sdimartino

Beautiful work!

Man, I wish I had the patience (not to mention the skills) to build something like this.

This is a great question and I'd love to know the answer. I am brand spanking new to kamados and smoking. I have a Jr. that I absolutely love. It's the perfect grill for us right now because we're in a condo and I only have a tiny deck to grill on, but once we move to someplace bigger with a real yard I'd love to upgrade to one of their bigger units. I'm vacillating on whether I should get a steel or ceramic Akorn when I do finally upgrade. I'd really love to know if the additional cost, extra weight, and non-portability would be worth whatever advantages I'd gain from going with ceramic over insulated steel.

I've heard from Char-Griller themselves that more are currently being manufactured and will be available by late August to early September. They said they'd had an unprecedented run on all of their grills, probably due to the Shelter in Place order keeping everyone home with more time to grill. Glad it worked out well for them!

I just got my jr. Smoking stone! Ordered it a few weeks ago and it just came on Saturday. I’m looking forward to trying it. What are easier meats to start out with for smoking?

Thanks for the suggestion, guys!

Like drinking from a firehose...

Thanks for this! Reading through it now.

Hey, everyone, new guy here (to both the forum and kamado cooking). My question is about starting up the charcoal. Right now I'm using a chimney starter with newspaper, but I hate the bloom of acrid smoke I get from the paper, so I picked up some paraffin starting cubes. Unfortunately I can't seem to use the cubes with the chimney because they fall through the grate (I have to set the chimney on the grate because I don't really have anywhere else to set it, no concrete on my patio). Can I just start the coals by stacking them in a pile on the grate and sticking a cube in the middle of the pile? Or, let me approach this a different way... How do you start your coals up?

Hey, Dave! I'm new here, too. I'm in Oakland. What part of the bay are you in?

I bought the briquettes before I knew that lump charcoal was preferred, but once I finish this bag I'm switching to lump charcoal. Are there any brands you recommend?

I downloaded it and am reading through it as I have time. I've already learned quite a bit from it!

Hey, everyone! My name is Sergio and I'm the proud owner of an Akorn Jr. The funny thing is that before a year ago I'd never even heard of a kamado and I certainly would never have paid a premium for one. Then God intervened. I won an Akorn Jr. in a drawing being done by my local library. I assembled it and let it gather dust for a while. A couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a whirl. Now I'm hooked. Before a couple of weeks ago, I was one of those poor misguided souls who preferred gas grills because they were "easier." I have since seen the error of my ways and am a charcoaler for life. I use the heck out of my Akorn Jr. and would eventually like to upgrade to a full-sized Akorn. So far I've only done "conventional" grilling on it: direct heat cooking of chicken, a pork tenderloin, and lots of sausage. But I ordered a smoking stone and I'm looking forward to trying some real smoking. I look forward to getting to know some of you and I really need the advice and direction I'm sure you can provide. God bless!