Tribeless

Re: Meltique Beef the world's finest larded meat? Looks to me like they're trying to artificially create an equivalent of the marbled Japanese Wagyu beef. http://www.wagyu.net/home.html There's a company in New Zealand, Five Star Beef, running a single unit (about an hour from where I live) that is also attempting to 'naturally' create a marbled beef product by selective breeding of Angus cattle in a unit where the cattle are not caged, but don't have a lot of room to move around, and are fed a special mix. I've toured the unit and don't know if I'm all that comfortable with it: some of the really big cattle near the end of the cycle look as much like sea elephants as cattle. Although, I hasten to say, none of the cattle looked distressed, indeed, the opposite. And the firm takes animal welfare very seriously. But still ... actually, I feel a bit of a good natured rant coming on. I'm wondering if there is a big difference in taste between US reared beef and New Zealand beef? I'll say why, in a minute, but I understand a lot of US beef is feedlot reared, is that right? New Zealand has some particular competitive agricultural advantages, among then, we grow grass year round, so dairy, sheep, deer and beef milk and meat are almost wholly grass fed (and ranging in large paddocks). The above specially designed Five Star Beef unit would be the only enterprise that could be called a feedlot in the country. (That I can think of, anyway.) Well, no, I think our dairy industry is getting so big now, they're 'having' to move away from that advantage by needing to ship in supplements such as palm kernal, creating much more intensive, higher input cost systems, which work fine on the current high payout, but might be problematic when it slips. The average sized dairy herd around where I live in South Canterbury is probably approaching 2,000 cows, and the biggest dairy farmer in NZ has a 40,000 cow herd. ... sidetracked. Our other competitive advantage is that agriculture was almost wholly de-regulated in the late 1980's, meaning our farmers don't receive a single cent in taxpayer subsidies, plus we don't protect our markets, meaning product here, though getting more expensive, is probably still cheap on world standards. Ironically , two of the most protected markets for our farmers to sell into are two of the supposed big 'free markets', Japan and the US A protected market always results in higher costs for the consumer of the protected country so it would be fascinating to do a beef price comparison between the US and NZ. Though that wasn't my rant. This is. When I bought my KK, now into its third week, and started reading this great forum, I kept reading on many of the American posts about 'injecting' the meat. It mystified me, but then by coincidence our Sky Food channel has just started showing the American 'BBQ Pit Boss' series, and now I see: they actually inject flavour into the heart of the beef. Crazy. Never done here. One of the contestants was injecting a beef flavour! If I want to go all religious about meat, that's almost sacrilegious Also, many of the marinades seem to consist largely of sugar. The meat the Pit Bosses are turning out on that program is basically candied meat. It must be so sweet, and so stuffed with artificial flavours, I doubt the meat can even be tasted? Which finally gets me back to where I started. While I used marinades often, more on chicken and poultry than anything, for sheep meat, and beef, normally nothing more than a little salt and pepper, then onto the grill (or roast, for mutton). And there is nothing better in the world of taste than that - grass fed meat. The natural, dare I say, honest, meat, the taste of which is its own end. And thus I'm wondering if our grass fed meat is different to feedlot meat? Or, is this a cultural thing? Okay ... discuss

Re: Covering your KK Just got our KK cover from John Edwards: only a couple of weeks from ordering for him to make and post from US to New Zealand. Looks great (fawn colour), snug fit. Great service; highly recommended.

Re: Gas Burner Yes, following from Michael's post I can say that the best aide I have with my KK is a sturdy pair of heat resistant gloves.

Re: Geraldine, New Zealand Charcoal: By the way, if Kiwis do make it to this thread, I'd be interested to know what charcoal they're using. So far I've found Beehive to be (and by far) the best. There's some cheap stuff being sold by Mitre 10 at the moment, from South Africa I think: it's cheap for a reason. Not all charcoals are equal.

Re: Pork Hocks and Crackling Query. Thanks primeats. The hocks we buy from the supermarket here are the bit above the hooves but also the lower part of the shank, which makes them a bit of a challenge. The two I have for the weekend are brined. I'll have a good look through that thread you linked to. (I just want to try some cheap hocks to see how they go before I move to pork belly, and ribs. We've got a lot of those, including some wild boar but I don't want to be experimenting with them to the point of ruining. The wild boar is a lot tougher than farmed pork so definitely a very long, low heat cook/smoke for that.)

Re: Geraldine, New Zealand Ah, so I can't say we've got the only one in the country anymore Auckland is the other end of the country (other island) so we'll need a few sold through the middle to get a KK club up and running. We had a pizza night with ours on Friday night: all our friends who are seeing the KK are very impressed.

Probably not very likely in my neck of the world, but if any Kiwis want to look, you bring the beer, I'll cook the steak. Just PM me.

Re: Pork Hocks and Crackling Query. That's a great bit of advice. Thanks slu - I'm going to give that a go over the weekend.

Re: Pork Hocks and Crackling Query. Thanks for reply Michael. I've been cooking hocks under high heat on my old charcoal bucket BBQ - I had to do everything hot and quick on it because that's all it ever did. I could get some of it to crackle, like a pork belly but other bits not, so your reply answers to that. By the look of it, I reckon I'm best to try slow smoking and see what they come up like. Will let you know. Same query though for pork belly. I see recipes here for soaking in brine then slow cooking, but in my mind that wouldn't create crackling? Crackling only forms by an initial burst of high heat. On my gas BBQ I would cook top temperature for 20 minutes, then turn it down to a medium temperature to slowly cook the meat. On the KK it won't be so easy to throttle temperature back, so I've got a fair bit of experimenting to do. Will try some of the recipes on this thread also.

I've looked through but can't immediately find a recipe for pork hocks. Anyone with experience cooking these? One theory would be long and slow to keep the meat tender, however, and here's my confusion with pork, full stop, to get the crackling to 'crackle' requires an initial cook under very high temperatures?

Re: New Bevy on the water - ETA mid February They look great Dennis. I've only had my 23" KK coming up for two weeks now and am loving it. Starting to get tempted to put a little 19" alongside. Starting to, not quite there yet (Actually, we've got a holiday house, but it's by the sea - that's fine - and in deep bush, so I've always shied away from anything but gas BBQ'ing because of fire risk, but another thing about the KK's are, unlike the cheap bucket styled BBQ's where a lot of sparks and ash escape, KK's contain the coals, and all hot artifacts, so well, I reckon it might be safe to use there. That, as James May would say, is a selling feature Anyway, thinking .... )

Re: Lamb racks Oh, sorry guys: stupid me Of course 140 was meat temperature and 450 'F KK temperature .... I'm still learning the ropes of KK-speak. Coffee wood sounds great to smoke with, but little chance of sourcing that in NZ. Tucker, I'll look out for the Chris Lilly book: I can probably get it off Amazon.

Re: Lamb racks Nicely cooked lamb. Is that both the refracting stone and the drip tray you've got in there? What do you mean by 450 dome?

Re: Charcoal basket experiment Martin, about 200 Celsius for the half hour needed to cook the chicken legs, then I shut it all down as soon as I took them off. I had lid up a lot testing the legs' temperature with a meat probe. I imagine I would have got another half hour heat at that level out of them. For chicken legs, it was all that was needed, plus, it was quick to set up and get going: I had the legs on cooking within 20 minutes of lighting the chimney.

Re: Charcoal basket experiment Lee: the charcoal in a pan didn't upset the draft to the point it was difficult keeping the charcoal lit? Firemonkey: I'm still 'resisting', despite advice from experience , filling the fire pit every time. Last night I grilled perfect chicken legs on the top grill, with a clear space down to the fire pit which I only had 3/4 of a Webber chimney fill of charcoal in, which just covered the bottom of the pit. I kept the bottom of damper open and opened, for the periods lid was down, the top damper open to the extent you could see a couple millimetres of clear air under the screw. It kept a great high heat, coals red/white hot the whole time, and when I dampened right off I note I still have half the coals left this morning.

Re: MY NEW KK!!! It's okay Lee, I've just found the salmon cooking thread: Komodo Kamado Salmon Cooking/Smoking Thread

Re: MY NEW KK!!! Lee, that looks great. I take it you mean 180 F (not Celsius)? Just if you get a chance, could you post your technique for that smoking. (I'm a KK newbie). Particularly: What was your KK setup (firebox, charcoal/smoking wood used, grills, etc). How did you do the smoke for six hours. Were you adding soaked wood throughout the process. Your use of foil. Just if you get a chance.

Re: Lamb / Mutton Good one qundoy, keep an eye on this thread and put any techniques up here. I'll put any recipes for lamb/mutton up under the Miscellaneous Meats office, on a new Lamb thread there. I forgot to say above I was working when cooking the lamb shanks, so had no time for marinades other than trying a store bought mint, rosemary marinade from a bottle: the shanks came up lovely, but I couldn't taste the marinade so no recommendation there. I'm assuming looking through the forum that lamb is not a big meat in the US?

Re: Lamb / Mutton Noted about the full firebox ... I think. Even when I dampen right down, the charcoal still keeps burning for a while, just seems a waste. Guess I have to be brave Thar (also spelt Tahr) are Himalayan tahr that were introduced to New Zealand. Like a wild goat, but then, nothing like a wild goat either - good information on this link: http://www.nzhuntinginfo.com/printPage.php?pageName=./game/tahr. They live in the high country here, and New Zealand is now the only country where they can be hunted.

As a Kiwi I'll be cooking more lamb and mutton than probably any other meat type, so I'm starting a thread here for my own notes and anyone who wants to post about lamb. Lamb Shanks I've had my KK one week now, and have so far just grilled (lamb chops, wild rabbit legs, wild thar patties), so this was my first chance to use the full KK kit setup for indirect cooking. I cooked on half a fire pit of lump charcoal - can't bring myself to fill the whole thing for every cook - with soaked hickory chips in a small foil tray I made and placed on the coals. Then refracting stone on top of fire pit, lower grill with drip tray, and two lamb shanks plus jacket potatoes cooking on top grill. I meant to put a little water in the drip tray to keep shanks moist, but forgot, although in the final instance this didn't seem to make a difference. Making full use of the KK's ability - compared to my old charcoal BBQ - to cook for a long time at low temperatures, I cooked the shanks at an even 150 Celcius for three quarters of an hour without opening lid so as to keep a constant temperature. I only smoked with the initial wood, I intended to put more in at the first lid open, but I couldn't get the lower grills front door opened with the drip tray in ... another time I'll put more wood in with the coals. At the 3/4 hour stage I then lifted lid periodically to test meat with a meat temperature probe, given lamb is perfect between 140 and 150 degrees Celcius. Took the shanks out when they were 148 Celcius, and let them rest for ten minutes. The lamb meat was lovely. Really tender, in a way that could never be achieved at the higher temperatures. Ultimately they cooked for one hour and five minutes. The meat also stayed nicely moist, even without water in the drip tray. The only miscalculation were the jacket potatoes. They were still too firm so had to turn heat up with meat resting, but still took another quarter of an hour. Apparently potatoes need a higher heat, or, next time when cooking meat that will take around an hour, I'll put potatoes in low heat half an hour at least before the meat. (So far am impressed with everything I've grilled and now cooked in the KK.)

Re: Brisket Pic and help request Thanks mguerra.

Re: Brisket Pic and help request I'm still to go through all the various recipes and cooking techniques for cooking on charcoal, but doesn't cooking in foil mitigate the smoking advantage?

Re: Aged Strip Loin Steaks Firemonkey, on the photo in your first post, third from the bottom, what is that part grill arrangement you've got your sausages resting on, while cooking the steaks on the bottom grill?

Re: grilling with minimal lump Oh by the way Dennis, my wife, Pauline, has emailed our thanks, but a good piece of PR for you, our KK sat in a warehouse in Christchurch, New Zealand - unfortunately previously our home town - for about four days and through at least three major aftershocks (one that took down two further buildings in the CBD), from the Christchurch earthquake sequence that started September 2010 (now over 9,000 aftershocks): yet not a bit of damage to the KK. It came out of the crate in pristine condition - they're built tough I hope the other two just shipped to NZ find and join the forum - it would be good to chat to them about charcoal, etc, available here.

Re: grilling with minimal lump Thanks for welcome Dennis ... still trying to figure out how to get my KK from garage to balcony I won't bug you with first cook, but I'll post results. I've got a big learning curve ahead of me. (My first burn will be mainly for the burn-in, per the manual) Mguerra thanks for your useful comments ... I'm printing your post and using them to start my own cooking notebook.