Kamado Tom

here's a pic of the first poor outta the bag, more of a top off as I still had a half load of Rockwood in the box from a brisket cook. I was prepping for a pizza cook here and so far I'm impressed with the racquetball size pieces and the very hot fire for my pizza cook (I actually had completely close the lower vent as it got too hot for my dough.

I have a BGE and a Traeger, I'm trying to like the pellet grill but so far its been a struggle. To me the Traeger is an oven, it works but doesn't excite me, a superior pellet grill might be a different story though.

Well the JD showed up from Amazon, box and bag were in decent shape will be interesting to see how it fits into the mix as it's significantly more expensive than the KJBB and Fogo Premium which I get for ~$1/lb. I've gone through 3/4 of the bag of B&B Oak and its done pretty good so far with 3 separate pizza cooks and some chicken, burgers and a steak cook. I like it enough that I used my 15% code from Ace to order another bag, if it works out it'll be my go to for high temp. cooks as I can get it for $13.50 for a 20lb. bag.

Was being kind, it was more like 15* and to me isn't about the actual temp. but the relative stability of the fire. Learning how much the top vent should be open drastically improved the ThermoWorks performance, Billows doesn't work well when choking down the air flow a lot and having the fan do the heavy lifting but rather when the vent is closed just enough to keep the temp from soaring. I have found for my egg w/Smokeware cap that ~225* open 1/8th, ~300* 1/4, ~350* 1/2, ~450* full, cap off full fan get ~500F then I can open the lower vent and go from there.

then I think she'll be ok with the length, odds are she'll like the Fibrox for the handle and weight but the Dalstrong is purdier!!

what size knife does she usually use? If she'll rock a 10" chefs knife then I think she would be fine with it, on the other hand if she uses a pairing knife for everything or will only use a 6" chefs knife, probably not

I'm all for temp. controllers and I have the Signals with Billows and it works great, that being said your kamado should hold temp pretty easily relative to other cookers once you get the hang of it. I recommend you keep working toward mastering your temp control without the help even after you get the controller so you'll be confident in what to do if the power goes out or the controller goes on the fritz, good luck!!

https://www.victorinox.com/us/en/Products/Cutlery/Chefs-Knives/Fibrox-Slicing-Knife/p/5.4723.30

no it doesn't detect this yet, (maybe in a future update) but then it works to my advantage when cooking pizzas, at first I simply unplugged the billows when opening but honestly it hasn't over stoked really bad as ive used it more and it maintains very even temp once you figure out where to set the top vents. Admittedly when I first used it I was not impressed as it would only maintain +/- 10F but after playing around with top vent settings it now maintains +/- 2-3 degrees consistently. I don't think its the best controller on the market but if you shop smart and buy it right it's the one of the best for the money and definitely a top notch temp monitor w/o the Billows

Sign up for ThermoWorks email list, they just had 23% off open box sale on Signals which would've been $173, had a 15% off site wide about a month and a half ago and 20% Signals last month which is when I bought mine for $183

Signals w/Billows works great for me and they have kamado adapters for the Billows and have for a while, $6 add on.

anyone looking @ Jealous Devil should look on Amazon as they're selling the 35lb. bag for $47.95 and is available with Prime 2 day shipping

wasn't aiming that comment at anyone in particular, sorry if it came across as such, but it is a comment that people say which usually isn't true but rather the temp. you're looking for (i.e. grate temp.) isn't where the dome thermometer is reading, it's an important distinction.

watch out, Toast is comin' for y'all!!

Running off of dome temp. is fine once you know your grill and understand the temp. deltas between the grate and dome for the type of setup you are using. I almost miss-timed a pulled pork cook for a party because I didn't know that that same setup on my KJ Classic resulted in a 25 degree delta between dome and grate temp. inside the area of the drip pan where the food was cooking and 50 degrees on my BGE XL. For a beginner IMO dome temp. is much easier to go by because they have yet to learn that where you place the grate probe matters and can give misleading readings. Another thing I hear a lot is how someones dome thermometer is way off, I've yet to check one of mine and have it actually be off. The thermometer is usually accurately reading the temp. of where in the grill it sits.