(Full disclosure: the manufacturer provided this unit for review)

Meet the Komodo Kamado, my new outdoor oven. I’d call it a barbecue pit, but it does more than long, slow smoke cooking. I’d call it a grill, but it’s not limited to high temperature, direct heat grilling. Because it’s built from refractory materials similar to what kilns and furnaces are made of, it’s also an oven that easily withstands cooking temperatures of 1000 degrees F. Why would you need or want that?

If you’re a pizza freak like me, you can use the Komodo to bake the sort of charred-bottom, Naples style pizzas possible only in wood or coal burning ovens. Fans of American pizza restaurants like A16 (San Francisco), Mozza (Los Angeles), Grimaldi’s, Patsy’s, and Totonno’s (New York), Frank Pepe’s , or Sally’s Apizza (New Haven) know the sort of crust I’m talking about. It’s impossible to attempt pizza like this at home, unless you have an oven that can hit 800 degrees. Now I do!

I’m breaking in the kamado this week, and learning how to control its firebox. I learned to use the Minion method of starting a low temperature charcoal fire in the Weber, and that’s what I’m employing with the Komodo. Let’s look at some differences between the Weber and the Komodo.

The Komodo dwarfs a Weber Smokey Mountain, the smoker I’ve been using for several years with excellent results. The Komodo is made of two different layers of a ceramic-like refractory material. Its dense inner wall absorbs and reflects heat back into the cooking chamber. The thinner outer wall insulates that heat within the vessel. All that mass should keep cooking temperatures very stable no matter the weather or wind conditions.

The draft door controls air intake to the firebox. The precision CNC-machined stainless door slides in and out smoothly, like a well-spittled trombone. Once the fire gets near the target temperature, the door is closed, and the daisywheel vent provides finer heat adjustment. The wood knob is beautifully turned from weather resistant teak. As a former machinist, I appreciate the Kamado’s extraordinary build quality.

The floor of the cooker is level with the draft door, which eases ash cleanup. Notice the cleanly machined metalwork.

The round “eye” next to the draft door is a port for temperature control devices like the BBQ Guru or the Stoker.

Heat and smoke exhaust past this “hat.” The heavy stainless steel rod threads into its mate, which is cast permanently into the lid. A ceramic gasket material shuts out air effectively when it’s time to put out the fire.

Interior view of the lid. The ovoid shape of the lid is designed to reflect heat evenly across the entire grill surface. The Supreme Plus package comes with a top grill made of the 3/8″ stainless steel rod, and the main grill below it is made of the standard 1/4″ stainless rod. There is room for a third grill below.

The Komodo’s grill is much roomier than the WSM’s. Where I barely had space to fit a puny 9 pound slab of beef brisket on the Weber, I have plenty of room for a 15 pound monster brisket on the Komodo.

The lid weighs a whopping 108 pounds, but is spring loaded for effortless opening. Let’s look at how that works.

This is the heavy duty spring that lifts the lid. Notice the preload tension in the lid-closed position. Hinges are cast permanently into the Komodo, unlike hinges from other kamado manufacturers that require constant re-tightening.

Easily adjustable tension in the spring hoists the lid when the latch is opened.

A sleek fairing increases top speed on this bluff beast. Mine is made of black fiberglass, but current productions of the Supreme Plus model use a stainless steel cover.

The lifting handle is made from stout 3/4″ stainless rod. It takes a serious bending jig to form that material into a graceful arc. When the lid is closed, the triangular piece in the center latches it shut automatically.

Closeup view of the lifting handle’s weld. When a nice looking bead isn’t ground smooth, it’s called a “show weld.” It’s not easy to lay down a tiny bead on thick material like that.

Its massive size, over the top features, and top notch build quality makes the Komodo the Bugatti Veyron of ceramic cookers. While I’ll never be able to afford the Bugatti, ever, even I, with modest means, could save up to splurge on this seriously fancy smoker / grill / oven.

In the next episode of the Black Dragon: “Gentlemen, start your engines…”

I was given a new toy. Can you guess what it is? I’ll give you a few hints

It’s big. Really big.

With the crate, it weighs 658 pounds.

It’s scaly. Is it a fire breathing dragon?

It comes with its own crowbar: therefore, not from IKEA.

I’m not one to post press releasy information, but these free classes caught my eye on the King Arthur Flour website. Starting this week in Southern California and moving eastward through Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska, the Vermont based baking gurus are taking their bread seminars on the road. I’ve not taken these demonstration classes, so this is not an endorsement, more like a neighborly heads-up on a reputable outfit. And it’s free. I like free.

King Arthur runs the oldest continuously operating mill in the United States, and is the largest of the artisanal milling companies. They make flours for both retail bakers and the commercial trade, such as 50 pound sacks of Sir Lancelot high gluten flour I prefer to bake bagels with. They also sell all manner of baker’s needs through their catalog, publish highly regarded baking books, and offer great information on their website.

Click on the first link above for full details:

Pasadena: January 31, 2007

Ventura: February 1. 2007

Ontario: February 2, 2007

Irvine: February 3, 2007

Update – June 2009. House of Meat has gone out of  business at this location. If anyone has updated information, please leave a comment.

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Whatever happened to Sam the Butcher, the sort of old fashioned, service oriented guy who’d gladly deliver Alice her meat? How did that archetype fade so quietly that we hardly missed his demise? As recently as the`80′s, hanging sides of beef were common sights in the back rooms of retail markets in America. The guy who handed your steaks across the meat counter processed the entire carcass into retail cuts, and dispensed sage cooking advice, too.

“Making pot roast? Buy the 7 bone chuck roast instead of the tenderloin. Rack of lamb? Let me french the bones for you.” Try getting that kind of expertise or selection at a Wal-Mart supercenter.

Across the street from one such Wal-Mart in Colorado sits a one year old butcher shop, run by a soft spoken man with fourteen years of meat cutting expertise in his hands. While you’d think that the big box neighbor would help to kill his business, it ironically highlights the differences between Sam the Butcher and Sam Walton. That juxtaposition drives discerning customers to House of Meat.

The best steaks in Grand Junction aren’t served in a dark, clubby restaurant with plush red leatherette banquette booths that smell of ancient cigar smoke. That sort of place doesn’t exist in a restaurant landscape dominated by casual dining chains. No, the best steaks in town are grilled at home, supplied by independent butchers like Jason Hicks.

Start with quality meat, and you can make your own great steak. House of Meat sells only the top two USDA grades of beef: Prime and Choice. Most supermarkets sell only the next lower grades, and tag them with misleading marketing fabrications like “Butcher’s Choice.” Hicks sent me home with two of the thick, well marbled ribeye steaks he’s slicing in this photo. Seasoned simply, grilled quickly over blazing oak coals and finished with a compound butter, it made a phenomenal dinner (ahem – if I say so myself). If only I can remember what I blended into the improvised butter mixture: anchovy fillets, freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese, smoked Spanish paprika, and what else, what else?

The display case tempts busy customers with ready to cook meats like fajitas, bacon wrapped filet mignon, and andouille stuffed chicken breasts. But Beef Wellingtons caught my eye because these pastry wrapped, mushroom and veal demiglace topped tenderloins take forever to make from scratch. There’s two types of cooks who’ll take time to finely mince a mountain of mushrooms and reduce it with shallots and butter into a classic duxelles: home cooks who want to impress their loved ones with this old school classic, or the rare professional like chef Tim Dougan willing to prepare this labor intensive dish for you.

In the House of Meat kitchen, Dougan cooks heat-and-eat specialities like white chili, Palisade peach pulled pork, beef stews and a rotating menu of braised dishes sold by the quart. We took home the spicy, fruity stewed pork made with regionally famous peaches from the neighboring town of Palisade. It’s a delicious pulled pork, albeit different from the hickory smoked Carolina barbecue style I’m accustomed to.

If the products and expertise described here don’t immediately remind you of a similar shop near you, perhaps you ought to seek one out before it’s too late. Supermarket butchers across the country are being driven to extinction by the next meat industry trend. “Case ready” meats come prepackaged in trays ready for stock clerks to unload directly from a truck into a display case. I object to the disappearance of knowledgeable experts from supermarkets squeezed to cut costs. Their replacement with increasingly prevalent plastic trays of “flavor enhanced” meat isn’t a value-added improvement in flavor for the consumer, but a profit-added proposition for producers selling salt water at meat prices.

In a retail environment where local supermarket chains battle Wal-Mart by laying off their skilled meat cutters, independent butcher shops have an opportunity to thrive, provided that consumers care enough to demand honest, high quality meats. Which Sam will you choose?

House of Meat
2546 Rimrock Avenue, Suite 200A
Grand Junction, CO 81505-8666
970-243-6111