a bigger chicken

This time a 7# roaster with some changes that seemed to be improvements:
#1 Royal Oak Lump Charcoal that seemed to light faster and burn a little hotter than the Cowboy Brand I had earlier:

#2 A change in the indirect cooking set up to allow for cooking of a larger bird over water:

#3 Chunks of hickory wood for smoking instead of chips:

The smoking went on for the entire cook without adding any wood.

It was a rainy afternoon/ evening, so I put the cooker under the portico on my detached garage;
at this point I feel experienced enough to avoid flare ups when opening the lid; I started the fire with
the dome lid shut and both drafts fully open. It seemed the Royal Oak was less prone to sparking.
It was a cool windy evening 45F ( 35F with the wind chill). I aimed for about 325F on the dome thermometer. It was 400F when I was ready to put it on but came down to about 325F after putting on the chunks, the diffuser rack, the pan of water, the cast iron grate and the bird and closing it back up. I had to choke the lower draft down to 1 or less as it was positioned to face a stiff NW breeze. The top draft was at 1 or 2 depending on the temperature's recent direction. Perhaps due to the wind, I found it a bit more difficult to hold the temp steady and adjustments seemed to be required periodically. Here is the result after 94 minutes with an internal breast temperature of 165F.

You can also see the little plastic popup thermometer has worked too.

I have smoked quite a few chickens with many different cookers over the years but this has to be one of my best efforts. It was intensely smokey with a strong hickory flavor and as usual, with this kamado, moist to perfection!

Lamb Tandoori-style on the steel Kamado

My latest cooking project was a butterflied boneless leg of lamb prepared Tandoori-style marinated by my wife according to this recipe:


 Tandoori-spiced Grilled Lamb

Ingredients

2-1/2 lbs. boneless leg of lamb, butterflied

2 cups plain whole milk yogurt

1 small onion, diced

6 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

2 tspn. ginger root, roughly chopped

2 tspn. garam masala

2 tspn. ground cumin

1 tspn. ground coriander

¼ tspn ground fennel seed

¼ tspn. fresh ground black pepper

1 tspn. olive oil

½ tspn. cayenne pepper (+ or- to taste)

Juice of ½ lemon

1 tspn. salt (+ or – to taste)

Directions

Using paper towel, dry the lamb and set aside.  In a large nonreactive (glass or stainless steel) bowl, combine remaining ingredients and mix well. Add the lamb, turn to coat, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for 8 hours or up to 2 days.

When ready to cook, wipe off all the marinade and discard.

Here it sits in the marinade after 24 hours in the cooler.

And here it is with the marinade wiped off.

I placed it on the Kamado Kooker which was steady @ 500F with the lower and upper drafts both on position 3. I placed an additional rack above the lump charcoal fire. On that rack I placed an empty metal pan to act as a diffuser. So, this was cooked indirectly but with no liquid and no wood chips.    

                                             

I seared it on both sides briefly and then  closed the dome. 

The temperature on the dome thermometer

was adjusted again to just below 500F by opening both drafts and then returning both to position 3.

I monitored the internal temperature of the meat with a remote temperature probe and took it off at 160F

which was reached in about 45 minutes.

Here it is done on the grill.The diffuser pan obscures the view of the 

coals beneath.

It was was cooked to medium and amazingly delicious. It was quite moist and the spices permeated it thoroughly. I'm anxious to do this again and I don't plan any changes.

Kamado Hamburgers

I wanted to try hamburgers on the steel kamado. I tried to research this online regarding cooking temperature and time with only a bit of luck. (I found a nice YouTube video in Swedish that was lost on me.)
It seemed that there is not a lot out there about Kamado burgers. Now I think I know why. To me they seemed about the same as if I had done them on the Weber (20+ years experience on that) or one of several cylindrical LP gas grill smokers that I've had over the past several years. Currently I have a Brinkmann unit:

This has been great for winter cooking and usable outdoors on the porch down to about 10F.

But I digress; I cooked the burgers directly on lump charcoal at 350F-375F per the Char-Griller Kamado Kooker's Dome thermometer (which I had tested in our kitchen oven for accuracy as I put the Kamado together).

 I did about 2 minutes and then flipped and another 2 minutes and then flipped and then another 7 minutes all with the dome closed after each step plus the last 2 minutes I toasted the buns on the elevated rack. 

They were just delicious and done through but quite juicy. However, not very different from my experiences on the cookers noted above.