...

Re: Slow Food - Butt Made the mistake of looking at this at my desk when I'm hungry. Off to the fridge.

Re: To Soak and Smoke, or Not - That is the Question True Michael, to the new experimental condition. I'll try dry smoking potatoes with indirect method over next weekend. Also, I forgot to say in my first post how marked the difference was.

On another thread (somewhere - can't remember where) this came up, so I thought I'd make a separate thread on it. Michael made a really good post to the aforementioned thread, to the affect that soaking your wood before smoking with it was counter-productive, as it meant some of the energy in your charcoal has to be used to first dry the wood out ... very good point. I said that I still thought there was a good use for soaking wood and putting in a foil pouch, when using the indirect cooking method, and access to put more wood in past grills, drip tray and refracting stone is not possible, meaning the soaked wood gives me about half an hour to get KK up to the constant cooking temperature I want before putting the food in, so the smoking starts when the food is there. But, I've also tried the following experiment with interesting and perhaps inexplicable results. I've found the best way to taste the differences in smoking technique is by slow cooking jacket potatoes. The relatively taste neutral potatoes makes it easy to judge the strength and taste of the smoking. So, I've now slowed cooked a jacket potato by using my indirect cooking method of soaked wood chips in foil, and yesterday I slow cooked potatoes on the top grill (not indirect method), and throwing in dry wood chips. In both cases I used the same amount of hickory wood chips. The chips that I soaked were soaked in water for one hour, not a flavoured liquid such as rum, etc. And the soaked wood chips gave a much stronger and nicer smoked flavour? I don't immediately understand why that has happened. Though, there may be one difference here. In New Zealand as far as I can find so far, I can only buy bags of fruit wood chips (almost merely shavings). I noted on a BBQ show on the food channel a BBQ'er saying that the real flavour came from the sap of the fruit wood. I'm wondering if soaking my chips is perhaps bringing out a residual amount of sap in the chips: but I have no idea of the science involved so I'm just guessing. So, from all this some questions and a request: 1) I'd be interested in as many forum members as possible trying my experiment with potatoes and posting to this thread so we could have an objective look at results. You need to use the same wood, and wood amount, one potato batch smoked with soaked wood, the other from burning dry wood. 2) How big a chunks of fruit wood are you all using? Are you actually using lumps of wood as big as your charcoal? 3) Are you burning this wood green, or aged dry. (Green would have the sap effect).

Re: MY NEW KK!!! Oh, keep the lid down. The last two burns I've been having trouble getting my charcoal started in the chimney, which I've been placing in the fire pit with the KK lid open, and both the bottom dampeners open. Next burn I'll try just the bottom dampener open (the proper dampener), and I'll close the lid with the top dampener open. The KK's a learning curve

Re: MY NEW KK!!! Actually, I'm finding a breeze beneficial. Far easier to get KK to draw when there's a breeze than when it's completely still. Um, don't know if this is quite related .... it's summer Downunder.

Re: Everyday Misc Cooking Photos w/ details Dennis, that chicken has a real browning to it, making look like you cooked at high temperature? Or is that colour just the result of smoking at low temperature, with smoke going for a long time?

Re: MY NEW KK!!! tigeranteater ... 'the dwell method'?

Re: Best Pizza Temp Oh no, I've got one of those. Just, only used it the once, and we made the error of putting our first pizza onto while I was getting the KK going, which meant by the time it was ready to go on, the moisture in the base had soaked up the flour and stuck to the wooden peel (which still has the moisture stain). Lesson learnt.

Re: Best Pizza Temp A 'pizza peel?' What's that Lee? (We've had a couple of pizza parties now, but I am having trouble with sticking sometimes. Mind you, better since I turned my baking stone over and started using the smooth side of it.

Re: Smoke Daddy Unless, teddysurf, you soak just woodchips, like I do, right through Though on the American pitmasters program, I noted one of the participants said that regarding fruit woods, the flavour comes from the sap burning, and that wouldn't exist in the small chips I use.

Re: Smoke Daddy You make a convincing argument Michael There might be one reason for soaked though. I'm doing quite a bit of longer, medium heat cooking, using the indirect method: refracting stone, drip tray on lower grill and food on top. With that combination it's almost impossible to add more wood for smoking, so by putting in soaked wood inside a foil pouch, it gives me about half an hour to bring KK up to constant temperature I want to cook at, which is when I put my food in. Thus, the smoking is 'starting' when the food is in. Otherwise, a lot of it would be burnt up first.

Re: Smoke Daddy smokykensbbq: when you put your wood in amongst the charcoal like that do you soak it first, or it still gives off smoke from dry? I've been soaking wood chips in water for up to an hour, then putting them on top of the charcoal in a open top foil pouch, which seems to have been working pretty well.

Re: Ribs and Pork Belly

Re: Ribs and Pork Belly Is that dumping 1/4 chimney starter into a full fire pit?

Re: MY NEW KK!!! I have mine outside my (home) office. So I know where I can end an otherwise crappy day talking to IRD auditors It helps ... Post a picture Tigeranteater.

Re: Ribs and Pork Belly Great pictures slu. Food looks great. Your second sentence brings up something I keep forgetting, especially when we have friends over: you have to get the charcoal up and running a good hour before cooking to get up to a constant temperature. I'm still conditioned to the inefficient old bucket styled charcoal BBQ's where you're lucky to get an hours heat out of them

Re: Coffee wood impressions Hah! Knew I was onto a good thing

Re: Coffee wood impressions No way I'll get coffee wood in NZ, but - and I'll try this weekend, so will report back - but what do you reckon about throwing roasted coffee beans into a foil bag with my water soaked wood, on top of the charcoal? I think if nothing else, it'll smell good. Worried it might end up very acrid though, as coffee is bitter. In fact when I think about it I'm going to try a range of herbs (starting with rosemary) and spices in with the smoke wood.

Re: A little help Interesting post Susan. One query - I'm learning too - why do you put your Weber basket on a brick? I'm just thinking that must affect air-flow over simply sitting it in the existing wire firepit? Have you seen the thread with Dennis's new sear baskets he's about to roll out: http://www.komodokamado.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4609&p=41402&hilit=sear+basket#p41374

Re: Meltique Beef the world's finest larded meat? Thanks for the book link Dave. I'm going to buy a copy of that ... thank goodness for Amazon. Luckily our airport security is not too bad yet, but customs are another matter.

Re: Meltique Beef the world's finest larded meat? Thanks for reply Firemonkey. That whole concept of enhanced meat - and I've read your link - is awful. Definitely doesn't happen in New Zealand, well, not in red meat, I can't speak for poultry. It might make the cooking experience easier', but I won't eat food that has rubbish chemicals in it I don't know what I'm eating. Indeed, my practice is, where possible, to only eat food (meat, vegetables and fruit) in as closer state as is possible to buy from being in the paddock or field, and thus with as little processing as possible. Perhaps in NZ, because there's only 4.15 million people in the whole country (and only 800,000 in the South Island where I live (and look how big it is on a map), it's easier to get closer to the food and its origin. I have a lot of farming clients (grew up on a farm) and we source some meat direct from the farm. Although regulation here is ruining the best meat: for example for a farmer to give me some meat, he has to still meet a lot of legalities, all of which means, to cut to the chase, it is impossible for me to buy meat in New Zealand that has been hung for a couple of weeks, which is truly where flavour and tenderness are created. Crazy: the world's gone mad and the food nazis seem to have far too much say. When I think about it, NZ imports a lot of pork from Canada ... perhaps I better start looking at the packaging of some of the meat we're buying far more closely.

Re: Meltique Beef the world's finest larded meat?

Re: Meltique Beef the world's finest larded meat? Ah, so it is mainly feedlot beef, at least in the southern parts of the US. We need to do a taste and cost comparison, but darned if I know how. What would be your main beef breed in Texas? (Across NZ it would be Angus). When I think about it, I guess we're only talking beef: I can't see sheep being raised on anything other than grass. For wild meat there's an abattoir here that specialises in wild meats and game, and that is completely different to any farmed meat, and the slow cooking necessary for most of it makes the KK the perfect BBQ. But sushi right after you get your KK. That's almost cruel. On another thread there was a great post from someone who was smoking cheese with a tray of iced water on the bottom grill of his KK. I reckon you should introduce your daughter to smoked sushi. You might even be onto something: export smoked sushi to Japan?