Charcoal Addict

You’ll be fine as long as you don’t heat up the grill too rapidly by using a blower in the lower vent. Short of doing something extremely stupid, you can’t crack your grill in the cold. You’ll have to accept that it will take 10-15 minutes longer to reach temp in extreme cold weather. Aside from longer start-up times & higher lump consumption, it’s businesses as usual. I normally use 25% more lump during the Alberta winter months vs what I consume for the same cooks during the spring/summer.

The plastic on the iKamand slider door vent cap for the lower vent doesn’t hold up over time. The heat eventually warps the iKmamd cap given enough time. I think KJ should look into making an all metal version of the IKamand slider plug/cap. It can’t handle more than 1 year of higher temp cooks without warping & cracking. The only other option involves swapping the door out for the OEM KJ vent slider for when cooking above 300 F.

it’s crazy. I’ve always shook my head at Bosch cutting corners with aluminum parts. Fixing the tarnish is labour intensive. You can buy $30 cleaning products. 30 minutes a labour and 2 bucks of lemons & salt works just as well to remove the oxidization.

My little helper, (2nd cousin was helping me with Christmas baking). He stuck my aluminum Bosch dough hook & the mixer paddle dock into the dishwasher not realizing that mistake would cause oxidation of the bosh mixer parts. I had a lot of fun removing the oxidation. It was a 2 hour process. I boiled the paddles in a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water. I used a combination of vinegar and salt to hand scrub the oxidation from the paddle & the dock. As you can see from the final photo, I was successful without the use of a commercial aluminum cleaner. it wasn’t fun. It was much cheaper than buying new parts. It would really suck to have aluminum oxide dust getting into a batch of cookies or a loaf of bread. The lemon juice & salt was very effective at removing the fine aluminum oxide dust coating the paddles.

Most conditions will be fine. Once you start getting wind above 100 KM an hour , you’re going to get more air than you want in the grill for a low & slow.

I think the harder part is trying to figure out new ways to serve brisket. I plan to use the left overs in a beef barley stew.

I miss the good old days when brisket was a challenge. I’ve mastered this cook. The bigger challenge involves thinking how to shake things-up. What unique things are you guys doing to shake up your presentation. What can be done aside from making brisket sandwiches.

You can’t control the weather. Those conditions were pretty extreme. Small vent openings is all you need. A temp controller can do a better job preventing too much air from entering the cooker. There’s not much you can do in an extreme wind storm like the one you had last night.

You might have had too much heat on a cook. My slo-roller is slightly warped, but it still works perfectly. I find it’s not worth cooking with the Slo-roller above 350 F. At 400 F you risk having a temp jump during a shutdown that will cause warping. I hope they will make a stainless version down the road. I know it would be more costly. It would also be more warp resistant.

They might make a small tailgating unit down the road.

Sweet Potatoes make good fries. I usually spin sweet potatoes on the Joetisserie

I saw the new Kamado Kettle for the first time. It looks cool. Honestly, it seems like a much better option than smallest KJ unit for tailgates & camping.

I received my replacement unit 8 days after submitting the ticket.

The replacement iKamand arrived earlier than expected from KJ. I set-up the unit this morning. Everything is working.

All else fails. Leave a slightly thicker fat cap to moisten the brisket. 1/4 to 1/2 inch around the flat.