tony b

I don't and wouldn't recommend doing it either for 3 reasons - 1) most importantly, it's going to mess with your airflow and top vent settings, even if it's not running. Air will be pulled through the side holes into the KK. 2) it's just in the way sticking out and you could damage the KK if you (or the dog) accidentally bump into it. and 3) your cover probably won't fit over the KK with it in place?? (DNK for sure, as I've never tried to put my cover on with the smoker in place?)

Check out the BBQ Guru. It was probably the 1st one of its kind. I've owned mine for over 10 years. Works great. Has the damper built right into it - a must have. It a 10 cfm fan, which is more than plenty of air for a heat-soaked KK.

I was wondering if someone would make that comment?

Will definitely keep that option open. With the lockdown from last year over, I have a lot of trips to make up for now!

Got to play with my new toy tonight - Easy Kabob. Just ran across it on YouTube and thought WTF, let's see if it actually works as well as in the videos. Cut to the chase - It Does! The tricks are a bit obvious - keep the meat cold and don't make it too wet/sloppy. Mixed up a 50/50 batch of ground beef (90/10) and ground lamb, with some basic seasonings. Stuffed it into the gadget and ran the skewer through it. Works as advertised. Ignore the blobs at the ends of the skewers, that was just me slapping on the leftover meat onto the ends. The nice even part was made by the Easy Kabob. On the main grate at 325F, direct. No smoking woods. Short cook. Plated with rice pilaf and served on Trader Joe's Naan with homemade tzadiki sauce. Side Greek salad. My favorite hot weather (it's in the upper 80s here - insane for this early!) wine - Vinho Verde.

Thought that I had told you - they cancelled it as a live event. 😢 It's only virtual again this year. Disappointed is putting it mildly - 2 years in a row now! Fingers crossed that next year in Pittsburg will actually happen!

There's competing effects going on here when you open the lid - one is that you are letting out a bunch of hot air, which will drop the dome thermometer reading a lot - just the reading, not the actual temperature of the KK. Next there's the inrush of a lot of ambient air (oxygen) to make up for the lost hot air (remember hot air rises!) This should only cause a short spike in the combustion process with that brief (assuming it's brief) opening of the lid. If the KK is heat soaked, the effect of this spike in the long run should not be noticeable (or barely so) and the temperature should settle back down to where the top vent says it should be. If you leave the lid open too long, or open it frequently with short intervals in between, you will introduce enough oxygen to cause the combustion to increase - you are short-circuiting the top vent setting at that point, and the dome temperature will go up to match the new combustion air flow. Eventually it should come back down to where the top vent setting is, but that could take a while and if the KK wasn't heat soaked, it might not come back down much at all and stay at its new equilibrium.

Nice cooks everyone! @Troble - you're killin' me with that grilled octopus! Brought back a good flashback to Greece. I put that grilled octopus dinner there in my top 5 all time best meals! Epic!

Nicely done!

Don't forget those all important adult beverages while learning your vent settings!

Jumping on the pile here, but that's too open on the top vent for 225F. It should be barely off the seat. Toss a small chunk of wood on the fire right after you get it lit. When it starts to smoke, then adjust the top hat to where the smoke is just barely coming out. That's the 225F sweet spot - at least on my 23". YMMV

Great cooks all around, folks! Rocking the KKs! Simple wing dinner last night. 3 different dry rubs (no sauce). Direct, main grate, started out at 275F and finished at 350F. Peach wood chunks. Plated with air fried duck fat sprayed fries, side salad, carrot & celery stix with blue cheese dressing and some Peruvian green crack sauce for the fries! Sorry no pic of the can, but a Cigar City Jai Alai (one of my favs!)

I'd still do it classical Franklin - equal parts by volume of salt & pepper to let the flavor come through, low & slow with some nice wood chunks (post oak if you have it), wrap in the pink butcher paper after the stall, cook to 203F and make sure to let it rest, still wrapped, a couple of hours at least when done. I'm now partial to doing chuck roasts, as they are about this size or slightly bigger (~4 lbs). Technique works great. I'm looking forward to my next one to try out the Waygu tallow trick in the Mad Scientist BBQ video that I posted.

I've had a Cascade hop plant for over 13 years now - still going strong, even after getting heavily damaged in last summer's derecho. I usually get a couple of pounds of dried cones in a good year. I rarely use them up and end up tossing a bunch every harvest (2 year old ones) to make room for the new crop.

I hope that you do realize that the basket is round in a 21" (and in the 23") and you can position the direct/indirect sides anywhere that you want in the "approved configuration" of the splitter and cover?

That's the ONLY thing that I miss about my old job and all the travelling!

Greek Night last night. In true traditional style, started off with the Greek salad and some rakia (apple brandy) in the gazebo. Beautiful afternoon for eating outside. Made my own mashup seasoning for the ground sirloin. Onto skewers on the main grate, 325F, cherry wood chunks. I briefly thought about using the vertical skewer, but this was only a 1/2 lb of meat, so it seemed too small a quantity to try it. I liked this so much though that I might try it on the vertical skewer with more meat and use thinly sliced beef instead of coarse ground. Plated with the pita bread, tzatziki sauce, cherry tomatoes and nice Rose wine.

Others have posted for sale KKs on Craig's List, if you want to go that route. Make it clear that shipping is the buyers responsibility. For price point, I'd start with trying to recover 90% of what you have invested in everything so far.

Funny that you should mention Gyro, as that's what I made for dinner last night. Check out the pics over in the Everyday Cooks postings.

@Basher - still got that receipt for the dry ager? LOL

Good one, Syz!

Hit the nail on the head!!

OMG! That's all I can say!