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Awesome, enjoy it!

Worth mentioning too that I've seen it this price before, so it's possible it's only a temporary price drop.

Don't forget we have to pay for the meat too 😁

@Craig Price Kamado Joe classic 2 is £1,199 right now on amazon. Can even do 12 monthly payments of 99.95, that's interest free.

Very active topic! as one of my posts was quoted above regarding a similar choice, I'll just say that i went for the KJ 2 and have loved every minute using it. I agree with the sentiment that there's no bad choices, and it's a shame the price of the kj2 has never really come down apart from limited time sales. But i can count on one hand the number of times I've read someone say a bad thing about the kj2. It's class.

That is very stoic if you used it for 18 months without being able to hold a stable temperature! You'll find anything else a walk in the park after that hopefully. Enjoy the weber, hope you have some great cooks with it.

8 hours at a good cooking temp on one load of charcoal on your first fire on a small smoker is definitely a win!

Looks like a really well done mod, nice one. I have the non-smoker version of this https://landmann.com/uk/product/taurus-660-charcoal-barbecue/ Have used it with some success but my very amateur silicon beading effort (as messy as it sounds) is not in the same league as your aluminium and stove tape masterpiece! I've had it 3 or 4 years now, and I'm finding the lid is starting to rust on the inside. Otherwise the rest of it is in good nick really. Are you sat tending the fire constantly though? Looks like the logs are burning pretty fast there! Or does it slow right down once you close the lid? Last thing, would be worth saying that the oven cook bit should be done at similar or slightly higher temp than the smoker, the few times I've put it in the oven at 350F it has dried out, even if wrapped. Maybe you found different but I thought worth mentioning.

Looks like a great bit of kit, love the dual thermoms (even if aesthetic only, I see you have a couple of probes too) and the clasps look great too.

That is a very ugly thing of beauty! I think most firewood suppliers will be able to tell a hardwood from a soft, but most won't sell different types of wood individually. Or at least don't see the value in it. The few that do seem to be able to charge a huge premium selling as dedicated 'smoking wood', anywhere from 4-10 pounds for a kilo. That's more than some meat costs! So many general firewood suppliers will have cherry, maple, apple, beech and of course oak etc. and be selling it for 1/25th of the price above.

Yours sounds much more accurate than mine, sadly it's a fact of life that manufacturers (even biggers ones like weber) continue to ship BBQs with temp gauges that are miles off. Their only use is if you can sort of calibrate it against a good thermometer so you can roughly know the actual temp of the pit on cooks when you don't want to use a thermom probe. How are you liking the callow so far otherwise?

Good luck getting up and running. Be sure to post back if you have any other questions or just want to show off your results!

One thing I'd add, and this isn't gospel but my own experience, but I would barely call 270 an overshoot. For me, for almost anything that isn't a grill/sear etc., I aim for 250F. If it's anywhere in the range of 225-275 though, that's good enough for me and I find amongst all the other variables that we have to contend with, 20F each way is small change. So while it's good to have a target, don't worry about stable temps to the nth degree. It can change due to wind, sunshine, even the position of your ambient probe moving a little.

That lamb looks fantastic, keep at it!

I think mk3 is the latest. Honestly thinking about it I reckon you could just crack on without it. You have 4 bottom vents total, just close up the other 3 more than you otherwise would and you should be good. Maybe try a test run before you put anything on to cook, but on my mk1 I often need all 3 bottom vents fully open anyway to get to 250F. I know the airflow in later revisions is better, but I don't think it would be impossible to manage with one 'fully open' all the time.

If it's one of the lower vents then I imagine you could just cover it up with something and use the other three vents. Anything like a curved piece of terracotta pot or similar that you could put on the inside to try and cover most of the gap might be enough to damp down the airflow enough to allow you to achieve the right temps using the other working vents. I guess it's a mark 3 callow?

Hi Mikey, I spoke with Scott at Callow over email a year or so ago Scott@callowretail.co.uk in cc was Molly, just in case Scott isn't about currently molly@callowretail.co.uk Communication was prompt and friendly so I'm sure once you get through they will sort you out. That's a real shame you missed out on a weekend of cooking, hope they can get you something in time for this bout of good weather. Trying to think of something useful you could use as a substitute damper but nothing is jumping out at me, might be a few other members here who are more imaginative than me can come up with something!

More great info thanks so much, I have to say I am leaning towards the Joe but I really appreciate your post and will try and get out and see them both for myself once lockdown is over.

Hi @AdamG, thanks very much for your post. Does the monolith have a similar system to the divide and conquer on the KJ? Or do you find you have a different way of doing things that means you don't really need it? Do you ever use the woodchip feed system? How does that work, does it need a dedicated hopper and control system? Are there any shortcomings with the top vent on the monolith? I feel like wooden side shelves are more prone to weathering than the material for the KJ, though I take your point that wood is nicer in general. How has yours aged? Cheers!

The incredibly nice weather caught me out today. I smoked a pork shoulder on my callow last week so had already given it a thorough clean out after winter storage, but my Landmann barrel style grill BBQ (which I use for non low n slow cooking) was yet to receive the same treatment. I've got another pork shoulder in the fridge for another smoke for a mexican recipe using chorizo, but couldn't find any chorizo in the supermarket so that's on hold. With the sun blazing the Mrs. suggested we bbq some other bits from the fridge (chicken breasts, and make burgers out of some mince that was planned for bolognese) but between mowing the lawn, looking after the toddler and a few other jobs I didn't have time to clean off the grill BBQ. I thought why not open up the vents, break out the lumpwood and see if I can grill on the callow using the lower grate for some direct radiation cooking. Lunch was chicken breasts, marinaded in oil, paprika, garlic, mixed herbs and a little BBQ sauce, had them with potato salad and cherry toms. Supper we had homemade burgers, (500g steak mince, 1 egg, 1/2 an onion and burger seasoning) had with the remaining potato salad, grilled peppers and green beans. https://ibb.co/SNx28Ry This is a callow Mk1 which struggles to get up to temp at the best of times (though I can now consistently manage the right temps for low' n slow thanks to a few little mods), with the heat deflector removed and all vents open I was reading about 260F at the lower grill level. This was hot enough to cook the chicken in about 25 minutes. It was incredibly juicy, the thinner pieces were just right and I'd say the larger ones had that ever so slightly gelatenous quality that only-just-cooked chicken has, there was no sign of any pinkness but to me another 3 or 4 degrees celsius would be better. But the coals were running out by then. I gave the burgers slightly less time, they were beautifully cooked, no pink (wife is pregnant) but still really juicy and tasty. Peppers were perfect too. I would say ideally more temperature would have been good in both cases, both for time (certainly) and flavour (desirable but not essential), which probably would have been solved by me not being such a scrooge with the charcoal. Mind you who knows how long until I can buy some more in this lockdown! The callow is on it's third year of use, two of the clasps have lost their springs, rust is encroaching on most of the vents, the paint coating is peeling in lots of places but she's still proving useful. Great purchase for 65 quid, has taught me some invaluable lessons as well as made some cracking food in that time. Cheers.

I currently have a Landmann barrel style BBQ and a callow smoker. Both are good but do leave room for improvement in terms of functionality, performance, charcoal economy (ok maybe I'm clutching now!) compared to a kamado. They are also showing their ages, the Landmann is about 6 years old now and the callow I think is in it's 3rd year, clasps are basically falling apart and the rust is starting to appear. Both are always covered but kept outside. I'm turning 30 in July and wife my hinted she might see if it would be possible (by pooling resources of anyone who wants to get me a present) to get me a kamado, but only on the basis that it's a proper one that will truly perform and last, because it shouldn't be done half arsed.. Option 1 My research tells me that the Kamado Joe Classic II has all the features I could need, is the right sort of size - we do the odd good size BBQ here and there but nothing massive - and by all reports is built to last. It's 1399 quid most places in the kart. Option 2 I also see the KJ Classic I (819 quid), and therefore also the Masterbuilt Classic (basically the same I think without the 'divide and conquer' system and so even cheaper again at 600 quid) as good options that would also suit most of my needs and I think last just as well as the KJ Classic II. Option 3 I could try a different tack and go for a weber kettle original premium 57cm (225 quid) and a proq frontier elite (300 quid) for a total of 525 quid outlay. This would be the cheapest option and also the most flexible in terms of what I can make both individually and simultaneously. I also think if I looked after them (which I would) then they could last just as long as the Joe Classic II. The extra cooking area is obviously good but the extra size in terms of storage might be a bit of a drawback. If anyone owns any Kamado Joe or Masterbuilt it would be great to get your thoughts. I know that the first option would make me more excited and inspired to cook than the latter options, but the price difference is quite something so while I know the choice is mine and I do feel in a decent position to choose, I'd be really interested to see if anyone has any thoughts to add.

Interesting reading, thanks for the write up. I usually struggle to keep heat up with my mk 1 so it's interesting to hear how things have changed with the latest model. I would say a combination of overfuelling and leaky bottom vents is definitely a recipe for too much heat. I don't have a lot to add on those points that hasn't been said or isn't obvious, but you did mention wondering about minion method giving off thick smoke from coals freshly lighting inside the smoker. It's a very good point, and I've never heard a satisfying answer. I don't do minion, instead I put about 15 coals in to start (roughly I think), then when I want to more I light them in my chimney first and add them all once they have an ash colouring. If it's something that concerns you then you could do the same. What did you use for logging your temps like that? And some pics of the smoker, especially the bottom vents, might help. Cheers and good luck with future cooks, I have loved getting to know mine and modding it here and there - nothing hardcore, but it's amazing what a few little tricks here and there can do. Like smokin monkey says, Wade is the callow guru, will be interesting to see what he might add on this.

Nice! Did you approach it any differently due to being a grass fed joint? Did it taste any different or have a different texture to grain fed? Wondering whether I might give one of these joints a go https://www.johndavidsons.com/pitmaster-bbq/brisket-love/angus-hereford-briskets-ireland I know this is probably blasphemy on this forum but buying british (or even Irish) beef is a heck of a lot better for carbon footprint, and grass fed is much better in that respect too.

Given you'd have some pretty high airflow with grate and chimney fully open, that sounds about right that you dropped after 80 mins, and I'd say still holding 125C after that time isn't bad. Have another go aiming for 110C consistently and then you'll really know how you're doing. If you can hold that (roughly) for 5 hours without refuelling then you'll know you've done a very good job.

Good to hear it worked out. I wondered about the stall but assumed you were past it at 187F, I usually get stalls more like 160-170F.