I have a LSG cabinet and he offers steel dividers which do the same as your set up.
This method does work well at keeping the fire smaller. And yes do not let the heat get away from you in these smokers!
Glad you are enjoying the KAT
Yes, your set up creates the same Minion method arrangement that I get with the bricks. And yours takes up less space than my bricks do. Before I went the bricks, I searched for an insert like yours but could not find one. Thanks for sharing. I can see that you can get more fuel in the same fire basket than I get using the bricks. That could be an advantage for a really long cook although I can get about 12 hours or so with my bricks.
Thanks for sharing! I've been eye-balling KAT for a long time but reviews are scarce. If I buy a cabinet smoker or another offset, they will be high on my list considering that Modesto is not too far away from the Bay Area.
Hi Ken
The owner at KAT is named Ken Bondi. He was wonderful to work with. He made the cooker just like I wanted it and accommodated all my requests. Including finding green powder coat paint to match, my house! The workmanship of the build is very good. He is a small shop and you will deal directly with Ken. Highly recommended. I would buy again from Ken.
Thanks for posting! I like that type of cooker. I don't own one, but I've used a few and I really dig the construction, and the fact that it runs unattended for hours. Nice seeing your customized version, that green color is just awesome.
Cookers:
Stump's Baby
MGrills M1 SS
Weber Spirit propane
Vintage PK Grill
Gozney Roccbox propane/wood pizza oven
Frontgate portable infrared grill
Propane Lobster/Corn cooker
Magma Marine Kettle 2 Grill and Stove Party Size (boat)
Kenyon City Grill (boat)
Gadgets:
Looftlighter (original and wireless)
Weber charcoal chimney
Chimney of Insanity
BBQ Dragon
BBQ Guru Party Q
Flame Boss 500
iGrill2 and iGrill mini
Backlit Thermapen
Infrared Thermometer
Stainless smokebox for gas grill
sawdust "maze" for cold smoking
Update on the KAT vault. I have been using the Minion method with fire bricks to make the channels. I seemed to have found the key to not overshooting my temps. I heat the cooker with a weed burner. That way I don't need to get the fire going to so hot to bring the cooker up to my intended temp which is usually about 245 degrees. I light the end of the Minion maze. I get to my 245 temp in about 20 minutes. Then I can close down the fan on the billows unit to about 1/4". Doing things like this, I can keep my 245 for about 6 hours with the charcoal about 2/3 of the maze. I also have learned to keep the corners of the maze 4" or so wide. If the charcoal at the turn is narrower than that, the cooker temp may drop below the target.
Last cook I used a Traeger Cherry rub that somebody had given me. I don't use store bought rubs too often. I paired it with some chunks of cherry wood and St Louis ribs. 3 hours at 245 and then paper wrap for about 2.5 hours. It was a great cook. Very tender and sweet. The ribs came from Whole Foods where I don't shop a lot. They were kinda spendy but turned out to be worth every penny. Guests loved them. I didn't win anything in my Super Bowl pool but the party was big fun.
I have a Billows as well, paired with a Signals unit. Been using it quite successfully on a Pit Barrel. Great to know if I got a KAT, I could use it there as well!
Yes, I use a Billows with a Smoke X unit. Work wonderfully to maintain temps. After the cooker get fully warmed, I learned that you need to close the cover on the Billows down to 1/4" or less. The insulated KAT doesn't need much fire to maintain it heat once you get the whole huge chunk of metal hot. The KAT comes with a large ball valve for air control and separate port just for the billows fan. When using the fan, you close the ball valve and let the fan, and the Smoke x, run everything.
Pit Barrel Cooker
Weber Master-Touch
Blackstone Omnivore 4 Burner Griddle
Thermoworks: Signals, Billows, Thermopens, Thermopops, Nodes, bunch of silicone stuff, and more!
OnlyFire Rotisserie w/ Basket attachment for the Weber
Vortex for the Weber
Both of Meathead's books!
Way too many BBQ related accessories, tools, and doo-dads!
Yes, on the water pan. The KAT cooker has room for 5 racks. Underneath the racks is a baffle. The baffle has a piece on top of it that has an expanded metal grate. You can put a large water pan on the grate. At the top of this thread is a picture of the KAT cooker with the door open. In the picture, you can see the slots for five cooking grates. The grate for the water pan is below the 5th slot. That grate is level with the bottom of the door opening. I usually use a water pan. It is very easy to slide in and fill with a pitcher. I use hot water to start with. That helps the cooker come up to my target temp sooner.
The placement of the water rack is very close to the fire box. I think that being close to the fire helps produce steam that serves to keep your meat tender and prevents dryness. I find that it especially helps when doing long cooks like brisket and pork shoulder.
I was very happy with my KAT purchase. The owner is Ken Bondi. He runs a small shop and is very willing to customize your cooker any way you want. He even arranged for mine to be powdered coated in green to match my house!
Thanks for the info. I actually emailed them as well, and they seem pretty responsive. I've also been looking at the Meadow Creek welding vertical cooker, as there's a dealer in Eastern Ohio that I could pick up from. But even with shipping on the KAT (going to run me close to $650 to Ohio (estimated)), the KAT will be a little less overall. I'm thinking blue, liked the color they had on the website, but I'll probably cheap-out and stay with the black... Decisions, decisions...
I looked at the Meadow Creek units as well. They look very well built too. I ended up going with the KAT because I could add the very handy side shelves to it, custom paint and some other little details that I wanted. Ken was very eager to do the customization that I wanted. Also, I am in California and Ken delivered to my doorstep.
That is one beautiful pit! I've kicked around the idea of getting an IVS or an offset for a while now. Lately I've been thinking more about an offset after a trip I made to Austin, but going back through the history of this post gets me leaning back to an IVS. If only I had room (both physically an in my bank account) right now for both...
Hi Numb Whistle
I know the dilemma you are having. At my last house, I cooked on a Weber (love them) and a COS. I figured out how to get great results off the COS. When I built my new house, with a full outdoor kitchen, I intended to get a high end offset. But then the footprint is much larger with an offset than a vault. The offsets cook beautifully but take up a lot of real estate.
I then started looking at vault cookers. I did a lot of research and figured out the amenities I would want in a vault smoker. I was lucky to find the KAT shop. They were able to accommodate my every request in a vault smoker that had plenty of capacity but took up only a relatively small space.
I have had it now for about 2+ years and I am very happy with it. The vault took me longer to learn to run at the temps that I wanted and, for as long as I wanted, than I expected. But it was all worth it. No regrets here on having gone with a vault instead of an offset.
I finally figured out why the door mounted Thermometer reads low in my KAT Smoker. In the first post in this thread there are two photos of my KAT vault smoker. In the first photo, the door is closed, and you can see a round, red thermometer mounted on the door. In the second photo, the door is open, and you can see the long probe on the back side of the door.
For two years plus, I have noticed that the door mounted thermometer reads quite low, sometimes 40 degrees lower than the rack mounted probe. I could not figure out why. Until now. And I wonder why it took me so long. Turns out that the long probe is just above one of my racks that I usually put meat on. The probe is long enough to either touch or sit just above the meat. So, the probe is getting influenced downward by the cold meat!
I feel pretty silly that it took me so long to figure out the reason the door thermometer was reading so low, especially early in the cook. The cooker has quite a few slots for racks. I now move the racks so that the meat sits farther away from the door thermometer probe. Getting much more accurate readings now!
Kyle
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