len440

I had trouble with the Kontrol tower getting gunked up and not pivoting so i just take the top part off till the grill gets going then put the adjustable part back on.This is my second tower and had trouble with the paint peeling off so i used sandpaper to remove the paint from the inside. I followed John's advice in his video and did about a 500 or 600 degree burn to clean the grill my top vent will pivot afterwords.

To me it doesn't really matter where the part comes from if KJ wants to handle the replacement of parts thats ok. I dealt with them twice once glaze problem and once with the top vent peeling, both times they were speedy and pleasant to deal with. Plus here with ACE and home depot selling them and lowes, calling them dealers is real stretch. They sell them but try to find any kind of parts or accessories there.

Hope you enjoy it as much as i do mine. Look at John setzler videos on using the grill, lots of good advice there. To "break in " i used a slab of baby backs. Light a small fire i use two cotton balls soaked in 91% alcohol, let coals start to catch with lid open for about 5 to 10 min add deflector plate and grills. Watch dome temp at about 150 to 175 close vents to 1/2 inch top and 3/4 inch bottom. watch temp closely. May take some playing with vents to keep steady temp but make slow changes. Wait for heavy dense smoke to stop. I keep a notebook on what i did and vent settings, i'm new to this. Or you can not use ribs and experiment with it, and play with the vents to see what they do. One last thing the dome thermometer does not read grill grate temp

I hang my ash tool and grill brush on the hooks on the table leaves. I would assume if your worried about the plastic handle melting then it's too hot to put the tool in or cover it. I just looked at John Seltzers video on cleaning grill and he suggests in a humid area to leave both vents open to decrease chances of mold, not sure how that would work with the cover on. With Seattle's "humid " weather mold should be the city flower spent 3 weeks there once.

Did you get your grill yet?

KJ has a good warranty and honors it. As a side note what is the yellow color from on the ash pan?

The problem with the ash pan is caused by the ash absorbing moisture from the air and becoming corrosive. I always clean the ash pan the next day or two. Learned this 25 years or so ago when i started using charcoal grills. The weakness in the Akorn is the location of their ash pan, due to the egg shape water runs down the sides and collects around the gasket on their ash pan, causing the rust problem . This is what my friend and i concluded after his rusted through. His wife gave him a joe classic II for christmas and is having a ball with his, it's a little different than his akorn and he prefers the new one. I do the same thing with the scoop as golf does.Iv'e only had mine for about 9 months and 100 lbs of charcoal later no problem with the scoop or grill but some oe "operator error" problems using the grill.

This is a little late , had the same top vent problem, KJ sent replacement on 12/6/2018. The new tower had the same paint issue as the old tower. The paint blistered and i was concerned paint flakes might fall on the food so i used 220 grit sandpaper to remove all the paint that had blistered.

fbov The fire bowl was almost full, started it with 2 cotton balls waited 10 min before putting in deflector plates closed dome. waited about 30 min for grill to stabilize. then proceed to start timer. Used thermometer ( it was calibrated with boiling water) on gratre away from edges of deflector plates. Vent settings was the same as my smokes of pork butts and ribs the only difference was the charcoal had no large pieces, i'm used to seeing hand sized pieces in the bag but this bag had none. After i let it burn out, it struggled to get up to 400,the bottom had a lot of ash with a ring of partially burnt charcoal around the edges, could hardly see the holes in the grate. Up until this test and the prime rib i had no trouble holding 225 to 250.This is the second bag of kingsford i had like this. Planning on buying several containers to separate charcoal sizes and practice.Feel the need for some ribs.

Up date did a test burn on grill. Had it rolling along at 250 for about 3&1/2 hours then the fire started to die again, had to open the vents. The bottom went from the usual 3/4 inch to almost wide open the top from the usual 1/2 inch to about 1/2 way open. Fire slowly increased to 275 about 30 minutes, with some white smoke. This was the same bag as i used before it had NO large pieces in it, largest about tennis ball and below size The grill was cleaned and vacuumed before this test burn. So i'm suspecting the small coals made a lot of ash and was choking itself out, with the stock fire grate. Moral i guess we need some large pieces of charcoal.Lesson learned with this grill . Works a little different than my last few charcoal grills where i just filled a chimney and fired it up. As a side note i really like using the cotton ball trick. Thanks for all your replies and John should of seen your video on starting the grill sooner

The charcoal was at 250 for several hours before the temp dropped i think the strong smoke was from the coals reigniting when i opened the vents up, maybe i should have pulled the meat off til the coals relit. This is the second time the grill had done this i'm wondering if the fact that the bag of kingsford had no large pieces in it they were all the size of baseballs or smaller this is the second bag like this, (don't know if it was shipped this way or the handlers at wally world used the bag for a punching bag. The first bag the fire did the same thing and same size of coals, So i'm thinking with the smaller sized of coal maybe i have a air draw problem i have the factory grate in the bottom,. Had no trouble doing a 10 hour smoke on a pork butt with larger sized charcoal.Maybe i should be more selective of the size of charcoal and drop a few hints to my better half about a kick ash basket. Plus i'm still learning the grill and controlling the fire, never owned a gas grill , As a side note i'm EXTREMELY impressed with Kamado Joe and the backing of their warranty. Looks like i'm starting to ramble here so everyone have a smoking new year.

I'll have to try this again but with a chuck roast instead, and leave out the chunks. This was the same procedure i use for the pork butt i smoked before the only difference was the fire dying down and having to open the vents to get the heat back up. Also this was the first beef i had smoked mostly ribs and pork butts before. And seeing i've only had my joe since July i'm still learning how to use it, makes great ribs pulled pork and some fantastic steaks. Almost forgot a few 600 Degree pizza , thanks for the recipe John.

after having the left overs i think the strong smoke taste was from the charcoal and not the hickory chunks, it kind of smelled like the smoke when first starting it . I'm beginning to think when the fire died down and i opened the vents this might have caused the smoke of the starting charcoal to over power everything . I know the 4 chunks might have been a bit much but i'm changing over from using a gasser and the smoke flavor isn't the same yet. I had thought i had the charcoal figured out for this grill ,but i have some more to learn , I'll get there one day only had my joe for about 5 months. Keeper,Walus, John and Texas thanks for your input Have a smoking good new year.

Had the fire going for about 1 hour before placing pr on grill starting to think perhaps when the fire died down to 190 and opened the vents to get it back to 250 might be the culprit. This was a new bag of royal oak charcoal used it the day before for ribs all the coal in the bag was baseball sized and smaller, might have created a air draw problem causing part of the fire to die and neede3d a lot more air to maintain the burning., and i had a mix of about 70% new coal and 30% left from the ribs the night before.

Did a 4 bone prime rib for Christmas and it came out too Smokey. Filled up Joe classic 'll with fresh charcoal and 4 first sizes chunks of hickory. Same amount of hickory I used day earlier for ribs. Same bag of royal oak as the ribs, charcoal was size of baseball's and down to golf ball sized lumps. Had problem keeping temp at 250 about 2 hours in temp dropped to 190 had to open bottom vent really wide to get temp back to 250. Roast had a really storms smoke taste. Any id as why?