tony b

Let me just say as a previous owner of a POSK (aka RJ Kamado), that there is no comparison in the construction/quality/service. Dennis kicks major ass!!! I am soooo much happier with my KK than I ever was with the POSK and in the beginning, I thought that it was The Grill - quality and craftsmanship are timeless. I seriously doubt that the top hat on my KK will ever fall off in my lifetime, let alone after 7 years like the POSK.

Great looking spread! Love beef ribs, too, but by the time they're done, there's so much shrinkage that it seems like there's twice as much bone as meat! Lately been sticking to the boneless ones, doing them Korean style.

You guys are making me super hungry for a big ole hunka beef!!!

Looks fab - u - lous! One of these days, I need to get off my lazy butt and make my own bacon and pastrami. I know neither is difficult; but I just can't seem to push myself into just doing it!

Congratulations. You'll need to honor tradition and post pictures of your virgin cook on it!

I, for one, am perfectly happy with my 23" KK. I don't have a need for a grill this large. It would just be wasted in my case. I seriously toyed with only buying the 19.5" Lil Isla.

Great tip, Dennis! You should put that in a "sticky note" somewhere on the forum for folks that live in colder climates. While Iowa isn't exactly Alaska, it's gets damned cold here when we get one of those "artic clippers" shooting straight down out of Canada.

The IT fairies fixed the emoticons - hurray. Even better, they are now all in one menu page, so you don't have to page through a bazillion pages to find the one you want!

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!!