wilburpan Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Our Sunday dinner cook was pretty straight forward. Take 2 lbs of salmon fillet, slice into individual pieces, pat dry, and sprinkle with a liberal amount of Old Bay. Cook over high heat skin side up to start. Flip after three minutes, and cook for another three minutes. Here’s what it looked like coming off of Smaug.Plated.The skin side came out nice and crispy. Even my kids ate the skin, and they’ve been squeamish about fish skin before this.The inside was perfect. I’ve often said that having a kamado grill is like having a charcoal grill that’s as efficient as a gas grill. I timed how long it took Smaug to come up to temperature. I started with a full basket of charcoal, lit it over a fairly wide area, and had the lid open with the bottom vents fully open, with the grate off. After five minutes, I stirred the top layer of the charcoal a bit to spread out the lit coals, put the grate in, closed the lid and opened the top vent as high as it would go. I hit 600ºF after a total time of 12 minutes. My old gas grill would have to heat for about 12 minutes or so before the grates were hot enough to cook salmon like this, and it never got this hot. I’ve often read that people using kamado grills of various sorts have a problem getting the temperature high enough in a reasonable amount of time. As much as I would love to say that the solution is to get a KK grill , I think that my approach to starting a hot fire would work for anyone. I think that the stirring after five minutes helps a lot, because it gets lit coals right at the top of the basket and distributes the fire more quickly than letting it burn on its own. (That’s also why I leave the grate off at first so I don’t have to maneuver a hot grate later to stir up the charcoal.) I’ve noticed in the past that if I’m going for a high temperature, and there’s large pieces of charcoal on the top that are burning only on the bottom side, the unlit portion of the charcoal is preventing heat from coming through. Flipping over those pieces did a lot to speed up the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Wilbur, that is a lovely piece of salmon and what a neat method of getting the grill up to temp. quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigLazy23 Posted July 6, 2015 Report Share Posted July 6, 2015 Looks tasty Wilbur. Agree the color on the inside is perfect. Did you use any smoking wood? Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilburpan Posted July 7, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 No, this cook was done with just Royal Oak charcoal. I’m not sure how much flavor could be added with smoking wood, as it was only 6 minutes of cooking altogether. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigLazy23 Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Thought the same but was curious enough to still ask. Will have to try stirring the coals tonight to get things sizzling quickly. I'm one of those in the camp of charcoal can always get hotter quicker for high temp cooks! Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveyR Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Great looking cook there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinyfish Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Look at that nice flaky salmon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Yummy looking salmon and I'm a sucker for crispy salmon skin! I'll give the coal stirring thing a try on my next high temp cook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisLinkletter Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Great cook Wilbur.. that bite on the plate has me drooling.. The difference between other charcoal grills and your KK is that there is no gap between the body and firebox or holes in the firebox for the air to bypass the charcoal. This prevents the grill from getting too hot and cracking or warping. When you open the chimney on your KK and hot air exits, a vacuum is created and that same volume of air is forced thru the charcoal. With other charcoal grills the air takes the path of least resistance and goes around the charcoal. This forced airflow on the KK is why it is more responsive to adjustments and gets hot faster.. Remember that you really don't have airflow until you close and latch the lid.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoFrogs91 Posted July 7, 2015 Report Share Posted July 7, 2015 Nice looking fish Wilbur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
