tony b

You must have a different crock pot than me. Mine only heats on the bottom, as the crock is removable for serving and cleaning, and the side walls are thin metal - structural only. So, it naturally has a temperature gradient from bottom to top. If your's heats the walls as well as the bottom, I can easily see how it works well for you. A buddy of mine has a similar crock pot to me and tried the PID controller. Didn't like the results and went out and got the Anova. Loves it. BTW - I've slow poached shrimp and sea bass in butter using the water displacement method in a large Ziploc bag with the Anova. Works great. Eager to hear how your fish comes out. I'm looking for an excuse to splurge on some lobster tails and try those!

Nice MacKenzie, but next time go old school Southern and make that Chicken and Dumplings! One of my childhood favs! Mom's was killer!

Headed to the butcher shop tomorrow to get a hunk of brisket. Shooting for Friday supper.

Love me some pork satay, so PB & Honey rub sounds right up my alley!!

New chef at the local brew pub just added Poutine to the menu - Look for my obit in tomorrow's paper, because I have surely died and gone to Heaven!!!!

Cheeks are so undervalued on just about every critter. Best Bolognese sauce that I've ever made was with beef cheeks in the pressure cooker! Hog jowls (aka cheeks) are pretty damned tasty bits, too!

One of my favorite sayings - "Show Them Love; Cook Them Tasty Food!"

Good one, Poochie!

Late to the party, but I've owned my DigiQ-II for quite some time now. Bought it originally for the POSK, which definitely needed it for long overnight cooks. The KK is a lot more stable, but as others have said, I like the security blanket of using it on long cooks. Didn't need/want the WiFi version or one with a smartphone app. One bit of advice, FWIW - the Guru's have a damper on the outlet of the fan that is a good thing to have on a windy day. The wind blowing across the top hat will draw air into the KK even if the fan isn't running and will cause your temps to continue to go up. Once your temperature edges above the setpoint, the Guru (or any other device) can't bring the temperature back down - it just stops running the fan. So, having the damper to choke down on the airflow on windy days comes in quite handy.

I'm about 2 chapters in and I'm loving it so far, just antsy to try the butcher paper technique.

She was a tiny woman (4' 10"), but you didn't dare cross her!

TY Poochie. Now I get to have even more pizza fun - my new pizza stone arrived last week from Dennis. It's the new conforming design. But, before I can use it, I have to bend out the handles on my upper grate to make it fit. On my ever-growing "to do" list!

Good way to get started, but it has its limitations - no water circulation, so temperature probe placement is critical, and limited cooking size, food has to fit in the crock pot. I have a Cambro box for doing larger SV cooks with my Anova. I've done 6 steaks at once for a dinner. And a whole rack of beef ribs.

Just barely cracked the cover so far (should be spending more time reading than posting here, ha, ha!) BUT, my butcher paper was delivered yesterday, so I'm going to jump ahead in the book to read up on that technique right away, then double back and pick up where I left off.

I find that now I only go out to eat when it's to meet friends to "check out the new place in town," or when I'm too lazy to cook! And, my choice of places is driven more by whether they have good beers on tap rather than their food! There are only about 3 places in town that can out cook me - and one of them is up for a James Beard award.

Like my one of my favorite t-shirts says,

Be verwee, verwee quiet. We're hunting Wabbits!!

Where's my jar? Ken, haven't you paid the man yet!?!

You, my dear, are pure genius with a camera! Another home run!

I agree, MacKenzie. Ken seems to have Oops'ed that one a lot lately. Maybe we should "disarm" him!

Hear ya, Ken! I grew up in South Carolina in a house without A/C, until I hit high school. Probably the only positive thing about Mom's menopause; she told Dad, either you put A/C in this house, or I'm finding another one that does! Guess who won that one?? Mom didn't ask for a whole lot, but when she did, she meant it.

On top of all the other awesome things that you do in the kitchen - you're into molecular gastronomy, too!! You are a Goddess!!! btw - I had bought a pre-marinated carne asada sirloin from Trader Joe's, not realizing that it was not whole, but pieces. Came dangerously close to breaking out the "meat glue" (transglutaminase) to try and put it back together into a solid chunk. Wimped out and just put the pieces on skewers and did kabobs. Maybe next time.

I've pretty much stopped doing whole briskets in favor of doing smaller roasts - chuck, bottom round, etc. I do them just like a brisket, injected, dry rubbed, and cooked indirect at 250F, either oak, pecan, bourbon staves, or mesquite, mixed with cherry wood in the smoker pot, to about 205F internal. All the veggies are cooked separate. Kabobs of potato, carrot, mushrooms, and onion work well. Note: don't mix the veggies on the same skewers - they cook at different times. Keep them separate on their own skewers, which also allows you to season each differently. Currently waiting for my butcher paper from Amazon, so I can try one using the Aaron Franklin method.