tony b

How is the texture of the skin when finished?

Classic @Poochie 🤪

@tekobo - Happy Birthday! 🥂🎂 Hope it's a great one!

Interesting that Whiz likes chips over pellets (mainly because of the creosote buildup). Many of us here are in the pellet camp because they stay lit better than chips. YMMV

Where do you buy Yak's for grilling?? 🤣

All's well, that end's well, as the saying goes! Good job. Now sit back with an adult beverage and enjoy the results of your hard work!

I've used it before. It's a good all-around chili powder. Mostly I use Pendery's Dallas Dynamite, Fort Worth Light and Top Hat - a 3 dump recipe.

@C6Bill - you can always serve the beans "on the side" and let folks put them in their bowl with the chili, if they so choose. That's a totally acceptable alternative, just like some folks like to add cheese, onions, sour cream, etc. to their bowl of red. Everyone gets what they like, while still preserving the actual chili for the purists. Just a suggestion.

Similar to Bruce Mitchell pimping Blackstone Griddles. I like his YouTube videos, too! Bruce Mitchell On The Bayou - YouTube

Cool! I used to judge CASI competitions back in the day up here in IA. A big SECOND on Pendery's for chili powders. I generally use Penzey's for dried whole chiles. I have used smoked brisket in my chili with good results recently. My "standard method" is to grill my sirloin steaks first, then cube and/or grind them for the chili. I like that kiss of smoke that grilling adds over just browning the meat in the pot. Yeah, you don't get the fond in the bottom of the pot, but it's easy to make up for that with some beef stock.

You are spot on in your reasoning. That's why we highly recommend using the damper on the fan units to choke down on the draft airflow and force the fan to do the heavy lifting. Strong winds blowing across the top damper create what's called "vacuum drag." It actually pulls more air through the damper than would naturally draft by itself, throwing off your dome temperatures (in the wrong/high direction!) Once the grill temperature is above your setpoint, the controller is pretty much useless at that point, as they can't lower the temperature; only increase it or maintain it.

It's not recommended. It's called botulism!

Yep, I put it back in the jar. It's in the fridge and it lasts a long time, as it doesn't take very much to slather a butt in the pink paper. It's been a while since I last did this, but I generally just go by smell & taste (you can also see the smoke "ring" developing around the outside of the pans.) I pull it off when I'm happy with the level of "smokiness." It's not super long, if I remember correctly, just an hour or so. A lot depends on how much smoke you're generating from the cold smoker - obviously. I usually keep the top damper almost closed, so that most of the smoke gets "trapped" in the KK. Keep posting, as I'm curious how you fare.

@brett - good to see some OGs still hanging around. My old DigiQ-II (Guru) is still rocking on. I have replaced probes over the years, but even they seem to last a long time. Like you, I just like the "comfort" of setting everything up and just walking away and letting the Guru do the heavy lifting on really long cooks (over 3 or 4 hours.) Lots of good advice here on more-recent tech/gadgets. Good luck!

Both of you nailed it. I'd eat all of that!

I've done this method - sort of, on my pork butts. I don't chop mine up like that. Similar to beef brisket, I wrap the butt in pink butcher paper after the stall and slather with the leaf lard. He passed up a good opportunity here by not putting that pot of lard into his smoker to pick up extra smoky flavor. Pan on the left is the lard, the one on the right is beef tallow. I did this with the cold smoker attachment, no fire in the box. As you can see from the leaves, it was summertime, so warm enough to melt the fats without a fire.

Cute pooch, but he doesn't look all that happy!

@Tyrus - cool ceramic cooking pot. I've not seen one like it before.

Wasn't meant to be critical of you, man. I know you can cook. I was just dissing on this lady for using it when it's so easy to grate "real cheese." It's not a big time sink either, a couple of minutes.

@Bruce Pearson - glad to see you again! We've missed you!

@Troble - she lost all street cred on those potatoes when she hyped using the pre-grated parm in the "green can." That stuff is vile - full of "sawdust" (aka, cellulose) to keep it from clumping up. Just buy real parm and finely grate it with a microplaner!

Longest SV cook (water bath) that I've ever done was 72 hours. It was a corned beef brisket for St. Pat's day. This was a few years ago. I've not done any "long" SV cooks in a while.

Very nice video. It's the way true artisans approach everything they do.

@tekobo - if you can find some German Black Swabian pork - it's seriously one of the best piggies out there - and I live in the place where the pigs outnumber the people by 700%! Red Wattle and Mulefoot are some other rare heritage breeds found around here. I think your "Middle White" is what we call Yorkshire here. If so, it's the #1 breed of pig here, followed by Duroc and Berkshire (aka, Kurobuta.)

That, Folks, is why you need to have the Cold Smoker Unit for your KK!