Ben S

Well, you are cooking and having fun. I support that. Please don’t feel like you have to leave.

Best wishes. I will be thinking of you and your family. My kids are younger than your grandson... I am just speechless. please keep us updated.

Welcome

Welcome, stop by and introduce yourself.

Wow, that looks great! Please stop by and introduce yourself. the smoke ring is a visual characteristic only, and holds no flavor. It’s produced from various nitrogen byproducts of combustion. I am not sure how you got it the first time, but they are snake rings are not common on kamado smoked meats. There are tricks. Someone once added briquettes to the fire... or curing salts to the rub. Your mileage might vary.

I bake for for 20-25 min in a preheated DO@ 550 F, followed by removing the loaf from the DO and setting the oven to 475 for 15 min. note: I have added heat deflectors to the floor of my oven to prevent the bottom from burning in the DO.

Wow

I have asked several friends with KJV3s. They say the slow roller changes the cook for the better. Slightly faster, better smoke flavor and texture. I will consider adding the slow roller to both my joes when it’s released as an add on.

I have to say, I kinda want that mixer just for bread.

Careful on the steel choice. Cheap stainless can be much harder to sharpen than Simple carbon steels. I have spent 10x the time on cheap SS knives compared to simple carbon steels with vastly inferior results. I thought I was going crazy until I switched knives. Raise burr, flip burr remove burr. If this doesn’t make sense, head over the the Chefknivestogo forum and watch sone of the basic sharpening videos.

Very nice! If your loaf is collapsing two likely causes are lack of gluten development or over proofing. It look me years to learn this. what’s the mixer?

I have found simple carbon steel is the best to learn sharpening on. I suspect your old hickory falls in that category. I taught myself on a $50 tojiro nakiri. Stay away from from cheap stainless until you know what you are doing. fyi. Burfection gets mixed reviews according to most knife nuts. This guys is one of many who is very well respected. i am not this good at sharpening... I am happy if I can cut 3-4 clean inches.

as a generally rule of sharpening basics... take your 1k stone and sharpen until it is so sharp hair pops off your arm while shaving. Only then should you bother changing grits. sharpen one side until you raise a burr, flip to the other side and flip the burr over. Make summer you use the same number of strokes. Then deburr. I like to do this with stropping motions on the stone. You should be able to cleanly cut hanging paper towels.

Wantanabe are not cheap! They are very well regarded and worth every penny (not the handles).

I would like to think I know a thing or two about jknives. You may want to look into some of the kitchen knife forums such as kitchenknifeforum.com and Chefknivestogoforums.com. Just an FYI, don’t mention one site to the other, there are conflicting personalities. There is also tons of info on knives and sharpening. I have simple, but strong opinions, I am happy to share.