Dustytobes

Had sausages last night, they tasted like big fat juicy hot dogs due to the smoke. Managed to squeeze 2 burgers on the side and WOW was braw! Firing it up again for some more burgers tonight since it's a scorcher. I'm over in Fife.

The chicken went down a storm at work. I may reuse the beef as charcoal for the next sesh Got some more beef to be trying so I can get the timings down. Also want to try a smoked burger so I can actually eat something off it.

Well as we all know the mini Kamado was back in the middle isle this last week and managed to convince the OH that we desperately need one in our lives, especially since our old non-branded barrel smoker has semi-died on us. We were lucky as our local Lidl only had two in stock. Even more lucky was our local garden centre (still on lockdown in Scotland) are operating click and collect and had some restaurant grade Big K charcoal in stock! All I can say was wow it's a tiny thing of beauty when built (which was super easy as even the tools came in the kit!) Itching to give it a try and reading last year's post that it doesn't come with a deflector I constructed a shoddy one myself using a soup bowl and some metal skewers as a bracket. After fiddling to get the desired temp I was gobsmacked how steady the temp was kept compared to the drum. First up was some brined and dry rubbed chicken thighs. 50mins smoking with some hickory chips and then removed the makeshift deflector to get some char on the skin. Yum yum. Once they were done the next on the list was one low and slow brisket for an overnighter. This is where things got tricky. The wee thing was far too efficient! The old smoker normally conked out around 3am and all was good but dam I woke up and checked at 8am to find the temp still rock steady at 120C and the beef black as anything after taking the deflector out there was still enough coal for a good few hours yet. So that was a solid 11 hours with I reckon a further 2-5 hours still if it was kept going. What a champ! Will be ordering a more permanent deflector to make this bad boy more presentable but other than that, it's a cracking bargain.