Firemonkey

Thanks for picking up the slack We used to have a saying around here; "Pics or it didn't happen!"

I bought a package of these silicone "rubber" bands on a whim in Sept 2012. http://www.amazon.com/Architec-Stretch-Cooking-Package-Assorted/dp/B000RODBZK They've been one of the best $7 I have ever spent on a kitchen trinket. Not only in the kitchen, but in the shed too. Sometimes I need a rubber band to hold things shut, and rubber dries out and crumbles in short order around here. These things are still good as new after years. In the kitchen, their typical use is to truss a chicken, like they did tonight. Simple roasted chicken with carrots and potatoes. I slid a screen of asparagus on the main grate underneath the chicken for the last 10 mins of the cook. I've used the same 1 or two bands scores of times - just put them in the dishwasher after use.

yep - that's me. Only the security blanket strangled me while i slept this time.

Ahhh... so at 46 I might still be the youngest kid in the room? At least this room

Lots of people keep telling me their gas grills are simper, too!

Yeah, I find that too sometimes if the controller is running during long daytime cooks, I do a lot more fiddling and checking on things. The controller is useful when I am out and about running errands, so I can monitor things from afar. I don't generally set any alerts or alarms on the stoker, or through any of the apps I use, but perhaps I should start? Surprisingly, PitPal - the most useful of the apps I've found so far - doesn't have a setting to alarm if the controller goes unreachable for a period of time. It has low/high temp alarms on any probe you want, but I don't think they would alarm if the connection was lost (haven't tested to be sure though). It does have a cloud servicethat it uses to keep polling and logging the controller even when the app is back-grounded, so if the feature is an oversight, it shouldn't be hard to implement.

You can simplify those CI baked potatoes a little and still have something amazing... rub oil over the skins, grind some salt all over them (or sprinkle with kosher salt) and put them on the grill for same time and temps. As per normal, open the potato when you take it off the grill. Leaves you with a salty, grill flavored skin, and fluffy insides. Sometimes, I think I enjoy the potatoes off the grill more than the steaks that usually accompany them, and the skin is the best part.

It seems to be happening with more and more frequency. Time might be a linear constant, but man, perception of it sure changes as I get old. I remember when a year seemed like an eternity! When a year represents 5% of your life, it IS a longer span than when it is only 2.2%. Maybe time is logarithmic rather than linear? Hmmm...way too deep for my monkey brain.

I saw a bumper sticker recently that said "if it ain't broke, fix it til It is". That about sums up my cook last night. I lit the grill and let it come up to temp slowly, natural draft, in preparation for an overnight butt. It was a quiet still night, and the smoke was rolling down the sides of the grill almost like waves over a waterfall as they came out the grill and cooled off. Once it was up to temp, I closed the lower vent, closed the top all but the slightest crack, and turned on the stoker. Rock steady temps were insured now. Loaded up the butt: Cleaned up the pan, listened to a little music and finished my drink while I smelled the peach and pecan floating on the air, and went to bed. Didn't think anything else about the butt - it would be ready sometime this afternoon. When I got up, I walked past my iPad, which had the Pit Pal app running and logging the cook, and remembered I had food on the grill. Then I realized that the iPad was showing a notification that said "error communicating with stoker". I went outside to find the stoker completely turned off! The irrigation had come on at 6 am and the other device I had plugged into the grill outlet got wet and tripped the gfci. I checked the log in the iPad and it had been off for about 4 hours! I popped the grill open to have a look: So the device that I used to insure my cook, ended up hindering my cook. Had I set the grill for natural draft it would have held the temp just fine, but I added an extra moving part, and it backfired. With the stoker the grill is closed up too tight to draft naturally, so the grill was down to about 150. I stuck the tip of the torch down though the hinged grate, lit a spot in the lump, and set the stoker for 250. Despite the fire going out, the meat was at about 145, so it cooked a few more hours, and I bumped it up to 275 for a final couple hours, then pulled this off when it reached 250 degrees: 15 hours total, 4 hours with the fire out, for an 8.5# butt. In the end, no harm done, the butt was amazing after resting in foil/towels/cooler for a couple hours. Gadgets are fun, but there's definitely something to be said for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Wtf is that foreign object? Looks like roofing felt?

I used a deflector with an air gap in my prior grill, and of course this was prior to the KK stone. The variables you want to consider, especially with a 1/2 inch standard pizza stone are the distance between your stone and the fire below it, and how hot that fire needs to be to maintain the cooking temperature. If your grill has enough thermal mass, and has been heated thoroughly, it will maintain the cooking temperatures with much less input - the fire doesn't need to be as hot underneath your pizza and you can get away with less vertical space. If you don't have as much vertical space, and/or your grill cools off quickly if you close the vents down, then a deflector under the baking stone will help keep the crust from burning. My old grill required the deflector, so I put in a deflector, some 1" thick metal spacers (I used spacers from a jeep lift kit, but s couple of big nuts will do fine) and set the pizza stone right on top of those. Worked great. The pictures in the opening post of this thread are on a KK, as well as the thick KK stone, so no deflector.

Did you put a big pan of ice in the grill to help cool things down? A big pan of ice on the lower grate (and upper too if you need it) does keep temp moderated. I just went back and reattached the pics that were lost in one of the forum migrations to my original Beef Jerky thread from years ago. You can see in those pics how little fire is required to get the grill warmed up. What you see there generated 175* in the grill, with the top hat full open to vent off the heat. http://komodokamadoforum.com/topic/2540-bj-on-a-kk-beef-jerky/?hl=%2Bbeef+%2Bjerky side note: whoa...that was originally posted in 2009. Seems like last year. I want my last 7 years back!

Pffft..:. You wont find much in there but gravel and a stray piece of fiberglass insulation

That bread was RIGHTEOUS!

I love it when a plan comes together.

I'd reply... But I'm off to the store to buy whatever's left of that batch!

That meatloaf was big last night, so gotta eat the leftovers. Tonight's cook is a pan of dinner rolls and some baked potatoes- russet for me, and sweet for my wife to go with it. Once the bread comes off I will remove the HD sitting on the main grate, and replace that with some slabs of yellow squash to round out the feast

Biggest rock, or most outrageous foreign debris you find in a big of lump. Pictures or it doesn't count! I'll start... Just found this in my basket. Admittedly not outrageous, but it's what prompted the idea for the thread. Came from a bag of frontier.

Exactly. Add some good music to the equation, maybe a hammock in a nearby tree, and it doesn't get much better. Well, I guess you could add waves lapping at the shores of a Hawaiian Island, beyond your hammock, but 2 out of three ain't bad, right?

I think there is some variability within all these nationwide lump brands, where whatever happens to be in the pile on a given day is what becomes charcoal. Royal oak seems to be consistent, and is my usual. I just wish more local retailers carried the bigger bags of RO. My lump habit is such that I benefit from buying in bulk. The only charcoal I try to avoid is cowboy. Too often those bags are full of what is clearly milled lumber. Sure it's wood all the same, but I feel better when I'm cooking my food over sticks and branches, not 2x4s. I've found cotton ball sized pieces of fiberglass insulation in a bag of lump before (think it was royal oak) which really makes me question how certain I can be that treated lumber never makes it to the burn pile, and why I just avoid brands with milled lumber altogether.

That is the first time I have seen the stainless insets for the tabletops - looks great!

I think that really is the essence of sous vide; "properly cooked" can occur at a much lower temp based on duration. Your tenderloin looked damn good - a far cry from well done. I guess when the question becomes "fire roasted to 160" or "sous vide to 132" it's a different discussion. Good job on the steak!

Thanks for that explanation. Whenever I read people sharing enthusiasm of SV it's all about color, and texture, not a lot of discussion about how it changes or even enhances the flavor. So with SV you're comfortable eating steak at 132 instead of well done, because it stayed at temp long enough to eliminate any baddies in the meat? Or did your preference just evolve?

Can some of you guys that sous vide steaks answer me a couple of questions? Every time I get ready to buy an inova- going all the way back to Kickstarter- I talk myself out of it. I understand the science, benefits, process, and all that, but here is the crux of why I never get one: how do you get the "fire roasted" flavor using sous vide and such a quick sear? I just can't see a torch, searzall, cast iron, or even 30 seconds on a fire giving anything at all close to the same flavor you get when you straight up grill a fat steak over fire, with some grape vine wood. To me, it's that fire flavor that makes the steak. The closest comparison I can make is to cook a steak in a cast iron pan on the KK - it tastes straight up fried. That same steak directly over the fire has a whole different flavor profile. I understand the challenges of a grill crust vs even cooking, etc. and sous vide remedies that problem. I freeze my streaks after I age and trim them, and sometimes they go in the grill while the middle is still frozen to get enough fire time and stay at about 130 internal (I like them closer to med than med-rare). Are you fans of sous vide in it for the texture, and exchanging fire flavor as a cost? If so, fair enough, but I just can't fathom getting the same taste? Not flaming - just want to know.