tony b

It was not the coco finally catching that spiked up your temperature. Temperature control in a KK is all about airflow. You had too much air flowing through and allowed too much charcoal to light and it shot up your temperature. Don't fret too much, we've all had similar things happen to us, especially in the "baby steps" period where we're learning how to use this magic box! Too bad though about burning up a butt. Ouch! For long, overnight cooks, consider getting a temperature controller, like a BBQ Guru, You'll sleep better at night! I'm using mine as we speak to control my KK @ 250F for a rack of ribs.

Took a pizza making class at the local culinary school this past Tuesday. Made a simple dough and tomato sauce. Had leftovers, so today, I fired up the KK (500+F) and made a pie for lunch. That's Spanish chorizo on top, not pepperoni, and I put on some moroccan oil-cured olives, sundried tomatoes, and tossed in a splash of chipotle pepper sauce. Cheese was mostly odds/ends in the fridge, but the majority was Cabot cheddar with bacon! Sorry, forgot to take a picture while on the KK, but here's the final result.

Having eaten them at Drago's in both Metairie and New Orleans, in addition to making them at home, I can say that they definitely live up to all the hype! You will enjoy them, just make sure that you make several dozen!!

I never would have thought to describe my KK as "tiny," but next to this beast, it really does look small!!

Only a few of the emoticons are showing up as true images. 90% of them are just boxes with X's in them and a title. However, the images do show up when you paste one into a note, like this -

Try doing oysters Louisiana style (they call them BBQ, but it's not what you think!) Look up Drago's on the internet to get the story and recipe. But beware, I've done them on the KK and with all that butter and cheese, you get massive flare-ups. So wear long mitts and have long tongs, too! Or you could risk losing some arm hair! There are several posts in the Seafood area about them. There's one version of the recipe in the Post titled: "char-broiled oysters! New Orleans style!!" Here's a video about the restaurant from the food network:

Welcome! The choice to buy the Guru was a good one, IMHO. It's very nice to "set it and forget it," especially on an overnight cook. One word of caution with the Guru. It can't bring back down a temperature overshoot very quickly, so you're going to have to learn to keep all the dampers very much closed, including the one on the Guru fan outlet, and let the Guru do all the work. Otherwise, natural draft will take your temperature control away from you (Mother Nature always wins!), especially on a windy day! You're going to have so much fun, hang on for the ride. As another forum used to preach to newbies - go buy a bigger belt now, you'll need it!

That's where mine lives (we can share stories of what it takes to get a KK up on one - LOL!). When I had my deck rebuilt a few years back (still had the POSK then, but the weights are similar), I had the contractor put extra support (smaller spacing between joists) on that corner where the grill was going to go. Since I was doing the rest of the decking in TREX, I had him specially put down "iron wood" deck boards in a 4' x 4' area where the grill would go. Never had a problem.

YUMMY!! One question, why veal demiglace? It seems like a waste in this application to me?

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?