BillCarr

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My base is rusting out so bad I can see the fire ever so slightly in the gap that should be the seal between the ash catcher base and the main body last night I reverse seared some ridiculously good strips and apple wood smoked at exactly 250 for ~45 minutes before the sear. Makes me wonder about all the modifications people claim are necessary to achieve temperature control in the Akron? Now that said it can run away a little faster if I miss the alarm but I can still 100% control from the top ive been through 3 different reputable dome thermometers and they all fail so I’m back to my preferred method with an electronic probe dropped through the top vent. Using the Smoke currently and absolutely love it. Worth the extra $35 over the maverick but still love those too I bought a replacement grill 3 months ago and haven’t cracked the box yet because the damn thing still works perfectly. Went with another Akron as we hope to move in the next year and I wouldn’t look forward to moving a ceramic. And it just flat works cheers all

Wife got me a Sansaire 2-3 years ago and love it. Super easy to use, 100% reliable, never an issue. guess I’ll have to change brands if it ever dies

You opened it too much. Temp was coming down as you had requested. You opened it back up and got hotter than you wanted. Which means you opened it too much. Simple enough. Weather and different charcoal means means the old settings aren’t the same settings. Every cook is different. How were you measuring temp? I’ve been through 2 TruTemps and a couple others. Nothing works as well as my ThermoWorks Smoke or Maverick 335 through the top vent.

http://www.thermoworks.com/Smoke

HD red bag bought today on the left. Menards green bag on the right. Virtually the same price, green is no more than 10 cents/lb more and I believe much much closer than that. Green I believe was $6 for 9 lbs, red was $10/15lbs. Both are completely usable. I'll take the green for now but wouldn't go too far out of my way for it over red.

I get way too much dust and and chips in the red bag. Definitely have to sift out the trash. I get nice consistent usable chunks and rarely throw anything out with the green bags. Maybe HD has better red bags than what I tried years ago. I'll grab one and see if it's improved

Menards Green bag Royal Oak. Way better and still $.70/lb everyday price.

Only light in one location for low and slow. Two ultra tiny fires for low and slow will be much less reliable than one modest fire.

I'm looking for a good stainless sear grate to sit in the low position on the 3 stone deflector mounts. Suggestions? Thanks much

You know the alarm can be turned off right? Not sure how new to the maverick you are.

Finally found a semi reasonable Tri tip in greater St. Louis. Individuals trimmed, $7.57/lb Bought the 5-6 pack un trimmed for $6.57/lb They also had steaks that I didn't price check but looked very nice At Sams in Edwardsville, imagine similar availability at other area Sams. Struck out at local costcos

Smoke for an hour then SV overnight and serve anywhere from 8-24 hours after starting SV. Ultra flexible cook to table time https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/stupidly-simple-sous-vide-pork-belly If you stick with the grill I might shy away from foiling but have no personal knowledge to base that on. Just such a fat rich ultra moist cut I can't see an advantage to foiling.

I wonder if the result would have been different if you had SVd the strip roast and then cut it into steaks. The roast would have come up to temp slower of course so yes it wouldn't have had quite as much time in tenderize mode. Bottom line though, a tender cut doesn't need much if any extra tenderizing time and can clearly become too tender. I was having fun with the tenderizing option and learned that a great piece of steak can be too tender. It was still ridiculously good, and very well received by guests, but I won't go 7 hours on prime steaks again. Just 6

I've done several salt block cooks and unfortunately I haven't found the cost and maintanence to be worth the results. I've tried a lot of toys and techniques discussed here on the Guru site and this is the only one I can't recommend. It's definitely good but the blocks are expensive, fragile, and the results aren't dramatically different. Maybe I'll ship mine to CKreef and see if a better cook finds it worth while.