tony b

Just curious - Do you get any "burnt oil" flavors in the food? What about creosote build up on the dome from the burning oil? Just trying to sort this technique out from using "charcoal lighter fluid," which NO ONE here would ever be caught doing!

Excellent looking venison. I'd eat that!

What the man said!! Cheers Mate!

@glx - You mentioned "heat deflector" - are you using the heavy ceramic one that came with your KK? If so, don't! It's part of what's driving your initial heat-up time to excess for no good reason. Even Dennis doesn't advocate using it. Just put the drip pan or even just some aluminum foil on the lower grate; works as effectively as a heat deflector (you're mainly trying to block the direct infrared heat from the coals) and doesn't take much to heat up along with the rest of the KK. Also good advice from Alohapiggy, especially in windy conditions. I have a 23" with a DigiQ-II and never open the fan damper more than 1/2, will drop it down to 1/4 open if it's really windy. Let us know how the brisket comes out. Pictures, please (we're into food porn here on this site!)

After almost a week of freezing rain and snow, I finally got a break in the weather to fire up the KK for dinner! I had a piece of picanha in the freezer, so onto the KK it went after getting a generous rub of flaked salt, freshly ground pepper and some garlic seasoning. Lower grate, direct, over coffee charcoal, with mesquite and coffee wood chunks, Dome around 400F. Plated with a nice side salad, crusty bread, smashed roasted potatoes and sautéed mushrooms! Up close and personal!

😢

What Pequod said - close the top damper almost fully closed - just barely off the seat. Also, if it's a windy day, close down the damper on the fan outlet of the Guru, so you don't get too much airflow when the fan isn't running. I pretty much always have mine at least half closed. One thing about a controller - once the temperature goes above the setpoint, the controller can't bring it back down!

He was my sensei.

I like that plan. IMHO, the back strap is the only piece of venison that I think is worth eating grilled. Most everything else needs to be braised or stewed.

Definitely prick the skin so that the fat can more easily render out and the skin can crisp up. When it comes to duck, especially Peking Duck, it's ALL about the crispy skin. If you want to take the extra step, and have a means to do so, part of the prep on the Peking Duck is to inflate the skin to separate it from the meat, which aids in the fat rendering out (Obviously you can't poke holes in the skin AND then expect to inflate it, so these are mutually exclusive techniques.)

Cover is not as crucial if it's under a roof that will protect it from freezing rain and snow. @Sgt Stedanko - Sorry, repeat that, Lard Ass! ROFLMAO!!

YEP! What he said! I have a 23" and like having a 2nd charcoal basket with the splitter already set up. Just swap baskets when you want to go from full to half. And DEFINITELY load up that pallet with all the cocochar, coffee wood charcoal & chunks that you can get your hands on!

If you're up for the 3 days of prep - Peking duck is really tasty. I haven't done one in ages, as it is an intense process, but really worth it if you do it. @wilburpan on here was a Master at them.

Where many of us live, it's either that, or go without grilled/smoked foods for months at a time! 😢

Used the trick of cooking older eggs so that they peeled easily.

Y'all got me going on the egg thing, so I did these in the InstaPot for 8 minutes, quick release and into an ice bath.

Picture perfect, MacKenzie. Not a speck of green anywhere in sight on that yolk.

Welcome to the Obsession! You've definitely gotten off to a great start. And those of us in the Dark Autumn Nebula square tile camp would beg to differ with our esteemed pebble KK owners over which model cooks the best! 😁

Dennis is a god when it comes to outstanding customer service! Don't be afraid to chat him up. No sales pressure at all, just great advice to make sure that you get exactly what you want/need in the grill & accessories.

The detergent is also bad for the steel and will cause micropits. Plus, there's the problem of the knives banging into other stuff and badly dulling the blade. I have a friend who struggled with his wife putting his good knives in the dishwasher, despite being asked multiple times not too. He even went so far as to put red colored tape on the handles to distinguish the ones that DIDN'T go in the dishwasher - it didn't work. He hides them now, too!

MacKenzie and I experimented with poaching eggs in the Sous Vide circulator (multiple posts in the Sous Vide section of the Forum). The "classic method" gives perfect results, but just takes too long (50 minutes) and everything that we tried to shorten up the time, either gave us results we weren't happy with (overdone yolks or watery whites) or became cumbersome/complicated (multiple hot & ice water baths). I tried doing them in the InstaPot, but it's almost impossible to not overcook them, even if you release the steam immediately after it comes up to pressure. Consequently, I rarely make a poached egg anymore, opting for fried eggs instead, Spanish style (sunny side up, cooked in lots of olive oil and basted.)

Cooking an egg properly is one of the hardest tasks in a kitchen. That's why many restaurants ask applicants to cook an egg as part of the interview.

From the good ole internet: Some people use a pin to make a small hole in the shell at the large end of the egg before they put the egg in the water. At the large end of each egg is a small air space. When you hard cook an egg, this air heats up, expands, and escapes through pores in the shell—but not before the egg white sets. This leaves the egg with a flattened end. The best explanation that I could find for the decreasing amount of water being added when cooking more eggs was that the higher number of eggs increases the cold surface area inside the cooker, condensing the steam back to water, which drains back to the heating element to repeat the cycle until all the water/steam eventually escapes out the top as the eggs warm up/cook. So, with fewer eggs, more steam escapes early in the cooking process, so you need more water to start with to compensate for the added losses.

Yep.

Awesome, indeed!!