Daz

I spent some time experimenting with pizza, both store bought and hand made. I got fascinated with pizza after I tried a local italian pizza truck called "What-it-a-Dough". You can look um up on instagram, they make some bomb pizza. The guy uses a refractory cement pizza oven imported from Italy. It's wood fired and it'll heat up over 1000 degrees. But you cannot leave the pizza on the floor for more than a minute! he'll pick it up w/ a long peeler and lift it closer to the top of the oven where the air is the hottest to cook the top. If he has left it on the stone, it'd been charred. So I got some dough from him and start to cook pizza with my Akorn. First of all it's a total PITA to put the soft and super thin dough on top of the stone centered. A couple of times I had to convert it to a calzone coz the dough would stretch and toppings fell onto one side! My stone was over 700 degrees and it'll burn the bottom before the top is brown, and there is no way I can lift the pizza like in a real pizza oven. After messing with it for a while I got tired and decided to try the store bought. To my surprise the frozen pizza selections are abundant and many thin crust choices. Again I heated up my stone to well over 600 degrees and the bottom was done within 5 min and the top is still undercooked. Store bought dough actually stands heat better, the fresh ones got charred quick. So now I always cook the pizza at 450 stone temp, takes 10~15 min depends on the brand and topping but it always comes out perfect. I never cooked a pizza in a 15" kamado so maybe the air is searing hot. Porta is a cool concept - I made my own pizza ring for the Akorn so I respect the fancy door he added! But I think majority of us will cook store bought pizza and here are my pizza stories haha.

fancy! but if you cook the stone to 650 it'll burn the dough before the top is cooked. keep the stone at 450.

I can't speak for all the controllers because some require you to start the fan after the fire has been stabilized. But with tempmaster pro I do it all in one shot, start the fire, put the deflector in, put the meat in, close the lid and start the fan. Some firestarters may give an odd smell, so you may want it to burn out before closing the lid. now i use a propane torch to lit a few coals then start the controller. No mo' smell and black smoke!

https://www.toyotahawaii.com/waialua it's Waialua Blue alright

keep it at 1/8 you'll have a much smoother approach to the target temperature, takes longer but more stable.

Akorn should've made a drain plug at the bottom of their ash tray. I always find water in it when I take it out for clean up.

True that. Onlyfire makes the basket for KJ...

that sounds just like the pitmasterIQ I had. It keeps temp good but I had to come back and check on it after 30 min and adjust the fan damper. I tear it apart (I do that to all my toys) and found it does use a variable speed fan. (partyQ does not so it sucks :P) I thought why the heck I have to use a damper if the fan is already variable speed? That leads to my motivation to re-write the controller program from scratch to control fan speed based on thermodynamic basics. We had a discussion about this not long ago. I agree 20~30 degrees variation don't make a noticeable taste difference. but that also means the controller will not control a weber kettle, or a weber go-anywhere, or an akorn jr or a pk grill that well...all the PID controller is tuned to control a large ceramic kamado so you may see even larger temperature swing on a smaller grill. Many of us own multiple grills and why not use one controller to control them all within 3 degrees of swing? It can be done, but yea no reason to do it if one company has dominated the controller game for so long (BBQ guru) or corporate with well established distribution network (Masterbuild who owns KJ). But I'm a maker, so my motivation is different - My sh*t has to be perfect. It's like vacuums, all vacuums vac but then there is Dyson.

Hey! My controller takes over when I lit the starter cube and it does not overshoot more than 2 or 3 degrees I put charcoal, wood, meat, probes in all together and set target temp and leave it there until it's done. it always stays within 2 or 3 degrees. All PID controllers will overshoot, yea that goes to all the rest of controllers.

looking good! I'm curious about your marinade, how do you figure out with a recipe like that, w/ all the flavors and proportions right. I always wonder how do folks come up with these complicated marinade/dry rubs/seasonings.

True, especially for "smoking" it's actually a lot less smokey than grilling.

I don't have a backyard, we rent the upstairs so I can use only one side of the garage. But I may win by grills per square! What I take pride in is some of grills are made by me and the rest have accessories I made for. And I power all of them with the TempMaster controller I made. The last stove has a hollow wall with holes on the inside. I made it with a paint can and some steel sheet. When the fan is on the stove will run a fire vortex that can heat up a pizza stone over 800 degrees in 15 min.

a high school smoking club!

When I was in college in Atlanta there were a few joints in downtown will sell pulled pork with collard greens on the side. I thought that was a southern thing.

My wifed signed me up for BBQ Ribs at my son's baseball endgame party. After working on my own controller like nuts for 3 years she now signs me up for every potluck party we go. So I was on a quest to find out how to use minimum effort to make pro-like ribs. I figured I'll make a video for it since I haven't smoked much of ribs for a while. Here is a process I tested today and the ribs turned out to be just as savory and tasty as, well, finely prepped ribs. It'd add a few points with some freshly cut herbs and garlic but these ribs turned out to be just amazing. Here is the process, no overnight seasoning, no wrapping and no mopping. The grill was not touched til the end. 1. I went straight to Costco and picked up some pre-dry-rubbed St. Louis Cut Ribs. I've used them before and they are great. For only $3.49 /lb and seasoned, this is the best bang for the buck. This way I don't have to buy them ahead of time. The ribs are good to go. The rub was called "Souvloki" rub and it got a little heat in it. 2. I curled up the ribs into a standing tube with two skews. This way the ribs are cooked 1~2 hours faster and even on both sides. It took three hours to cook the ribs to 210 internally. 3. Lit the starter cube, put in the heat deflector, insert the meat probes and grill probe. Put the meat in and close the lid for the first and last time. 4. Set the temperature controller to 270. I was just experimenting with it, It worked really well. A nice bark was formed yet the inside is savory. It pulls off the bone easily. 5. That was it. No wrapping no mopping no nothing. Just cruise around for 3 hours and take it straight out of the grill and eat. So next time if you are in a hurry or just being lazy...you know what to do.