Leaderboard

I had the bottom poppet valve open all the way (re-burned, cleaned, smoke) and the top valve closed (untreated, stronger smoke). I don't recall how long it cooked but the smoke flavor was a bit lighter than I prefer. I used 9 oak ½ splits (splits cut to half-lengths) and 3 cherry. I have two ways to add smoke flavor (1) use stronger wood or (2) open the top poppet valve a bit. I don’t want to misrepresent myself. I don’t care for strong smoke flavor (the kind that I burp for a few hours) and I avoid creosote. But I want to add a bit more smoke flavor, so I’ll proceed with caution in small steps. As an aside, my poppet valves appear to move on their own. Binder clips will pin them in place.

After heavy use over the summer did a fall clean up, pressure wash, grills cleaned, stick cleaned. Everything pulled from drawers / storage cleaned and put away. Ready for a heavy Thanksgiving weekend, glad to get it done.

Did an appy lunch / dinner today. Did some poppers and wings

Some first looks.... This is the Karubecue C-60 Pit from https://kbq.us. I unboxed and assembled this smoker this morning. I am making some video of the unboxing and assembly that will also include a walkaround showing the features and how this smoker works. I am super excited about firing it up. Why am I excited about this smoker? I have spent a lot of time over the last few years learning about how smoke interacts with food. During that learning process I learned that all smoke is not created equal. Different smokers create different kinds of smoke. When you come to that realization you can tailor your cooking technique to make good food from any type of smoker. The two ends of the spectrum are smokers that use small hot fires and high airflow vs others that use larger smoldering fires with low airflow. The offset stick burners dominate the high airflow end of the spectrum while systems like Kamados are at the other end. There is more to the flavor difference than meets the eye though.... Stick burners use wood as fuel. That wood is combusting with an open flame to produce heat and smoke. That open combustion with high airflow creates more complete combustion and a cleaner/sweeter smoke. Low airflow systems like Kamados depend on charcoal as the fuel source rather than wood because wood won't smolder adequately in the super low airflow environment. You add a small amount of wood chunks or chips to that environment to create the smoke you need. In the low airflow environment, the incomplete combustion of the wood that is producing smoke leads to a much more intense smokiness. This is why you only use a small amount of smoke wood in those systems. The charcoal is fully carbonized already and the volatiles that produce the smoke are mostly gone already. In an offset stick burner, you create a small hot fire in the firebox. The exhaust from that small hot fire is drawn into the cooking chamber to cook and smoke your food. You have to feed that fire frequently because it's too small to maintain itself for any length of time. Most stick burner owners are feeding their fires every 30 to 60 minutes depending on the size of their systems. These offset smokers are much larger than your typical smoker as well. For those of you who have been around here a long time, you may remember that I had a Brazos offset from Academy Sports for a while. I used it just long enough to learn how to cook on it and then I ended up getting rid of it because of the space requirements. It produced amazing food for sure. The Karubecue C-60 is an advancement of the typical offset stick burner concept. With a stick burner, all of the smoke created from the fire is drawn through the cooking chamber. Some of that smoke has not been through full combustion while some of it has. The KBC is designed with the fire box on TOP of the cooking chamber rather than offset to the side. The fire box connects to the cooking chamber through an open channel on the top edge of the chamber. The control box fan creates a vacuum inside the cooking chamber that draws heat and smoke through the hot coal bed at the BOTTOM of the firebox. This brings the cleanest possible smoke into the cooking chamber. The control box also has a separate fan that does nothing but create convection inside the cooking chamber to produce even heat throughout the chamber. This system is smart enough to also know that you might want some of that less clean smoke in the early stages of your cook. The firebox has controls (not pictured here) that allow you to choose where your cooking chamber heat and smoke is coming from in the firebox... you can get it from the bottom (cleanest) or the top (not as clean) or even a combination of both. You can play around with it and figure out which settings work best for you. Our own @pmillen has one of these as well... I hope that he will share some of his experiences and knowledge about this system here as well....

My "meal in a muffin" is truly a full meal in a muffin or two....... Unfortunately it is so loaded with nuts and crasins and everything short of the kitchen sink that it does not hold together well. Buckwheat groats, bran walnuts, apple chunks, dried fruit, etc......... You could live on them and at one time I knew a girl that did...... but that's another story. The problem has always been that the nuts and stuff were so large proportion compared to the batter, that they didn't hold up well......... crumbly. In pursuit of a solution I looked at pie crust, rice paper, and puff pastry to line the cupcake tins......... None were entirely satisfactory. Enter the Portugese Custard Tart.........Find it on Utube..........The solution was the crust for these. Recipe was 1 c flour and 1/3 c COLD water, and 1/4 t salt. Mix into a sticky dough and use flour generously on your cutting board.... knead and let rest. Roll it out into a rectangle, spread 2/3 of it with butter, leaving 1/2" edge margin. Letter fold it and seal the edges, roll it out again and repeat. Then roll it out, and spread butter over all of it except the edge margins, then roll it all up like a cinnamon roll, and refrigerate for an hour or so. Slice it in half, and each half in half, and each of those quarters into . One goes into each muffin tin, and with the cut side down / up. With your thumbs, work it out and up the sides. Then add your filling. The result is a wonderful flaky crust around each muffin, somewhat like puff pastry, but much easier to work with.... It takes about a full stick of very soft butter to work....

Meat Church and John Setzler have done videos on doing a long slow cook for a week day and I gave it a try with my kamado joe and ikamand. It turned out great. I put the brisket on at 6:30pm last night and ran it at 190 degrees. 7:30am i wrapped in butcher paper. At noon I turned it up to 250, at 5 it was close but not quite where i wanted it so I went to 300 and by 6 it was ready. Rested on my counter for 30 minutes. Came out really good. I think the meat probe for my ikamand is broken though you’ll see in the graph its readings had to been way off, went to bed with it saying 77 degrees, wake up it says 58 degrees. Poked with my instant read thermometer and that said 120. link to the videos

Many years ago.. early '70's........ I discovered willow and maple for smoking. It imparts a mild smoke flavor, and one can cut willow along almost any creek or river in the west at least..... I don't know about the east. Willow and cottonwood often grow together and can be similar in appearance. Willow as I'm talking of never grows to a tree, it grows in wet bottoms with stems from the ground with minimal branching. It imparts a sweet mild flavor. The story is one of "young love" ........ eventually gone wrong, as love or more accurately "lust" often does ;-). In the heat of passion in those days, I would propose a hiking trip on a lovely afternoon, and inevitably one or the other of us would decide we needed a couple of steaks..... We'd swing by Safeway, and grab a couple of T bones, and on the way out of town one or the other of us would remember matches, so we'd swing into the nearest bank and grab some book matches........ Free give aways everywhere in those days of smoking ( I never did, nor did any of my girlfriends.... I "culled" on that basis ruthlessly!!"... I'd already learned about kissing chimneys ;-)........ Surprisingly I was not slapped one day when I rather coarsely suggested to a smoker lady who found me attractive, that sex from behind was fine so long as I didn't have to kiss her!! Needless to say she got the message that I was not interested ............ I'm more of a "snag" these days (sensitive new age guy)....... read "more tactful". Inevitably we'd end up out somewhere after a vigorous hike, combined with other "activities"....... ravenously hungry.... for FOOD. A willow grill would be woven, a small fire built and allowed to burn down a bit, and as we had forgotten salt and pepper inevitably, I would throw heaps of willow branches and leaves on the coals. Sweet smoke wafting over the meat would flavor it enough that salt was never missed.......The spice of sex I suspect had a lot to do with it .............. Ah the good old days. I can take it or leave it now......... depending on the lady of course. Knowing how wrong things can be. Today I'm smoking a rack. Beef prime rib trimmed by a restaurateur friend with willow collected on my daily walk to the post office a mile away..... through the woods...... Why did I wait so long to try it again? It has that mild sweet smokey flavor of young love...... if one of those ladies is reading this..... perhaps we should try it again In those days I took a pile of loose bricks and built a tiny fireplace behind my home on the river bank.......... I worked graveyard shift....... a shift I loved because I had the entire day free!! On the upstream edge of town, I often hiked and fished and waded upstream....... and back down, pulling out lovely pink fleshed trout.... and whitefish (generally considered trash fish here). The tiny fireplace had a small chimney, and I would skewer the fish through the gills, and hang them in will or maple smoke from a small fire burned to coals and leaves piled on. Cooked minimally...... only to tenderness, the grease (trout) would run out, and the tender flaky flesh would have a very mild smoke flavor........ perfect beyond words!! The Kamado allows me to duplicate SOME of this. The willow experiment was a complete success, and I will repeat it. Note that the ribs were sous vide cooked at 130 for several hours the other day and frozen. They went into the Kamado frozen. I currently have a Lamb roast........ also frozen in there...... I hate to waste charcoal!! It was a gift, from the same friend. Slow baked, my only object is to impart a bit of smoke......... a bit of "love" to it. Nothing compares to the flavor of a lamb roast done properly IMHO. My favorite is called "mutton" because it is several years old.... a healthy "weather" (castrated lamb) straight out of the high mountains....... about 2-3 years old. It has the maturity of flavor and marbling that "lamb" does not, and if properly cared for is mild, and wonderful............ but you cannot buy it. Only a relationship with a sheep rancher who runs his sheep through the summer in the high mountains can supply it, and ONLY if you are a friend........ as they have no "market value" as "mutton" so they are butchered as lambs normally. Few people have ever experienced this.......... I have spent my life around livestock and most of my friends are ranchers, and even they tend to have no idea what I am "raving " about......... as they tend to overcook everything. Nothing is so offensive as overcooked sheep. NEVER cook it beyond medium rare........ beyond that it continuously becomes more and more offensive. DO IT RIGHT OR STAY HOME!! H.W.

My Masterbuilt Gravity box is waiting to be unwrapped Christmas morning and I am quite pleased it was in my family's price range. I'll post up when I find the answer to my question on how long it takes to shut down and if it wastes charcoal doing so. I'm also going to get right to work on seeing how much wood I can stuff in the bin without upsetting whatever level of delicate balance it maintains.

I followed your prime rib process (see below) but smoke-roasted it in my KBQ a few weeks ago. It was excellent and will improve as I learn to adjust the amount of smoke flavor. I will be smoke-roasting two bone-in pork loins for a dinner party in three days. I hope to post a synopsis in the Pork Recipes section.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/josephsVAsnacks?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet I don't do this sort of thing often but this one sort of grabbed me when I came across it on Facebook this morning. Tony Pizzelanti owns a local bakery around the corner from my house. He has a 'dream wall' chalk board inside his establishment where folks write their 'dreams' that they would like to accomplish. Tony and the folks at Old World Baking Company help fund these dreams with the help of local businesses and contributors. This young man is the most recent recipient of the Dream Wall. Have a quick look at this story on gofundme and help spread a little extra Christmas cheer through this young man to some veterans in the VA Hospital... Thanks! John Setzler Kamado Guru Administrator

I haven't posted a video online but it's starting to rust where the ash pan and body meet, it's not bad and is still being used. It's about 7 years old at this point and has always been under a covered porch with no cover on it and like I said I live in a extremely humid climate.

My pizza routine is easier. I start right after breakfast using the same ingredients as Mr. Brown. I bloom the yeast in warm water with just a small pinch of sugar. I put about 4 cups of flour (using an ordinary one cup measuring cup) in my food processor with the plastic dough blade. I add a table spoon or so of Olive oil (I don't measure this) and a tsp or so of salt, also not measured. I start the food processor and add the water/yeast mixture until the dough comes together in a ball. I let it rest/hydrate for a few moments and then process for 30 or 45 seconds. I let it cool/rest for a few minutes and give it another mix. The dough should be pretty sticky. I turn it out on a board and let it rest for 5 minutes. Then I kneed it for 3 minutes or so or until I get tired. I place it into an oiled bowl, cover it with cling film and put it into the refrigerator all day. In the late afternoon I punch the dough down and kneed it for a minute or so, cut it into four portions, roll each piece into a ball, put three of the balls into a zip style bag, and put the fourth back into the bowl and into the refrigerator. The three bags go into the freezer. They stay good for two months or so; however, after more than a week they don't get as puffy as the fresh version. On the other hand, it's handy and if you're into thin crust they work just fine especially if you let them warm up on the counter for a few hours and give the yeast a chance to reactivate. When I'm ready to cook I bring out the dough from the refer, let it warm up to room temp. , shape it by stretching and/or rolling, and go from there.

300℃ and 10 minutes, the skills is how to put the pizza upper on the paddle :))

Welcome Anthony, glad to have you with us. A short straight answer to your question would be as follows: The Akorn metal kamado is probably the best and lowest price kamado.While Akorns are not ceramic they can and do preform very well and can deliver amazing cooks. Once you go ceramic, the best and most reasonably priced kamados are made with Auplex ceramic components from China. There are several kamados in this category; Vision, Pit Boss, Browning, etc. Once you know what to look for all Auplex component kamados have a similar general look even though different brands may have trim variations. The next category includes BGE, KJ, Primo, etc. and as you said early they are a bit pricey but in the opinion of most all of us, quite worth the money in terms of quality, reliability, customer service, and warranty. There are some other kamados in this category like the Saffire that are also quite good and well respected but not quite as widely marketed. Above that you have kamados like the Kamodo Kamado which is insanely well built and beautiful along with being very expensive.

Welcome to the Guru there are a lot of great people and information around here.

Welcome!

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the Guru! Pictures always appreciated

Welcome to the forum. A KJ is a good choice since it allows you to cook with it regardless of the weather. I'm looking forward to seeing your cooks.

Welcome aboard! Remember that your errors will still taste better than your neighbours successes! Let us know about your cooks and remember, “photos or it didn't happen!”

Main issue with his recipe is the amount of sugar in it. On the grill, that will have tendency to burn. Alton Brown did a grilled pizza episode. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/grilled-pizza-three-ways-recipe-2118405 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk