tony b

Nicely done, grasshopper! Good job on getting the pallet loaded up with wood/charcoal. About the only way to get them in the US now. If you have ANY interest in the pizza stone, get it now, because it's very heavy and the shipping costs are very high if shipped solo later.

Welcome to the Obsession! Now that your order is in. Keep us updated on the delivery schedule and those all-important uncrating pics!

Interesting combo for sure. I would have thought that the chili peppers would just overwhelm the truffle? But, I noticed that it's made with truffle "essence," code word for artificial truffle flavor. So, they can compensate with just adding more truffle flavor. Most food products that claim to have truffle in them have been made in a chemistry lab. The reason that truffles are so expensive is that they are first off, very rare, and second, a major pain to harvest (specially trained pigs & dogs). Not knocking the product - hell, I have fake black truffle oil from Trader Joe's in my pantry, just keeping it real.

One of the first "rules" that we try and teach to newbies here - "DON'T CHASE THE TEMPERATURE!" Once heat soaked, lowering the temperature in a KK is like turning a battleship. The best approach is to establish a small fire initially - you can have the top vent more open than the target position early on, but as the temperature gets within about 50F of your target, then set the top vent accordingly and let the KK coast up to your target. This will ensure that you'll never overshoot your target by too much, if at all. 2nd rule: Don't fret if your final temperature is not EXACTLY on target. For most cooks, +/- 25F is not going to make hardly any difference in the final product. Your pork butt is not going to be ruined if you cook it at 275F instead of your target of 250F!

Grasshopper, you have so much knowledge, but also have some much more to learn! (Sorry, couldn't help myself!) Sorry, no pictures of mine in the grill, but I know that it leaves enough space around the outside for proper airflow. It has to fit inside the handles of the lower grate, if that helps you picture the size? Next lesson, "heat deflectors" in a KK. The big ceramic one that Dennis will send you with your KK - ditch it! NO ONE, NOT EVEN DENNIS, USES IT! Most of us are content with a single sheet of aluminum foil on the lower grate to block the infrared radiation from the fire for our "indirect" cooks. Order a basket splitter and a spare charcoal basket for your grill to also do indirect cooks. If you want to catch drippings, use the drip pan that will come with your KK, or just use a cheap aluminum one. My advice is to skip the double-walled drip pan and use the $$ for the extra charcoal basket and basket splitter. YMMV

And I'll bring the beers as my contribution to the tribute! @Forrest - you're going to be blown away by the upgrade that you're making. Hope Dennis can hook you up quickly.

Project Smoke with Steven Raichlen is good. I have to bite my lip every once in a while, as he sometimes puts out some bad info. But, he cooks on a lot of different styles of grills/smokers (including KKs!!) and his recipes are usually very good. His BBQ USA is practically a bible in my house. I'm going back a bit, but I used to enjoy Bobby Flay's, Boy Meets Grill. Again, very good recipes. He has a tendency to cook on gas too much for me, but he was doing this show on the roof of his place in NYC! Food Networks "Chopped" did a series with pitmasters that was pretty good. BBQ Crawl on the Travel Channel was very entertaining and the hostess was very funny, but a fierce competitor in the pits.

The bottom vents shouldn't have that much influence over the dome temperature. The top vent is the controller. How windy is it? If it's fairly windy, you can get what's called "vacuum drag" across the top vent, which pulls more air out of the KK than normally would flow out for that same vent setting in calm conditions. Good luck with the rest of the burn-in and enjoy those Birthday adult beverages with the Mrs!

I applaud @tekobo for her tenacity in staying up that late to watch the game!

Not surprised by the left-right difference. The 32 has an oblong charcoal basket along that axis. Charcoal burns in a fairly random pattern, so no predicting how it will fan out from the initial spot where you lit it? As I said, the oblong basket has more room to burn in that left/right direction than front/back.

@BARDSLJR From your picture of the butts on the grill, I can see that you've put the temp probe right against the grate and it's close to the edge of the drip pan (almost direct), so I'm not surprised by the high temp reading relative to the dome. You're measuring the grate (metal) temperature, not the air temperature. If you don't want to buy/build a "tree" for the air probe, just clip the alligator clip to the meat probe wire, so it's off the grate. Just don't get too close to the meat. If you don't "trust" the Guru probe, do a quick test of both thermometers - standard calibration technique - put both into a boiling pot of water and see what they read. Or next cook, follow @jeffshoaf suggestion.

I won't bore ya'll with talk about turbulent airflow (eddy currents - not bad for a non-engineer, @jonj!) Let's just suffice it to say that there's a lot going on inside a KK - both heat transfer and airflow wise. To the central problem at hand - where to place the temperature probe for the Guru to get the best representation of the local temperature for the piece(s) of meat being cooked? As noted, I insulate the probe off the grate to get a better reading of the actual air temperature around the meat. YMMV You want to place the probe fairly close to the meat, but not so close that the temperature of the meat itself influences the probe temperature reading - the meat is ALWAYS going to be colder than the cooking temperature. I typically shoot for a couple of inches gap. Next, if doing an indirect cook, place the probe where it is shielded from the direct heat of the fire. With larger or multiple cuts of meat, this can present a challenge, in and of itself, once the grate starts to get crowded. I also prefer to center the probe front to back relative to the meat, when possible. As noted, there's usually a difference between the temperature near the front and in the back. If you notice the shape of the KK, Dennis has intentionally designed it so the airflow is predominately in the rear of the KK. And, don't forget that the center of your heat source is going to move around during a long cook, as the charcoal burns unevenly (unavoidable phenomenon of nature - chaos wins everytime! (aka - the 2nd law of thermodynamics!) But, once the KK is heat soaked, this shouldn't matter too much, relative to where the temperature probe is placed. Last piece of advice, when using the Guru - ignore the dome temperature reading, it's extraneous data in this situation. You either trust the Guru or you don't?

Hurray!! Glad ya'll got around to making the shrimp & grits. Happy that you like the dish, in whatever version you choose to do!

Ya'll are killin' me with these great cooks! It's too dangerous outside to even attempt a short cook here. Right now we're at the high for the day and it's MINUS 3F, with a windchill of -13F. You can get frostbite in the time it takes to set up the KK for a cook. Going to stay this cold for the next week +.

@RokDok De Nada; it's what we do here on the Forum!

As noted by @Braai-Q, 1st stock up on the adult beverages and settle in for a few hours. For temp control training, load up the basket with cheap lump (assuming that you aren't going to cook anything, so don't waste the good stuff!) and just start a small fire, and open the top vent just barely off the seat (just so smoke exits) and bump open the left dial to about 1/2 open (it doesn't control the temp, so it's not that sensitive to position when you first get going). Let the KK come up to its natural state (stops increasing) and make note of the dome temperature, enjoying that adult beverage in the process. Next, bump open the top vent about 1/8 of a turn and repeat. Have another adult beverage while waiting. Keep doing the 1/8 turn increments until you get to about 400F. That should cover most of your cooking range. These vent settings are very repeatable. If you want to keep going to do the burn in, start opening the top vent in 1/4 turn increments to speed up the process. You might want to top off the charcoal at this point, as this part will take a few more hours. You will also need to open the left dial/lower vent all the way. Keep going until you start to smell the solvent (typically around 550F dome.) Then stop the increase and just let it ride itself out until the smell is gone. Make note of any weeping white goop and/or lifting tiles. Have a rag handy to wipe off the goop (be careful as the outside of the KK will get very hot during this process). If you see any bulging spots, have a safety pin (or similar) handy to poke a small hole in the grout to let the solvent vent out. Keep tabs on the lifting tiles, (carefully inspect just about everywhere (except the legs) as you will want to remember where they are so you can press them back down into place as the KK cools off when you are finished with the venting, so they can re-set. Once cooled down, smear some grout around any tears that you see. It wipes off the tiles with a damp cloth. And, you're done - have another adult beverage to celebrate!

Like @MacKenzie said, penalty points can be assigned for posting those corn on the cob pics this early in the year. I just snowblowed 5.5" of yesterday's snow off my driveway this morning and we're about to get slammed by the Polar Vortex for the next week (single digit highs and below zero lows). So, tread lightly my friend, with those outdoor pics and "complaining" about 55F weather! Nice job on the tri-tip. Hope you liked the Santa Maria rub.

All natural disasters are horrific to those both directly and indirectly affected. The really bad ones, tornadoes and the derecho like we had here last August, is that you don't get a lot of warning that they are imminent (minutes to maybe an hour!) With others, like hurricanes, wild fires and flooding, you have some time to pack up and evacuate - assuming folks chose to do so. Doesn't make them any better, but at least they give you a better chance at survival.

Yeah, XO has a special Chinese ham in it, along with the dried seafoods (shrimp & scallops). Given that I love a good fish sauce - both Asian and Italian, I might have to give this a go next?

You said that like is some sort of problem?? Every homebrewer does the exact same thing! Here's a tip for monitoring the dome temps from afar - rotate the dial so that your target temperature is at 12 o'clock. Then you just have to look at the dial and see "what time is it?" relative to your target.

Hey, at least it's rain. We're having a blizzard today. Been snowing for hours - heavy at times and the wind has picked up significantly in the last hour, so it's almost white-out conditions. Very likely won't be using the KK tonight. Will hopefully sneak in a cook tomorrow before the Polar Vortex slams us over the weekend. Highs in the single digits (F) and lows below zero for the next week! And, that's before the windchill factor kicks in. This is usually my breaking point for grilling, when the windchill is in the negative teens. So, take some Aleve for the back and grill on!

Yep, that's the "classic" version that I was reading about that got me going on this. So your friend is ahead of you on this one. (btw - hope her loss of taste is indeed temporary!) Your version based on A. Wong's recipe, with the dried shrimp - is that a version of XO sauce - the other "hot" (pun intended) Asian condiment right now!

Just curious - what's in the pot?

Yeah, I know Mala Market. Good source for all things Szechuan.

OK, had been reading about this latest trend in foodie world - crispy hot sauce from China. It's loaded with fried garlic and onions, to add texture to what otherwise would just be a Mala sauce (chiles & Szechuan peppercorns in oil). I actually ended up trying this one, which is made in the US, as it was getting equally good reviews on Amazon to the "standard" Chinese version. The jar arrived yesterday, so of course I had to try it out on dinner! It went on sauteed green beans and mushrooms. Plated with a nice lemon pepper honey mustard pork chop. Pork chop on the main grate, direct, 350F. Lemon pepper rub to start and then sauced with the lemon pepper honey mustard sauce. OK, now I see what all the foodie buzz is about - this stuff is good! Glad that I only went 3 stars hot and not the 4 star version (which has ghost peppers in it!) Nice heat, love the crunchy texture it added. Will be experimenting more with it. I hear that it's great in scrambled eggs?