tony b

Re: More Sear basket fun Finally got my basket splitter a couple of weeks ago and am already in love with it!! I've done steaks, chops, and tonight, chicken thighs. I end up using a lot less charcoal than before and can do indirect cooks without having to use the heat deflector. The baby Grill Dome is doomed. It may end up on Craig's List soon.

Re: Smoking wood Can't wait to hear how it comes out and how you like the Red Oak wood.

Re: Pork Ribs I can almost smell them up here in Iowa! Looks great!

Re: Smoking wood I've fallen in love with their Red Oak for doing steaks! Better than Mesquite in my opinion.

Re: My 23" Terra Blue XA 7163 SWEET!! Have fun with that!!

Re: Smoke - What's it all about? While I understand this concept, there just seems to be something "ideal" about this and not particularly practical in the real world. The wood doesn't burn uniformly, so there's always a part of it that's producing the primary smoke as the burning front moves through the wood. Hopefully, you can reach an equilibrium state that is mostly secondary smoke and just a little primary, which suggests larger pieces of wood over smaller ones, especially over chips that burn up too quickly. (And we recognize the myth of soaking the wood in water first.) This technique will likely work on short cooks (1 hour or less), with only one or two larger pieces of wood that can be started at the beginning and allowed to achieve money vapor before adding the meat. Hopefully the smoking wood doesn't burn up before depositing enough flavor on the meat. However, if you scatter wood around the charcoal for longer cooks, you will be burning "fresh" wood at various times during the cooking process, which will be producing large puffs of primary smoke as it ignites. All this points to the solution of using smoker boxes (converted dutch ovens, or the commercially available ones) to generate your smoke for longer low and slow cooks. You get prolonged generation, but can help burn off some of the primary volatiles that produce the less desirable flavors by channeling the smoke back into the burning charcoal first. Having been a recent convert (thanks to Syzygies' post), it seems to work for me, at least. Lastly, Dennis' point about the proper rub/wood pairings is spot on, too!

Re: Ash Deflector I'll add on a little tip to what Doc said that I've learned about cooking chicken directly in the KK. In order to avoid any flare ups charring your chicken if you use the main grill, is to put the chicken on the upper grill, especially if you use any kind of oil-based marinade/injection (I'm partial to Cornell Chicken marinade or herbed butter under the skin). Just moves it that much further from the fire; but being higher in the dome, you gain a little extra radiant heat from the walls being closer to the food that compensates for being further from the direct heat source. Still get a nice crispy skin, but without burning it from flare-ups. Welcome and Enjoy the Ride - it's amazing and lots of fun!!

Re: Rotisserie I guess that I'd have to see one "up close and personal" to understand the specific issue; but as an Engineer, it sounds like it's a design problem that could be solved so that one didn't have to spec a specialized motor for it. Just saying.

Re: Rotisserie OK, I'll bite - what difference does it make which way the motor turns? I'm obviously missing something here, not owning one of the roti baskets.

Re: Pork Butt Feedback I know, but I got paranoid this time about trying to hold them in the cooler for 6+ hours (the most that I've done before was 4 hours and they were still almost too hot to pull by hand!) Lesson Learned!

Re: How to use Coco Char & smoking wood for low & Slow Second the recommendation to check out the Whiz's website. He's "the man" when it come to charcoal. My everyday is Royal Oak lump. My favorite is Weekend Warrior. I hoard the Coco for special cooks, as it is a precious commodity here in Iowa. For your smoking wood, consider using a converted dutch oven as a smoker box. It will prolong your smoke over just tossing chunks on top of the fire. Here's another thread about that: http://www.komodokamado.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=5335&hilit=dutch+oven+smoker+box I like to use a combination of a hard smoking wood (oak, maple, or hickory) and a fruit wood (apple, peach, or cherry) in the dutch oven for lo & slo cooks. 2 parts hard wood to 1 part fruit. If it's chicken or steaks, I just toss the chunks onto the fire to get smoke generation right away, as they are much shorter cooks than butts, ribs or briskets. I like to use mesquite or red oak for steaks - bolder smoke flavor.

Re: Definition of OTB Never shelled out the coin for a 1st growth. I have bought Cos d'Estournel in the past, as high on the ladder as I've gone!

Re: Definition of OTB Super jealous - must be nice to toss back a 1st growth for no special occasion!

Re: Pork Butt Feedback The only thing that I cook by time is steaks, but when you have guests coming and are on the clock, then you need a rough approximation for when to start cooking. Next time, I'll put it on the night before at bedtime and let it finish whenever the next day (my normal routine when I'm just cooking for me). I should have done that this time but thought I could get it cooked just-in-time! My bad.

Re: Pork Butt Feedback Thanks for the feedback. The other goofy thing about this one was that it stalled around 150F -152F, again lower than my previous experience. Mine usually stall in the 165F - 170F range. At first, I thought that the meat probe on the guru had gone bad, but I checked it with the Thermopen and got the same temperature. So, this one became more "chopped pork" than "pulled pork."

Did a 7# bone-in butt yesterday. Put it on at 6:30am @ 225F, indirect, with the guru. Had to take it off at 7pm (we're getting too hungry!) and the internal temperature of the butt was only 175F?? Was tasty, but didn't pull all that well and the bone didn't fall out like it does when you get to 195F, which was my target final temperature. I've never had a butt take this long to cook before. I generally go by the standard 90 minutes per pound, so this one should have been done in 10 hours, with plenty of resting time before dinner. So, here's the deal. This was the first time that I've injected a butt. Would that have affected the cooking time?

Re: Honeyed peaches It's a Terra Blue. They run the gamut of some brown to lots of brown mixed in with the nice azure blue.

Re: Patiently Waiting In Warner Robins GA Once you try it, you'll see for yourself. It burns nice and slow, with almost no flavor of its own so the smoking woods you are using shine through, which makes it ideal for lo & slo cooks - pork butts, ribs and briskets.

Re: Forestlumps charcoal Always looking for something new, better, different, is all. Nothing wrong with Royal Oak; it's my "everyday" charcoal. I buy 6 bags at a time. For the price point, it's hard to beat, but it's not my favorite. So far, other than Dennis' coco, which I hoard for special cooks, I'm a big fan of Weekend Warrior. If you believe that all charcoal is the same, you should check out the Naked Whiz's website and his reviews of lots of different charcoals.

Re: Forestlumps charcoal Just opened my second box. At least this one had several large chunks in it. But, again, lots of smalls and fines. They need to work on that.

Re: KK in the background shot for a PR campaign Hi aiza, We have a lot in common. I, too, have a baby Grill Dome as my second grill. I bought it back when I had my POSK for small grillings like burgers, brats, and chicken breasts. When the POSK started to seriously crack, I upgraded to the KK and, like you, the Grill Dome sees less and less use. When my basket splitter arrives, hopefully soon (hint, hint, Dennis!), I may have to permanently "retire" the Grill Dome, even though I recently bought the extra grill for it.

Re: Galaxy Outdor - Kamado Rocket? I don't believe this outfit has anything to do with Richard Johnson (POSK developer and all around scoundrel!). A couple of guys bought the rights to the old Kamado and tried to make a go of it, but never seemed to get any traction. I was actually on their forum for a while. I think they sold out to this Galaxy outfit. All I can remember about it.

Re: Prime Pork Chops Looking killer!

Re: Forestlumps charcoal While my shipment arrived in good condition, when I opened the first bag, to be honest, I was disappointed. The bag contained a very high percentage of chips and small pieces (quarter size or smaller), very few large pieces, with the rest being medium sized. It lit easily and burned OK for the short cook that I did (10 minutes at high temperature (500F). I will reserve final judgment until I do a longer low and slow cook.

Re: Forestlumps charcoal (spammer post conversation) After the first one, I figured it out and hit the "spammer" button on the other 2. Actually, my first thought was it was some poor guy using a bad language translation program. But, I'm a trusting soul and give most folks the benefit of the doubt.