MtbChip

1) Quality fuel is #1 2) Do NOT close down your "top vent" before your bottom vent. If done, it will "drop" the exhaust back down on your food and drop nasty flavors (soot and waste exhaust). Start your cooker without food inside and wait until your fuel (charcoal) is up to heat and has burnt off some of the "uncarbonized" fuel. Keep at it!

Great job! Sometimes patience is the best ingredient.

I do the same as SmallBBQr. I also use a "smoke bomb", placing the smoke wood products into a 8"X2" long stainless steel pipe nipple. Caps on both end, one side has a 1/8" hole drilled thru for the smoke to escape. Makes for a clean smoke aroma & taste on the food (instead of tasting like a forest fire)

I participated in one several years ago. Simple summary: People playing/manipulating with food, stuff you'd NEVER serve your family or guests. Go have fun!

Fantastic! 275°, perfecto!

Hobbies include: Gardening (both edible & non-edible) & travel. I read a LOT of non-fiction about our world ( I have a degree in Geography & Economics). Needless to say, I work hard at making fine food in my Kamado as well. I weighed 155 LBS when I got out of high school (1976), now a fit 165 lbs. My BIGGEST hobby is riding my mountain bike. Fortunate to live in LowSoCal, so it's just about year round without weather incidents. Next big epic trip is to go back to the Copper Canyon deep in the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua MEX. I will ride from Urique to Batopilas (look it up on google map). I'm pretty sure if I didn't ride the way I do, I'd be a fat man.......

Making a brisket once, I've matched the Franklin BBQ tie of 21 hours at 225°. The coal basket had some more fuel to burn! Turns out I believe brisket at the 240°-250° range for 15 hours is the magic time & temp combo for me.

Forty pound bags of Oak/Hickory mix.

Welcome to another San Diegan! Difficult to find quality lump charcoal here, so I take a couple of pallets of cooking coal from CalChar in L.A. shipped here. If you want a few bags on my next order ( I'm down to 5 bags, should last a bit), let me know! chip@sandiegoproperties.us

I use a 1/2" screen to remove the "fines". I then use those small pieces that fall thru in my garden. Mix with the compost. BTW: I also use a R.O. product called NatureGlo. It comes in 40# bags. I NEVER use briqs, esp Kingford. Smells terrible and imparts a nasty taste on the food.

Like a runaway train.... Once the cooker reaches 50 degrees UNDER the target temp... shut it DOWN to a WHISPER of air going in the bottom vent and same on top. If you shut down "too hard", that's is when the cooker will "reverse flow" and render the food tasting like a campfire. Just make sure the air is always going up and OUT. The trick is the super super slow whisper slow you need to be escaping from the top vent.

6 racks of "Saint Lewie" style ribs. This year slathered with JERK seasoning (because that is what I think of the POTUS, a real jerk!).

I got my first Kamado from R. Johnson in 2004. What a game changer it made for us and the quality of cooked foods!

NatureGlo by Royal Oak. I buy 40# bags (one pallet a year). Oak and Hickory and the occasional rock or two.