Yesterday started my 2020-2021 smoking season.
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First cook went pretty well. I really enjoyed the overall operation and ease of use. Only issue I had was that it was a cold, humid, on/off rainy day and had to keep the KBQ slightly under the porch. This caused a lot of the dirty smoke to really linger in the air and was pretty rough on my eyes and nose. Wood has only been seasoned a couple months so that didn’t help, but I ran slightly smaller splits to compensate as recommended by Bill K and didn’t have an issue keeping the fire going and coal bed thick.
The beef ribs I got from Sam’s Club were not equal in size, one was at 196 in less than 4 hours and the other rack needed 7 to finish. Haven’t done them enough to go by probe feel and had to lean on temp. First ones were a little tough so I took the second rack to about 201 and they were much better. Ran an average temp right around 240 the whole time, wood was mainly live oak with some maple. Ran only bottom poppet open since the smoke coming out of the fire was so harsh.
Pictures below were both from first rack, forgot to take pictures of second rack. Simple dry brine and then pepper just before going on. Lighting doesn’t do it justice- the color was incredible. Pure mahogany without a touch of black. The taste was good but not as smoky as I’m used to, I’ll do the first hour with both poppets open next time.Attached FilesComment
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Recently I have been just running both poppets open for everything too. I have been experimenting with brisket with both poppets open the whole time and haven’t had negative results. The last one took 12 hours using post oak and it wasn’t too much smoke for my tastes anyway. Maybe I am wrong here but it seems like since the fan pulls smoke into the chamber only when the it kicks on it never pulls too much dirty smoke during the cook. Probably depends on your wood too.
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Okay you guys are a really bad influence! Started wanting an offset a couple years ago. Started thinking to myself where would I put it and do I want to deal with the weight of the thing. So got looking at the KBQ last winter and thought to myself that's what I need. Kind of talked myself out of it. Had just bought a Weber Summit that Spring. Then....I started looking in here and thought to myself, "I don't want one I need one!" So I bought one last Friday!
I am really excited to get it and do my first cook on it. I plan on doing some St. Louis spares for my first cook.
Are there any accessories you guys would recommend that aren't listed on the KBQ website?
I was going to buy a steam pan for my water pan. However, I noticed in a Twitter post Bill Karau said something about using two pans inside the KBQ. Do very many of you do this setup?
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Congrats! You are going to love it! I also use a hotel pan in the bottom to catch grease. I line it with foil for easier cleanup but I may grab some disposal foil ones to make it even quicker. I haven't used one for water yet. So far I haven't felt like anything I cooked needed it. I may have to experiment with it though.
Here is the pan I bought
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cbritton It is buy one get one free, just pay a separate shipping and handling fee of $1500!
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Just felt like cooking up a KBQ brisket. I mean.......why not? Still my favorite smoker. The aroma and flavor could wake the dead!
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Did you wrap after the stall or was it bare the whole time? -
I usually wrap when I have the color I like. I think I wrapped this one at like 185 F or so. lostclusters
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I did STL spares on the KBQ for my first cook. I did 2 hours with both poppets open and the rest of the cook with only the bottom poppet open. Kept temperature around 235. It was pretty cold out probably around 34 degrees. So the fan was kicking on quite a bit because the temperature was dropping so fast in the cook box. Kept feeding the KBQ hickory and cherry spilts.
During the cook I kept thinking, "I hope these are going to be okay." I kept feeding it wood, but I could see the holes in the coal tray if I looked in from the side. Opened up the door a couple times and the ribs had an amazing color to them. So I thought if they don’t taste good at least they look pretty.
Brought the ribs inside and my wife said, "Those look really good!" I am still thinking well they look good but no promises on taste. So we sat down to eat. So I am thinking I’ll be the guinea pig and try the first rib. I took a bite and my wife said, " I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile so big!" They were the best ribs I’ve ever made! We didn’t use sauce on the ribs because it felt wrong to. I feel like now I have to set new standards for my cooks!
i think one of the things I’ll try next time is start it with lump and then add my wood. For this cook I used a tumbleweed fire starter and made kindling using a kindling cracker. I thought maybe the lump would give a nice coal bed earlier on in the cook.
I was kind of nervous about buying the KBQ because it wasn’t something I could go to a store to look at. Plus not a lot of video reviews on it. Plus with products I am not always sure if it’s a paid review or what. Like I said before this forum helped me to decide to buy one. Thanks guys!
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cbritton That was pretty much my first experience too!
Glad you like it! I always start will a small chimney of lump. It does give it a nice hot coal bed right off.
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Let me frame this cook before I go the pictures. One Friday in last June my wife needed some art supplies for a project. The closest art store to us did not have what she needed. After work we headed off to another art store about 25 miles away that have what she wanted. After she got stocked up, I pulled out a menu from a BBQ Joint on the way home. We ordered take out, some ribs, brisket slices, pulled pork and potato salad side. After we finished eating I asked her how does my BBQ compare with the with the take out? She said, "Your ribs were just as good and your rub has a little more heat. Your brisket was just as good. But your pulled pork was not as tasty." It took me three butts to get my injection right to get more taste. Yesterday’s cooked was number three.
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Here are all my injections and rub.
Frigate’s Rub Ver. 1.0
1 cup turbinado sugar finely ground in coffee grinder.
½ cup granulated sugar.
½ cup Kosher salt.
1 tablespoon onion powder.
3 tablespoons granulated garlic
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper.
2 teaspoons finely ground black pepper.
2 teaspoons dry mustard.
¼ cup mild chili powder.
1 teaspoon ground cumin.
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons paprika.
Mix all completely in bowl.
Frigate’s Brisket Injection Ver. 1.0
2 cups of beef broth – one 14.5 oz. can
½ cup of Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ scoops Butcher Beef powder
¼ cup Butcher’s Phosphate
2 tablespoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons onion powder
Bring beef broth and Worcestershire sauce to a boil over medium heat. Decrease heat to a simmer. Whisk in the Butcher powder, phosphate, granulated garlic and onion powder. Continue to simmer until the stock is reduced by one third. Refrigerate till cool.
Frigate’s Pork Injection Ver. 5.0
2 cups of apple juice
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
1/2 cup Butcher’s BBQ Pork Injection Powder
1/4 cup Butcher’s Phosphate
¼ teaspoon Xanthan Gum
1/2 cup Worcester Sauce
Thoroughly whisk all ingredients together in medium bowl.
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I cannot tell you how many times I've drooled over this thread and how bad I want a KBQ. I had been planning on getting one this spring and even picked up enough splits of various wood species to do my first several cooks. However, this fall and winter has taught me that wind is constant here and I need to focus on nailing down my everyday cookers first as I'd probably only use the KBQ a few times a year when the planets align, the wind was low enough not to burn down the house, the temp is nice enough to tend the fire (and probably sip some bourbon) AND I wasn't feeling too lazy to feed it.
Hopefully the KBQ is still around in a few years when I get the primary arsenal all in line, kids through college, and hopefully still have the cash to pick one up. I love the results ya'll post from this cooker.Comment
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Can you build a wind break? And, tangentially, are there wind farms nearby? -
Because of what a wind break would likely do to views and such the wife has shut it down pretty quick when I've talked about it. And yes, there are wind farms all over Iowa. Luckily I live right near Des Moines so I don't have any of those eye sores that I can see every day, but drive 20-30 miles and you can't go very far after that without being able to see one or 50 at all times. Great for environment, bad for scenery. -
In Eastern WA and OR there are wind farms. I admit that they aren't in my view from home, but they are so cool! Especially as you get close. Massive. But, don't hang around too long or you'll catch cancer from 'em! 🤪
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I have a love hate relationship with my KBQ. I like BBQ but I have come to prefer the cook itself over the end product. I have very high expectations so creating a good product just won’t do for me.
Last week we had a quick blind tasting for pulled pork at work. I took first with over 80% of the first place votes. It really wasn’t a fair competition as the other three competitors were running pellets.
I decided to give brisket yet another go yesterday. My previous attempts didn’t provide quite the results that I expected. For the briskets I have done I just didn’t love the flavor. There was a bit too much of a ‘roast’ like flavor from the flat that I didn’t care for. I purchased a 17lb prime from Costco. Dry brined for 24 hrs. Smoked with full bottom and 1/4 top poppet for the smoking portion. It was finally starting to get the color that I wanted at 13 hrs. I knew I could have gotten a bit better bark as it was just starting to dry up well between wood feedings. I ran this at 250, wrapped in butcher and finished in the oven. The result was good but I didn’t render nearly enough of the deckel. I’m guessing that this would have been better if I would have let it go for a bit longer. When it went to the oven I probed it and the temp was at 170 so probably at the tail end of the stall.
Best brisket to date and very good overall. I used some mesquite from HD but wasn’t able to discern a difference from my normal hickory.Last edited by goskers; February 1, 2021, 04:31 PM.Comment
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With a couple of competitions canceled the past two months, I had/have some premium meat I needed to use up. Tonight, Heritage spares. Ran them at 270, and surprisingly they were done, 205 internal, after just 2 hours 10 minutes. So I wrapped like normal, then rested in the cooler for an hour. Awesome! Very little smokiness even though had both poppets open. Burned mostly pecan.Attached FilesComment
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The funny thing about KBQ is that smoke flavor is probably too refined for anyone used to regular BBQ. If you really want heavy smoke start cooking in a cold KBQ with all poppets open. And meat should be cold. That way you will have that initial blast of heavy smoke while it comes up to cooking temperature.
KBQ smoke is almost umami like..... you will notice that something is missing when you cook on a different smokerComment
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ArtSob I would add that when tending the KBQ you get a health dose of smoke, desensitizing your taste of smoke. I remember someone recommending taking a shower after tending a smoker to reaquire an accurate taste of smoke.
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Sorta like cooking with a bay leaf. You will only notice that there's something missing when you DON'T cook with it.Comment
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Gonna be firing mine up this weekend. Brisket, ribs and some pork belly! Can't wait. And I have a f at stack of cherry wood all ready to go! LFG.Comment
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