tony b

Hope everyone in the US has a great Memorial Day weekend, with lots of great cooks! Everyone else, have a great "regular" weekend! I kicked mine off with smash burgers on the cast iron griddle on the sear grate (upper grate upside down on the charcoal basket handles, for those who are new here). Being a Southern boy, I had made a batch of pimento cheese (or 'minner cheese as we say back home!), so onto the final burger it went!

The charcoal basket on the 23" is round, so with the basket splitter in place, you can rotate it any direction you want. Unfortunately, the larger KKs are more oval and not so flexible. I recall Dennis working on a front/back splitter for the more oval baskets, but I don't know if it ever hit the market? I recall some members "gerry-rigging" a splitter for this purpose. Good luck!

Thanks, @Tyrus, aka The Hippy-Dippy Weatherman!

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It's because it's still valid. Folks will update it when needed. This forum is better than FB (IMHO) because it's indexed by subject matter and is easily searchable.

That is odd, as Dennis is very reliable about returning calls. Something must be up over there that has him sidelined? Sorry that I can't help much with your direct questions, as I own a 23" KK. I'll let the other 32" owners chime in with their advice. But I will tell you that you're about to up your BBQ game over you KJ smoker.

To amplify what @C6Bill said, the reason to heat up the KK is to make sure that you drive off any water that might have seeped into the cracks. You don't need to heat up the KK to put the grout on.

Double check with Dennis, but he's made some improvements, including doing some initial curing at the factory now and you may not need to do it? For us with older KKs, there was a curing step needed before taking the grills above 350F. You can cook as much as you want without doing it, as long as you don't go above this temperature. To cook at higher temps, like for pizzas, you need to incrementally heat the KK in about 50F steps from 350F to 550F, letting the KK stabilize at each step before moving on to the next one, then letting the grill soak for about an hour or so upon getting to 550F. What you're doing is curing out the solvent from the layer of material behind the tiles. You will begin to smell the solvent as it heats up. Keep going until the smell is gone. You might see some whitish gunk leaking out between the tiles. It's easily wiped off with a wet sponge. But, be careful, at this point the exterior of the KK will be quite hot, so be safe and keep pets and kids from touching it until it cools back down (takes hours!) Some tiles might bulge up, as well. You just press them back down as the grill cools down enough to be safe to touch again. We tell folks to make the best of this situation - fill the charcoal basket totally full (it's going to burn a LOT of charcoal), fill up a cooler with your favorite adult beverage and a nice chair to just ride it out. Also, a good chance to continue to learn temperature control by taking some notes on top hat positions at each temperature stop. It's safe to actually cook during this process, as the solvent is on the outside of the grill and not near the food. Good opportunity to make some pizzas.

It was a good intro into cooking on a ceramic grill at the time. I chose it because of the tiles and color options, as opposed to a BGE (boring!), the only other choice at the time. It was a good grill until it started to fall apart, as almost all of them did, due to poor material selections. Hence, the oft-used moniker, POSK (Piece of Sh!t Kamado). Plus, the owner (RJ) was more of a con-man than grill manufacturer - would take people's money for grills and accessories then not deliver, plus wouldn't stand behind them once they started falling apart. And if you complained too much on their forum, you would get banned. It actually became a badge of honor to get banned there. Someone started a separate website for folks to bitch about the company and to post pics of their grills cracking and shedding tiles in large sections. Dennis actually moved into their old manufacturing plant in Indonesia (RJ had skipped town by then and went to Mexico) and hired many of the laid-off workers. He upgraded the materials and improved the design immensely. Many of us older POSK owners became KK owners.

I'm not a direct help here, as I own a 23". But, in all the years on this forum, I've never heard anyone complain/regret going bigger on their grill size when choosing between sizes.

That's an older KK. Back in the day, there were more tile color options than now. Like Dennis said, if it was a POSK (by RJ), the legs would be square, and you would see the 2 spring rods on the rear on each side. I would know, I owned one - my first kamado grill.

Nice to see you posting again. Nice looking ribs.

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Meaters work on a KK. Looking forward to the pics of your new KK when it arrives!

The only one that I don't use anymore is the OctoForks. I always manage to cut myself when using them, so they're banished. I have the KK cradle/basket, spit rod with a flat basket (adjustable thickness) and regular spit forks. Sorry, I don't have a 32" KK, so I'm no help about the measurement question. If no other 32 owners answer, there's always Dennis!

Keep it up! Looking good!

I don't know why, but for some reason, profile pics/emojis/icons, etc. have to be 500kb. It's not an issue with uploading pics into a message or post. I had to edit mine down to size to get it to work. Good luck!

@Tyrus KK-DY5123 But, I "cheated" - it's on the original invoice when I bought it in 2012!

Some good news. Got an email from the owner of Fruita woods. He's sold the business to Denver Firewoods. They are in transition, so we won't be able to check them out just yet. But it's nice to know that we will have some options again for getting smoking wood chunks/splits. From the email: I am proud to announce that one of my suppliers has elected to take over the websites in effort to keep fruitawood.com and fruitawood chunks.com ALIVE!!! I am confident the Denver Firewood team will be able to continue providing you the same quality wood I have for the past 16 years. I am in the process of transferring the websites and all necessary information over to them. Please allow sufficient time to update the websites and get inventory available to start accepting orders.

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Home from vacation and it was warm enough to fire up the KK for dinner last night. Pork Chop and Corn. This early in the season, I'm guessing the corn is from FL? It was OK - a bit tough (expected if shipped from that far away), but it did have a bit of sweetness to it, so not all bad. Direct, main grate, 325F, with a chunk of peach. (BTW - just got my box from Fruita. Sad to see them go!)

@remi - very nice brisket cook (+ sides!) I'm betting it was the quality of the meat that was the key difference.

Awesome to hear from you @Troble. Looking forward to seeing those great cooking pictures again!

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Welcome to the Obsession. Great pics! Glad to hear that the Mrs is on-board with it now!