My KK experience

[GSWHoops]

I've had my KK for a few months now and have been wanting to get some good cooking in before I wrote about my experience.

1. Purchase: I purchased one of the clearance cookers back in January. Dennis was great to work with. I have a mexi-K cooker that is in bad shape and I was very nervous about spending a lot of money on another ceramic cooker. I had a ton of questions for Dennis and he answered all of them promptly. After receiving his feedback, I was pretty confident that I would be receiving a quality cooker. I purchased a black textured OTB supreme.

2. Shipping: The cooker was ready to ship when I ordered it and I recieved it quite promptly. If I remember right, I think I emailed Dennis for some tracking information and that day I got the call saying that it was on a truck headed for my house.

3. First impressions: The cooker had been banged around a bit during shipping. The gasket in the top damper was coming off and there were spots where the textured exterior had been scraped off (when I told Dennis about this, he called me on the phone and walked me through how to fix everything). But that was the only real negative thing about the cooker that I could see. I really liked the metalwork. The wheels seemed nice and beefy. Taking off the lid was very easy. Once the lid was removed, I was able to move it to my patio by myself (would've been much easier if I had a helper at the time, but I didn't).

4. Temp control: Wow, I was very impressed with the temp control. With the cracks and alignment problems that I had with my old K, I usually used a guru to maintain temperature to make sure nothing bad happened. From my first cook with the KK, I have had no problem at all dialing in the right temp and keeping it there. I keep telling myself that I should order the adapter so that I can use my guru with my KK, but haven't felt the need for it yet. The air controller at the bottom is a great feature. And it's nice not having to have to spin the top damper a whole lot to open it up.

5. Features: The self-opening mechanism is my favorite feature. What a great idea! So nice to be able to move a latch and have the whole lid open up.

Having no bands to adjust is also great. I love knowing that no matter what, when I close my KK, it's going to have a nice tight seal.

I don't know if the OTB shape actually cooks the food any differently, but I've found that when I put a lot of food on the grill, it's easier to find places for everything than on a round grill. I'm not sure why, but that's my experience.

The top damper seems really nicely made. I don't have to worry about it getting stuck. And all of the metalwork is just very nicely done.

I don't have an EZ-Que, but I like the idea that I can put one on one day when I can afford it.

Cleaning out the ashes from the bottom is really easy. Another great feature.

6. Service: I've had a few minor issues that needed to be resolved. Dennis got to each one promptly. I'm very satisfied with the customer service that he provides.

7. Problems: The inside of my cooker had an excess amount of white coating in it. This prevented the grills from sitting correctly. Dennis suggested that I scrape off the excess (turns out I didn't need to. I cooked paella in it and I think the high temp made most of it flake off by itself).

I sometimes have problems putting out the coals. But I think part of this is because I've never gotten around to fixing the gasket on the top damper. Once I fix that I can report on if I'm still having problems putting out the coals or not.

When I cook at a high temp, I can see some fairly long cracks in the texture. Dennis said that I could fill these in when the cooker is hot if I wanted to and I wouldn't have this problem any more. It's not that big of a deal to me, so I haven't gotten to it.

My airflow controller dial is stuck right now so I have to control the airflow by pulling out the bottom door. Should be easy to fix though.

Keep in mind that I have an older version, and I think Dennis has addressed the problems that I've experienced in his current cookers. When I made the purchase, he even told me of some of the problems to expect (like the cracks in the texture) due to it being an older model. So I knew that these things were going to occur. It was just such a great price that I didn't care about it.

8. What I've cooked so far: Pulled pork, ribs, paella, pizza, tri-tip, burgers, chicken. All have come out great!

9. Overall impression: I love my KK. I don't even touch the old K anymore. It's amazing how much more nicely made the KK is. I had a few issues that needed taking care of and Dennis handled everything. I am very glad that I made the decision to get the KK. I have 3 young kids so it's hard for me to find the time to cook as much as I'd like to. But I love cooking in general and I really enjoy cooking on the KK. It's just fun to be able to create great food on such a nice, well built cooker.

[Curly]

So much meat, so little time. Nice review.