Pork spare ribs smoked on the Kamado--pretty quick

I smoked ribs the other day.

 I'm not the most patient fellow--always it seems there is more stuff I want to do than I have time to do it in. These ribs cooked in 2 hours. I heavily smoked them over soaked hickory chunks. Indirect  cooking was used with about 1.5 inches of

porter mixed with water in the diffuser pan under the grill. The smokey steam coming from the Kamado was almost cool.

I shot for a Kamado temperature of 250 F. About 1.5 hours into the cook the liquid almost completely evaporated.

You can see the bubbly residue.

As I expected, the temperature rose to about 300 F.

This resulted in indirect dry cooking for a half hour. That was great for cooking with the bbq sauce slathered on for the last 10 minutes. They done with a temp of 160 F. The meat after 1.5 hours of steaming in the smokey steam was very moist. 

The final product was delicious and pretty quick!

WILD TURKEY KAMADO STYLE

Again it is spring and wild turkey season has arrived in northern New York. Once again, my colleague from work gave me two fresh wild turkey breasts from his hunting ground near Rodman, NY. This time I decided to test whether the moist condition of the meat was due to the marinade I used last year or the kamado set up  to cook over water.
I smoked them over lump charcoal with apple wood soaked for an hour in water. The breasts were thin so I shot for a little lower temp about 289 F.

 Apple chunks on.

The water pan in place.

Pieces of turkey on the grill: breast and tenderloins,

 Smoking underway.

 The smoke is sweet and moist.

 The finished product on the grill. Done in 65 minutes to an internal temperature of 165 F.

Sweet and moist wild turkey on the plate with pasta salad and tomatoes.
The answer to the question posed last year: it wasn't the marinade; it is the kamado and
smoking indirectly over water.

Apple wood smoked turkey breast

Recently on a windy mid  40 degree F evening I smoked a 3.1 pound turkey breast on apple wood. I tried for 325 degree F oven temperature. The thermometer inside the kamado kooker and the one that goes through the kooker wall were in agreement. It took 70 minutes for an internal temp of 165 degees F and for the little plastic monitor in the breast to pop up. Very tasty I thought.

Here are the pictures with comments:

Fire ready to cook.

Apple wood soaked for 30 minutes before putting on the coals.

The lower rack: a Weber rack to set the water pan/deflector on.

The flat 2 inch deep water pan I use: sitting on the weber rack & filled 3/4 up with water.

The turkey breast on the kooker's cast iron grill above the water pan.

About 70 minutes later. Done & delicious with a crusty skin. Simple, straightforward

and what this cooker is all about.

Slow smoked country style pork ribs on the steel kamado

Last week I did country style pork ribs. At an oven temperature of 225F it took 2 hours to get them to an internal temp of 165F.

I did them indirectly over water with soaked hickory chunks on lump charcoal. The smoking was continuous throughout the cook. Then at the end I brushed each side with Yeungling's Hot Lager BBQ sauce











 
and did another 5 minutes on each side still over water.

They were great! Smokey, juicy, not burned and full of flavor! I'll do that again.

Cornell Chicken on the Steel Kamado

In upstate NY almost every volunteer fire department raises money with chicken bar-b-ques.
The typical style is with the so-called Cornell marinade. 
http://www.amazingribs.com/recipes/chicken_turkey_duck/cornell_chicken.html
This is well detailed in this website.

I cooked this recently on the kooker with bottled State Fair Speedie Sauce that is widely available here in NNY.
I cooked Chicken breasts with skin on that were marinated in the sauce for 24 hours.
Initially, I cooked them indirectly @ about 300F for approximately 50 minutes to an internal temp of 150F.

Then  I cooked them directly opening the drafts and letting the oven temp go up to 350F for about 20 minutes (turning twice) to crisp the skin and to a final internal temp of 165F.
Here is one served with salt potatoes (another unique upstate NY favorite) and a salad.

As usual with this kamado--crisp and juicy. Next time I might let the final oven temp go even higher--maybe 400 F to make it more crispy. Cooked by the firemen, these are often blackened with char. I was trying to avoid that.

Tandoori Chicken in the hole

Before I got the CharGriller Akorn Kamado Kooker, I bought these sword-like long skewers at a Middle Eastern grocery in Ottawa, Ca. I thought that I some how might be able to replicate a tandoori oven cooking experience with these. The steel kamado seems to be able to make this happen. I put skinless chicken breasts ( marinated 48 hours in yogurt and tandoori spice mix)  on the skewers which I had to bend to fit under the closed dome.






















 I put a potato under each breast to prevent the breast from falling off and stuck them in the hole of the cast iron grill. About 23 minutes later at approximately 470F they were done @ 160 F internal temperature. 

They were great! I've done these before on the Weber or the gas grill but I don't think they were ever this good before. Crisp and juicy!

Kamado Twice Smoked Ham

I smoked a 9# spiral cut pre-cooked ham last Saturday. 

I cooked it indirectly over liquid ---water and porter (not sure that the porter made a difference) with water soaked hickory chunks.

 It took about 2 hr 45 minutes to get to 133 degrees F internal temperature with an average oven temperature of approximately 250 degrees F. At about 1.5 hours into the cook I checked the accuracy of a new remote oven thermometer that I got.

 Looking at the ham, I was afraid that it was drying out. So I put foil on the grate under it and a foil tent over it.

 I didn't use a glaze as I don't really like making the meat sweet and sugary. My wife pointed out that I oriented it wrongly.. However, for all that, it came out great.

 After taking it out of the kamado, I wrapped it in foil to sit for an hour. Except for the big piece on the end which was a little dry and black, it was very moist and very smokey.
The thermometer on the kamado is now 50 to 75 degrees low compared to the new remote thermometer which I tested against an over thermometer of known accuracy. I checked the accuracy of the kamado thermometer when I put it together. I have to figure out how to adjust it.
For a finishing touch, I took down the diffuser grate and the liquid and took out the hickory chunks. Then I cooked biscuits.

Delicious. Pillsbury Buttermilk Grands fresh from the refrigerator tube! They were great!