The Chairmaker

The same here. My Big Joe II arrived with a similar tear in the exact same spot. KJ shipped a new gasket to me within a week.....It's still in the bag in the garage somewhere. I'll fit it when the original gasket finally dies. Dont sweat over that tear... mine has done a load of cooking over the last 8 months with zero issues.

The Napoleon rotesserie basket (if you can find stock) is a great addition. Really well made and makes great chicken wings. The whole point of rotesserie cooking is cooking over direct heat! What exactly is your thinking behind indirect cooking with rotesserie?

Thats what I do. Cook the brisket and portion it when carving. I vacuum seal the portions into vacuum bags and freeze them. When I want some I defrost the still-sealed bag overnight and then heat it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. This keeps all the moisture in the meat. Beautiful!

John Davidson's has about the best range of brisket , steaks and pork that I've found anywhere. I've been using them for years and their selection just keeps getting better and better. https://www.johndavidsons.com/

The chances are that they are made in the same factory in China. No guarantees though!

You boiled ribs? Slathering them with sauce more than likely covered up any difference though*. Did it reduce the cooking time by much? Water is one of our best known solvents..most anything will dissolve in salt. Boiling in water extracts the flavour (and a lot of the nutrients!) from meats or veggies. *Its why I like my ribs with no sauce. I want to taste the meat, not some sticky sweet mess.

Personally I think that the whole "soaking into the ceramic and tainting it" is little more than an old wives tale. Maybe if you used bunker fuel or used engine oil to start your fire, but who would do that? Alcohol burns because it is so volatile. Does anyone seriously think that you going to be able to detect any traces of anything that volatile after it's been exposed to cooking temperatures for hours?? What about the thousands of people that use isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) to clean the surfaces when they are changing the felt gaskets?

You're overthinking it. Sealant can and does deteriorate over time. A tube of RTV high-temp sealant costs only a few bucks and you could have solved that problem in less time than it took to type the post. Consider it part of normal maintenance, just like changing the gaskets, cleaning the grills or doing a deep-clean.Splodge a bit of sealer over those gaps, or if you want to be anal, scrape the old sealer off and re-apply it. The first way will take literally 1 minute, the second maybe 30 minutes. Then crack on with making delicious food on your barbecue. Don't sweat the small stuff.

They've been out-of-stock for ages here in the UK. That boat that blocked the Suez really has hammered supplies of everything from Asia. I've finally managed to pick up one that has appeared in stock, so am looking forward to trying it out.

Are these sold under licence? The Inkbird controller looks identical, down to the carry case. https://inkbird.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/isc-007bw

Until very recent years, the main use for cobalt was in the fossil fuel industry and stainless steel manufacturing. I didnt see too many crying then.

Snow I can cope with. Try a wet Lancashire in December where the sun doesn't bother until about 9AM and disappears at 3pm. Where it can rain for two weeks without taking a breath. When it's not raining it's drizzling. Lancashire weather is mould's best friend. Mind you, my neighbours think I'm nuts too, especially when I was up at 3AM on Christmas morning lighting the barbecue to smoke a brisket.

Too late....you're already waaaaay down the rabbit hole when you have a profile on a BBQing forum..... I only use the garden centre charcoal when I'm doing a cleaning burn. About all it's fit for is getting rid of the mould that builds up after a winter break!

Fogon is also very good stuff. it needs a bit more airflow than other lump that I've tried, but it is very good. https://www.fogonuk.co.uk/ I've not tried this yet, but I hear very good things about it: https://globaltic.ee/product-category/charcoal/ This is my go-to charcoal. The quality can be a little bit variable, but I live close to them and it's only £12 per bag collected. I've never had a bad bag from them, but the sizes can vary quite a bit. https://www.logsdirect.co.uk/charcoal/restaurant-grade-charcoal

They seem to be. However, they are coated steel. The steel is magnetic so I am guessing that they are just ordinary mild steel, so if the coating gets damaged then I would think that they will rust.