tony b

Yep, Dennis is a genius! The upper grate has always been dual purpose as the "sear grate."

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Can't wait for your review.

Very Cool!

Or build a Syzygies cast iron smoker pot. The wood chunks inside it just smolder and don't catch fire, so there's no noticeable heat increase and the wood smolders for a long time.

Two tips on using the Guru probe to monitor grate temps - first, don't clip the probe directly to the grate - you're getting heat condution from the rods and aren't measuring true air temperature. I use an old wine cork with a screw in it to clip the alligator clip to. I trim the cork on the bottom to snuggly fit between the grate rods. The second tip - akin to what @wrandyr noted, you don't want the probe too close to the meat. A couple of grate rods away (several inches) is sufficient to measure the air temperature around the meat without worrying about being "in the shadow." For the MEATER probe, don't insert it beyond the scribed line on the probe. Again, otherwise the air probe at the tip could be "shadowed" by the meat. Another, unrelated tip about MEATER probes - while they're absolutely perfect for doing rotisserie cooks, be careful to insert the probe as close to parallel to the rotation as you can, preferably in the end of the meat. Why, you might ask? Well, I actually had this happen to me on a rotisserie cook where I stuck the probe in perpendicular to the meat surface. When it rotated, juices ran down the probe shaft and were getting cooked onto the tip of the probe. I only noticed it when the MEATER app warned me of a temperature drop. When I went out to check things, I noticed that there was a big blob of crusted material on the end of the probe, which was effectively insulation. When I wiped that off, the temperature reading went back to "normal."

Definitely a Johnson POSK. With that much damage, especially the broken top vent, I have to 2nd @5698k, it may be beyond repair, I'm afraid.

Very nice setup! WOW that's a lot of steps to carry even a TT 22" KK up! Hope you tipped those movers well!

As @C6Bill said, pictures would help, especially if you have an old R Johnson KK (aka POSK). If that's what you own, then shedding tiles is just par for the course. It may or may not be repairable. I owned one myself and the collar for the top hat just crumbled. They just weren't very well made, unlike Dennis' KKs, which are built like tanks!

First guess is an obvious one - the smoke tube into the KK was blocked by one of the wood chunks. Did you have it screen side up or down?

@Saucier - as far as I know, Dennis has always had a Guru port in his KKs, at least the bigger ones.

I have an older 23 KK and have no issues with using the cold smoker tube inserted directly into the BBQ Guru port. While I sometimes think that it would be nice to run the Guru and cold smoker at the same time, I really haven't thought that my cooks suffered as a result of only using the cold smoker solo.

My Autumn Gold Nebula gets pretty darn warm on the outside in the direct sunlight.

Check with @Bruce Pearsonin Fremont. He was looking to sell his boxes.

Very nice upgrade, even if it's pebble! 🤣

I hope the inaugural cook isn't the pooch! 🤣

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Rockwood used to be my go-to charcoal, but they had a major fire in their production facility and when they returned to operation, they stopped shipping here. I used to get it at the local BBQ store. I tried to order it from Ace, but they canceled the order, say it was unavailable at my location. My go-to now is Jealous Devil, which the BBQ store carries.

Excellent cook. And now you know why this is the best smoker/grill on the market - Hands Down!

Same here.

Welcome to the Obsession. Looks like you're off to a good start. Need pics of that all-important 1st cook! What's on the menu?

Out here there are more pigs than people - seriously! While most of it is pedestrian for the mass market, we do have farmers that raise the old heritage breeds - most have heard of Duroc and Berkshire, but there's lesser-known breeds like, Red Wattle, Mulefoot and Swabian. It's like the Waygu of pork. It ain't "the other white meat!" I had a local butcher shop that carried some of them, but alas COVID did them in. I can still find it occasionally but have to work a bit harder at it now.

STUFFIES! I had heard about them from a good friend who used to live in RI. I finally got to try them when visiting Providence a few years back. I liked them! Unfortunately, I can't get anything close here in the Midwest - the No Coast!