tony b

Another steak night. Choice Reserve Ribeye, direct on lower grate, mesquite and coffee wood chunks. Side salad, crusty bread and 2x baked spud, with some chimichurri sauce on the side. Nice TJ Zin to go with it all. Up close and personal!

Nice plan. My deck is TREX, except for the corner where the KK lives, which is ironwood, as I said earlier.

@Boom Boom - talk to your contractor. You are starting to get into the realm of needing rebar in the concrete when you get that thick. Sometimes more isn't better. Maybe a different formulation of your cement rather than more of the standard recipe is in order?

That's our Dennis!

Nice homework. Sounds like you know what you want and why! A piece of advice on the deck rebuild - see if you can score some ironwood decking for the area around where the KK will go. One of the rare woods that will scorch but not burn/flame up. (trivia - it's also one of the rare woods that doesn't float in water.) I've had a live coal drop on mine and you just sand it off and no one's the wiser. Sounds like you've got the structural aspects all scoped out. Ask away - that's what this Forum is mostly about - that, and food porn!

The LAST of the local corn! 😢 Country style pork rib, rubbed with - hommage to Aussie - Poultry seasoning mixed with Eat This. Indirect (there's that pesky thin sheet of AL foil again!), with smoker pot of hickory and apple wood, 250F. HURRAY - I can upload pics again!! Plated with some leftover polenta and ragu sauce. Side salad.

Caught - ketchup-handed! Normally an aioli fan, but since I had the ketchup out to make the chili, I decided to use it on the fries for consistency of flavors.

Never been one of mine - ROFLMAO!

Aussie, the rib king! I thought about it briefly, but didn't want to hassle with it. You shucked them, blanch briefly in boiling water, then shock them in an ice bath. Then, put them up in Foodsaver bags to freeze. It's good, but not much better than what you can buy in the Freezer section of the supermarket. Sausage layout was based more on the cooking area than artful presentation! The knackwurst, being the fatties, I placed near the back with the corn, where the fire was hotter. Similar with the others, fire was a tad lower on the left, so that's where I put the weisswurt (veal), which has less fat and the wieners, which are fattier, on the right. As you can see, I did move them around a bit during the cooking process. (Hurray, my internet service is behaving today and I can upload pics again!) Plated, with airfryer fries, and an assortment of mustards. We're still seeing the residuals from the CA wildfire smoke here. Makes for nice sunsets!

First tip, if you've used the grill a lot between roti cooks, the spring side might be a bit gunked up and not flexing enough. Try just pushing the rod in/out of there a few times to check it. If all else fails, a quick spurt of WD-40 in there to soften up any gunk. But be sure to clean it out well with a paper towel and not let it run down the inside of the KK. WD-40 smells nasty if burned. I normally cook direct on my roti cooks. If I want to be a bit more "indirect" with it, I use the basket splitter in a "forward/back" arrangement, with the fire in the back. If it's a crazy fatty piece of meat, like a duck or your porchetta, put a small disposable aluminum drip pan underneath on the non-fire side to prevent nasty smoke. I was one of the folks that "didn't get the memo" that you should take the pointy tip off the rod after you've skewered your meat before you insert it in the KK. So I thought my rod was a bit too long (worse than you described) and I trimmed off about an 1/8" of the rod. Now I have to use the pointy tip with my cooks, or the rod's too short. One other thing to remember - it will expand when it heats up, so experiment with it without anything cooking on it, to make sure that you can easily remove it afterwards. I've had a cook where I damn near couldn't get the rod out and was worried about burning my chicken whilst wrestling (and cursing loudly!) the assembly. BTW - I don't have this issue with Dennis' basket assembly, just the rod.

I laughed at the "Baby Eating Dingos!" OK, I bit! Despite having a pantry full of sauces and rubs, I broke down and order 3 bottles - regular, STB & Black. I think that I need to enter a 13 step program - ha, ha!

Do you really want to go there? LOL!

Another night of the local corn. This time with a snack pak of snags from my local shop - Smoked Knockwurst, Weisswurst, Currywurst and Wieners. For the wieners, made up a pot of hot dog chili (a.k.a. - Greek chili - which gets its name in my hometown because all the local drive-ins that specialize in chilidogs and chili cheeseburgers, are run by Greeks. This is NOT Skyline style with the cinnamon in it!) Just going on, so you can see the colors of the snags. Sorry - I was going to upload more pics, but I'm having Internet problems (my provider, not the Forum servers). Will try again later.

À chacun son goût, as the French say! You didn't catch the part about the wife liking Black & Blue?

That's the fun part of this hobby - no one "right" way to do it - whatever works for you and you get the results you want - that's OK.

You'll have to let us know what his response is when it arrives!

Nicely done!

LOVE the bundle of Shit The Bed with the Dude wipes - PERFECT! I bookmarked their website, doing my best not to order the 4 pack, because I've got a pantry full of rubs and sauces right now and no room for more!

Interesting experiment. I've just naturally put my ribs bone-side down, unless I'm using the vertical rack. Probably doesn't make that much difference, as I normally do ribs indirect (foil on the lower grate).

Last visit to the "Corn Lady" yesterday until next year! 😢 Here's the reason to own the half grate if you have a 23" KK. Corn on the half grate and then toss the steak (Flat Iron in this case) onto the sear grate down below. Sides of sautéed mushrooms and melting potatoes. Homemade chimichurri sauce. Steak was a bit too close to "Black & Blue" for me, but was still a tasty cut of meat.

Haven't brewed anything new since April because of the lockdowns and all the cancelled Festivals. I try to drink local as much as I can otherwise. In the fridge right now is an "New Zealand Pilsner," (Green Dragon) made with Moteuka hops from Lion Bridge here in town. btw - I live in Iowa and we have some nasty winters here, but I still use the KK year round. My only concessions to the weather are windchills in the negative numbers (i.e., below zero F) and pouring rains (drizzles are OK, just not a full on downpour!) So, be thinking year round use of your new KK.

Very Denim looking tiles. Don't know if I've ever seen a KK with that same color before? Can't wait to see it in its new home! Pics, please!

Nice way to spend your birthday - golf & Plinys! Unfortunately, I didn't get up to Russian River on my recent visit to Napa - the smoke was just too bad that day and I was concerned that they'd close down before we got there for lunch. But, I did score some Pliny at a bottle shop in San Jose! Never done "chunks" before. Will be interested to hear if it works out for you. My inclination would have been to puree them in the processor with the other rub ingredients to make a paste.

Happy Birthday, Troble!! Sounds like a wonderful plan and I can't wait to hear how this turns out. Injecting is the way to go on larger hunks of meat like briskets and butts. I even inject whole chickens. I've been growing yellow aji peppers for a number of years now. This year's crop has been disappointing so far. I've only got one ripe one on the plant right now and just a couple more in the ripening process. So, not enough to make a batch of my hot sauce this year! 😢