tony b

I see that you have a MEATER. How do you like it?

Hope the KK crew can sort out the BOL differences. Hang in there, man!

Bonjour! Can't wait to see what you do with this beauty??

WOW! That's a small fortune in that bag. What a gift, indeed!

Welcome to the Obsession! If you think that you will be doing any cold smoking, the smoker attachment is very nice to have for that. Other than that, your list is a good one. I have the double-walled drip pan but rarely use it, so if you hit a budget wall, that would be my suggestion to drop first. In addition to the cocochar, see if Dennis has any coffee wood chunks and lump charcoal in stock. If so, add some to the pallet. Only way to get it in the US right now is on a pallet with the KK.

Pssst, hey man, wanna buy some white truffles - good shit, man, grew them myself!

You mean like this one? [insert evil laugh here!]

It's all proportional to the mass. You can shorten the time by lighting more than one spot, but you end up using more charcoal that way.

Welcome! As a previous POSK owner (K7), I can tell you that you've upgraded substantially! And, not just worrying about fixing cracks and tiles falling off! The KK cooks better. The good news is that you're already used to setting top/bottom vents to control temperature, so your learning curve will be a very short one. btw - love the color on yours (wink, wink!) Please post pics of the grate "problem." Maybe we can help and save you from having to replace them?

Truffle is a very strong flavor and aroma, if you've even had it plain, so it doesn't take very much at all. The upside of being so expensive. One of the chef tricks is if you're making truffle omelets, you put a small piece of truffle in a plastic bag with the eggs, still in the shell, and let them "marinate" for a couple of days. The egg shells are permeable and the truffle flavor infuses the eggs without overpowering them, plus you can do a lot of eggs with just a small piece of truffle!

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 +.