dirty6

Did your KJ perchance get wet? I ask bc I have noticed that if my Classic II sits in the rain without a cover on, I have the same issue. The dome stays up properly if the sun comes out for a few warm days and/or after I’ve cooked on it for more than a couple hours. Also, if it sits in the rain WITH a cover on it, no issues. I suspect that the gasket absorbs and transfers some rainwater into the ceramic, if that’s possible. Perhaps the ceramic isn’t porous enough to absorb water like that...but all I know is: uncovered KJ after rain=Lid won’t stay up.

I have found some value in doing a similar thing with my charcoal basket. I don’t have a retired basket to dedicate to the sorting task, so I just yank my basket out of the firebox when I get a new bag of charcoal. Sort out the chips and dust from the usable charcoal and pick out the larger pieces to store separates from the small and used lump. Also helps me to keep uncarbonized crap and bonus items like rocks and such out of my charcoal bins (and therefore, out of my firebox).

Thanks! I went with the play it safe route. I like the idea of “sheltering” the base unit, that didn’t occur to me. Next time.

Ok full disclosure we live in Columbia SC and Flo has not arrived here yet fully, nor is she expected to be that strong when she does. That said, I’m cooking wings on the KJ today in a tropical storm bc that’s what momma said sounded good. Going to smoke an hour and then sear them before tossing in sauce to finish. One quick real world question for those of you with a ThermoWorks Smoke....is it safe to use that thing if it’s exposed to significant rain? Or just keep it safe and dry and rely on the dome thermometer today? Thanks for the input.

Just want to tip my cap your general direction, bc this thread solved a problem for me. I don’t have an AKORN, but I did buy a KJ Classic II about two months ago. I’ve had a fantastic time using it, and getting it settled at higher temps has been a breeze (350 and up). BUT, I’ve frequently encountered the same basic problem posited in your thread when trying to smoke at 225-275: Grill comes up to temp relatively smoothly, but when the vents get closed down the temp doesn’t stabilize as much as it holds stead for 20 minutes then starts dropping. I have to go open the vents up to bring her back up to temp, but that always seems to overshoot the target temp. I’m left with this damned yo-yo experience from 210-280 and it drives me nuts. After reading your suggestion, I began to suspect that I was lighting a fire too large for smoking temps, and when I stop the fire down I’m actually snuffing it out...hence the temp drop, and double hence the rapid rise in temp once I open the vents back up and get the fire going again. Frustrating, to say the least. I didn’t do precisely as you suggest today in that I didn’t worry about shaping the charcoal into a volcano or any other type of shape. What I DID do was start the fire much more gently and only in a single spot, as opposed to getting a handful of spots going via the butane torch. I didn’t start with the vents wide open (as I usually do), I didn’t let the charcoal initially burn ten minutes with the lid open (as i usually do) and I didn’t wait until being 25 degrees from target temp to stop the vents down (as I usually do). Instead, I lit a single spot in the charcoal array for only 15 seconds with the butane torch. I confirmed that it was crackling, and let it burn with the lid open for three minutes. Then the heat diffuser went on and the lid went down, bottom vent open halfway and top vent open all the way (with the slider, not the whole vent being open). When she got to 175, I started stopping the vents down until I had a fire that was rising about a degree a minute (15 degrees in 15 minutes was what I was looking for). When the fire got to 240, I choked it off to where I “thought” a smoker vent setting should be, and what do you know she’s held absolutely rock steady between 238 and 245 for four hours now. This is exactly what I was hoping for when I spent a grand on a grill, and before reading this thread I was completely baffled as to why the grill wouldn’t do it right. Now I understand. Small temp=small fire. No more pretending like I can light the grill and have it up to smoking temp and ready to smoke in just 20 minutes (what idiot thinks that way anyway? (Shameful look)). So, I say all that to say, Thanks for fixing my grill. And by grill, I mean grill operator.

Apologies for multiple posts/out of order pics. Phone wasn’t playing nice with the uploads.

We had a very solid outdoor cooking weekend! Four dinners in a row. Picked up a grill extender to support a big rib cook and some KJ lump from amazon just in time. Friday night I snagged a $20 prime ribeye for the wife and I to split and a couple $5 filets for the kids to fight over. Reverse seared the whole lot (first attempt at that method). My sous vide looked at the steaks with extreme jealousy as they came off the fire. Also, used the firebox/basket divider for the first time to cut down on thr lump usage. Worked like a charm. Saturday was a pizza pie night. Wifey made some balsamic carmelized onions to go along with the usual toppings. Ended up putting 8 pies through the KJ. Sunday was a smoke day, tossed on babyback ribs and did them 3-2-1 style. Fought the fire for quite awhile but it eventually settled and burned well for the last two and a half hours. Got 4 racks onto the KJ Classic, but had to cut them into half-racks to make the Tetris puzzle work. Had room for another 1 maybe 2 half racks. Monday wasn’t a planned cook, so it needed to be more quick. Picked up a couple 3 lb chickens last minute and spatcocked them. Nothing special. Put them all on the grill extender to try and get them closer to the radiant heat high in the dome. No pics of that one.

I have used exactly that recipe to make burnt “ends” on my old electric smoker, back before I got the kamado. Usually comes out great for me. A few points of feedback: Pay attention to probe tender as well as temp. I’ve done 2 chuck roasts at once before and pulled them at identical temps, yet one is chewy and the other is melt in mouth tender. When I’ve done that, I could tell while probing them that one was going to be a very different texture than the other. Along the same lines, be careful about letting it get too tender bc they can be difficult to cube up...if you get too far along the tenderness scale, the meat will want to melt/shred apart when you take the knife to it. Your preference on texture (i prefer the nearly un-cuttable tender version). Use a sharp knife. Be be sure to rest the meat before cubing it. First time I did this I skipped that step and groaned when the first cut resulted in a waterfall of gorgeous meat juices flowing onto my cutting board (and therefore, not into my belly). Watch the sugar content of your bbq sauce for the final step. I’ve used a sweet sauce before, but the recipe calls for you to also add brown sugar to the pan when you have the meat cubes in there. When using a really sweet sauce, it’s just too much for me. Now I either intentionally use a more thin/bitter sauce and sweeten it with the recipe’s brown sugar, or I use a sweet thick sauce and cut the brown sugar back. But even with those lessons learned, every time I’ve made this it has been like eating meat candy. hard to argue with that.

Looks solid! I see your dutch oven is of the porcelain enameled type. Do you have issues with how that wears over time on the KJ? Do you always use the heat deflectors been using that piece? My my wife has a very nice enameled cast iron piece that she has thus far refused to let me put on the grill.

How long did you end up cooking the beets at 375 direct?

Yes, that’s what I meant. Thanks, good catch. Aha! I think your wisdom contains my answer. Thank you.

I’m considering a cook that would benefit from an indirect roasting environment, but also a quick sear at the beginning of things. Two zone is certainly an option, although I don’t know if it will work quite as well as a straight-indirect setup. I recall that some folks don’t use the standard KJ style ceramic heat diffusers. Instead, they use a cast iron plate setter or some similar implement. This got me to thinking.... If I set up one half moon of my ceramic heat diffuser on the low level, and then set a cast iron griddle half moon on the other side of the low position....would that be an equally effective heat diffusing setup as running both half-moons of the ceramic? My hope is that it would be, but it would feature a nicely hot cast iron half moon down in the low position to handle the quick sear. Then I could transfer the protein from the ceramic half moon to a standard grill on the top level to get the roasting process moving along. I’ve re-read that about six times since I wrote it and I’m not convinced I’m making any sense. Sorry if this was more confusing than it was clear.

I forget the exact amount of weight lost during roasting...it is not insignificant, but it isn’t bad either. If you can find beans for 5-8 dollars a pound green, then even with some weight loss to roasting your cost effectiveness will blow Starbucks or any gucci coffee shop beans out of the water. I get my beans at 6-7 a pound, but the quality I get out of home roasting would only be achievable buy purchasing from a local coffee roaster fresh every week in the neighborhood of 20-25 a pound. I’m not losing anywhere close to that much weight in the roast. As for storage, green beans keep for a long time. A year or more. Store in a cool, dry place. Your pantry is fine, or some other closet in the house. I wouldn’t store them outside but the garage would probably be fine.

Yessir, I saw the recipe when you tossed it up. Thank you muchly. It looks amazing all around.