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Something I've been wondering on since this cook. How much of an air gap is needed around a pan or stone? The Akorn Jr has a 14" diameter. The pan I used was 12" diameter. This left basically a <1" gap all around for air to move. Is that too little?

Had the day off and spent most of the afternoon playing with the new Akorn Jr. Started the day with attempting a low temp burn. Went with a half load of Fogo Black and a 1/8 piece of a Weber parafin starter basically laid on top on the outer edge. That quickly fizzled out and attempt #2 was in the same location but with a 1/4 piece of starter. That seemed to be enough to get it done. Placed the stone and a temp probe on a grate and shut the lid. After that t I pretty much followed the directions from the "Starting a Fire, Low and Slow - Definitive" by Philpom as far as vent adjustments and sure enough I ended up with a fire that held.between 200-250 on the dome temp. I even left for 40 minutes to deal with a car issue and came back to a dome temp of 210ish. Super awesome to really see how a temp can be controlled like this. Around 4 hours later it was time to get things ready for dinner. Plan was to roast potatoes and broccoli. Got the grilled tuned up to 350-400ish and chopped up the goods put them on a 12" perforated pizza pan with parchment and put it in for what I hoped to be a 30 minute cook. I must have had the thing open for too long as it seemed like the temp didn't really recover at all. After about 20 minutes I opened up the vents and finally saw saw the temp coming up. After another 10-15 minutes no sampled a potato and found it to be ready. Took the tray off and dumped everything into foil while I got the impossible burgers and green chili grilled up. Learned some good stuff today and cooked a nice meal for the wife. All in all a great day with the new grill.

Holy cow is that a juicy bird. Skin seemed crispy when I brought it off the Akorn. Seems to have lost it during the 30 minutes of rest under aluminum foil. Not the end of the word though. My wife's twin sister happens to be over and she seems a bit blown away by how moist and smokey sample was. Definitely a simple cook as intended but an eye opener none the less.

To quote an SD icon, "That escalated quickly!" 5lb chicken done in an hour. Didn't quite expect that. Dome temp for the hour warmup was saying 400. I've got a charbroil wireless temp gauge that was just sitting on the grate saying 460ish. Had the deflector plate in with a drip pan on top. Had the chicken on a soda can holder thing with just a a little water in the can. Chicken coated with only grapeseed oil and salt and pepper. Once the chicken went in the dome temp held at 350 for the entire hour. Had one probe in the chicken and a second on the grate. The grate probe held 300 for the duration of the cook. In at 1100 and out at 1200. Checked the internal temps with two different thermometers. Both had 170+. Bird is currently sitting in a pan covered with foil. With be testing it shorty.

Hello all, this is Jeff and I just picked up an Akorn Jr in the last week and discovered this fine place soon after. Looking forward to many great meals for my wife and I as well as a few things for my coworkers. My wife is a bit of a pescatarian so I'll be hunting through the site for fish, vegetarian, and vegan ideas. That being said, the first cook will be a simple whole chicken for my coworkers and I. Should be lighting the fire in an hour or so.