YorkshireSmoke

35 minutes ago, Monkeybumcheeks said:

@nbr_uk Hi there, I got the temperature up to around 330/340c.

I had the heat deflector sitting on the main grill with four 1 1/4" stainless steel bolts sitting in top of it to create a gap.

I sat my pizza stone on top of that as apparently the gap is important to prevent the base going black...must be true as the bases of the four I cooked were a little black in places... but what you'd expect from a pizzeria 🙂

I put them in for two minutes, turned them 180° and cooked for around another 1 or 2 minutes. 3 to 4 minutes for a decent pizza.

There are plenty of dough recipes out there, but I'll post up the one I used and the method if you like 👍 

Has anyone managed to get above 330C for pizza cooking? Mine topped out at that level when I tried recently, but would have liked to get it hotter.

Any tips for getting to really high temperatures for pizza cooking? I fully cleaned out the kamado yesterday, lit with maybe 2 thirds of the bowl full of charcoal, left for at least 30 mins and the dome temperature seemed to stop rising at around 320C. Both vents were fully open.

I had a 15” / 38cm pizza stone on the grill, which didn’t leave a huge air gap around the edge. But the total gap would be at least as big as the inlet vent, if that makes sense.

So is the stone too big, or am I missing something else?!

On 6/5/2021 at 3:38 PM, Basbbq said:

Hi I replaced mine with a KJ style gasket from gumtree. Really happy with the finish. Hated removing the old gasket though. 

 

Your lid looks way out of alignment on that photo. Did that cause your gasket to fail?

Mine arrived similar to that but I managed to adjust it to some extent 

If I could just direct the conversation back to the food for a minute - where do you guys get your 20% minced beef for burgers? Supermarkets obviously do cheap packaged 20% mince, but it doesn’t look that appetising. My local butcher, which is more of a butcher/deli, just offers quality 12% mince.

Maybe I need to try other butchers, but then again I use supermarket mince for sauces so why not burgers?

42 minutes ago, Bbq life uk said:

I normally go would go 1 row for maintaining this sort of temperature i suspect wind was your enemy this week. Also some charcoals are harder to keep the temperature down too. What charcoal are you using? 

Using Big K restaurant grade. I used two lighters which in hindsight was a mistake, I was rushing to get cooking because I was running short on time. I definitely need to leave more time to allow it to slowly come up to temperature, because its hard to recover once everythings overheated. What opening on the daisywheel would you be using?

After the second chicken went well, and then pulled pork using @Bbq life uk hot/fast method also a success, I moved on to ribs yesterday and they were a tough and dry disaster.

It started badly when the butcher didn't have any available so I resorted to a pack of supermarket ribs. The pack didn't state whether they were baby back or spare ribs but the rack was quite small so assume they were baby back.

The problems continued when I lit the kamado and massively overshot the 110C target. I already had the ribs on there so they spent the first 20 - 30 minutes reducing down from 170C with the vents almost closed. As the temp was dropping I stepped away to take a phone call and came back to 90C, opened the vents but no movement and the fire was out.

Everything off, re-lit and back on and struggled to keep it below 130C for the rest of the first stage of the cook. This was with both vents almost closed.

This was my first attempt at very low temperature cooking and it was far harder than maintaining 180C for chicken.

What vent settings would you use for 110C? I had 1 row of holes open on the bottom grille, and maybe 5mm open on the daisy wheel, and didn't want to close any further for fear of snuffing it out again.

Spatchcock chicken attempt #2 this afternoon. I hadn’t planned on doing chicken again yet but the mrs spotted one going out of date for £1.50 so got it for me to practice on.

it turned out much better. I think the main difference was that I let it cook a little hotter (still indirect) but then just as it was reaching temperature I took out the deflector stone, flipped the bird it over, and let it cook direct skin down for 5 minutes or so before it took it off.

it was a bit of a faff but it just crisped up the skin and started to add a bit of char. I think I could have done it a bit earlier for an even better result.

there’s a pork shoulder in the fridge ready for the weekend...

On 4/19/2021 at 7:45 AM, Grue666 said:

Interesting. I used the AK for first time yesterday and chose a Pork Shoulder as it is quite a forgiving piece of meat that would provide a good meal and offer plenty of time to learn about the Kamado. I certainly learn a lot about setting the vents for temp control and just how little charcoal is used over 12 hours. Set up for indirect cook with 2 Inkbird probes. The dome probe was set up a little way from the meat but still in the indirect area. 

Like you there was a distinct temperature difference of a little over 50ºC for most of the cook but after about 9 hours the 2 matched almost exactly - certainly within 2ºC. I can’t really explain why that happened and didn’t do any comparison during the curing burn on Saturday. 

 

I think pork shoulder will be my next cook. Any tips? Did you just start with some smoking wood, or add more during the cook?

16 hours ago, AdamG said:

I have a different brand of Kamado and different brand of temp controller and I get the same 50c difference. I think its just down to how the natural convection works. Pit temp can vary depending on thermometer location aswell, I like to keep it away from the edge to avoid a higher reading from hot air coming directly up from the sides. I also try to keep it a couple of inches away from the food to avoid the 'cool air bubble' that is around the food.

I only use pit temp thermometers exclusively for low and slow (225f-250f), anything else I use the dome temp since I dont need absolute precision (and to eliminate the chance of frying my thermometers if a temp spike occurs).

hope this helps👍

It does thanks... good to know a big temperature difference is normal

16 hours ago, Bbq life uk said:

80mins is about right for a whole chicken. Chuck a wood chuck in next time to up your flavour. How crisp was your skin? This will help you go a little hotter if it wasn't crispy. Keep you probe as close to the food as possible the gap around the edge does get hotter as its the only way for the hot air to get through. 

Spatchcock is quicker and you can cook directly too so much more flavour. 

Skin not too crisp so maybe higher temp is the way to go.  Thanks for the suggestions 

I did my first cook on the kamado today - the obligatory whole chicken, cooked indirect. It wasn't a disaster, but nor was it lifechanging. It's left me with a few questions hopefully someone can help with.

Dome temperature and grill temperature - I set up an Inkbird wireless thermo at grill level and was surprised that there was a consistent 50C difference between that and the dome gauge. I expected a difference, but should it be that much? The ink bird was set up at the side of the grill above the gap next to the heat deflector. Could that be the reason?

To be on the safe side I kept the grill at 200C for the cook, as I didn't fee comfortable dropping the dome temp below 150C. On the plus side I found it quite easy to maintain the temp at a consistent level.

In the end I pulled the chicken when the breast reached 80C, after around 80 mins. I didn't find it really any better than if I had cooked it in the electric oven, but then I'm not a chicken guy and I didn't get the Kamado for roasting chickens.

I'd be interested if anyone had any thoughts on the temperature issue.

Thanks