Whizlog

Extruded Coconut Charcoal Review

2011-11-23T09:14:00.000-05:00

As we related earlier, a box of Komodo Sustainable Extruded Coconut Charcoal appeared on our doorstep a few weeks ago (the day before we had knee surgery, argh!). We have just posted the review which you can read at this location.

Just to recap for any of you new to this form of charcoal, back in the 2002-2004 time frame, Kamado sold a wonderful extruded coconut charcoal that was made in the Philippines. It burned reasonably long, hot and even, and made a great fuel source for long overnight cooks.

Well, rumor has it that Kamado never paid for that charcoal and thus could never get it again. So they started selling various truly dreadful formulations that produced huge amounts of ash, smelled bad, was moldy, and burned for relatively short periods of time. Most of the people who tried it were aghast.

Back in 2009, Komodo Kamado (not to be confused with the Kamado company just mentioned) attempted to source that first great coconut charcoal but discovered that for various reasons, you just can't rely on suppliers to deliver what they promise. The charcoal they obtained was "sort of ok" but it wasn't the really "good stuff."

So, Komodo Kamado went off and either bought or manufactured all the equipment they needed to produce their own charcoal, and the result is this 2011 Komodo Sustainable Extruded Coconut Charcoal. You should read the review, but let us briefly state that this is exactly what Komodo Kamado was striving for. We hope you enjoy the review!

- TNW

Custom Covers For Your Cooker

2011-11-05T19:43:00.001-04:00

We just thought that we would share with you one of our favorite suppliers, Coverworks, makers of custom covers for just about anything you own. Coverworks is run by John Edwards who goes by "Johnnyboy" online. Previously, he has made covers for our medium Big Green Egg and Komodo Kamado cookers. Well, just today we received two new covers, one for a large Big Green Egg and one for a classic Kamado Joe. We thought owners of these popular cookers would be interested in a source for quality custom covers.

Here you can see the custom cover he made for our large Big Green Egg. All his covers are made from Sunbrella. Sunbrella is a woven synthetic canvas fabric from Glen Raven Mills, Inc. that is made of 100% solution dyed acrylic fiber by Du Pont. Sunbrella fabric comes in a range of colors and is color-fast and resistant to fading, cracking, scratching and hardening. It will resist mildew growth as well. Stretching and shrinking is minimal with Sunbrella fabric. Sunbrella products provide up to 90 percent UV protection from sun rays.

We now have all our cookers, save one, being protected from the elements by covers from Johnnyboy's Coverworks. We have been very pleased with the performance of our covers, so if you are interested, you can contact them via email at coverworks@hotmail.com.

- TNW

Extruded Coconut Charcoal Is Back!

2011-10-26T09:21:00.000-04:00

Long time readers will remember a time in the distant past when one could buy quality extruded coconut charcoal. It had a sweet smell, burned evenly like briquettes but capable of higher temperatures. It was a perfect fuel for low and slow overnight cooks as it produced little ash.

Unfortunately, the company selling it ran out and was never able to supply quality charcoal ever again. (You can read the long sad story of the rubbish charcoal they attempted to pawn off onto their customers at the Lump Charcoal Database. Just look for the reviews of the various incarnations of Kamado extruded coconut charcoals.)

But that was then and this is now. Komodo Kamado (not to be confused with said previous supplier) decided to fill this gaping hole in the charcoal world by trying to find the original supply. To make a long story short, Komodo Kamado came to the conclusion that the only way to supply quality extruded coconut charcoal was to make it themselves.

So to make an even longer story even shorter, a box of Komodo Kamado Sustainable extruded coconut charcoal arrived at our doorstep yesterday afternoon. Needless to say, we will begin a review of this highly anticipated product as soon as our little adventure with the orthopaedic surgeon comes to a satisfactory conclusion. But we are excited about the possibility that we all may now have a reliable source of this charcoal from a reliable and reputable source. We'll of course let you know when the Naked Whiz Publishing Empire resumes operations.

- TNW

The Komodo Kamado Review Is Finally Here

2011-10-03T21:08:00.000-04:00

Well, it took 2 months, over 260 photos, about 20 pounds of charcoal, four strong men (well 3 strong men and us) and a lot of time to produce our latest review: The Komodo Kamado 2011 23-inch OTB Gen 2.4 Ultimate Refractory Cooker. We hope you find it informative and enjoyable.

This is the latest version of Komodo Kamado's top of the line cooker. It's simply stunning. Pebble tile, elastomeric (flexible) grout, monster stainless steel grids, a truly air-tight gasket, and on and on. It's hard to believe how well designed and built this cooker is, so check out the review and you'll see for yourself!

- TNW

Komodo Kamado Review progress report

2011-08-20T10:02:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update to state that our new cooker is in place on the deck. We've probably done about 90% of the photography for the "photo tour" section of the review and now we just have a heck of a lot of writing and explaining to do. The plan for these reviews calls for finishing up the photo tour before lighting it up for the inaugural cook. We want to be sure we've got all the photos of a bright and shiny brand new cooker, inside and out, before we begin using it. Back to work....

-TNW

Our Latest Cooker: Komodo Kamado

2011-08-14T21:19:00.004-04:00

Many of you already know that we owned a Komodo Kamado cooker that arrived by in 2006. It was a great cooker and it served us well, but we finally decided this spring that we wanted a new model with all the updates and with tile and a color that was our choosing. So, we sold the old cooker and placed an order for the new model.

Last week we took delivery on the latest and greatest model and today we were able to get it uncrated and moved into the Naked Whiz Publishing Empire's new wing. She's a beauty! We just thought we'd alert you to the fact that we will be working on a new review of the Komodo Kamado cooker to replace the old one. There have been a LOT of changes, all of them improvements and it's time we updated you. So, keep an eye on the website. We will, as always, update the What's New box when the review is ready.

- TNW

Naked Whiz Publishing Empire Expansion, Part 2

2011-08-08T16:13:00.001-04:00

Our staggering expansion project is just about complete. Here we see the massive railing system taking shape:

Pickets going up!

Everything is pretty much complete except for some minor concrete work around the massive foundational structure and of course for some tasteful landscaping.

The view from below:

And finally another view from the rear of the massive complex.

More on what our new massive expansion will be used for when we have a firm date for the completion of this massive undertaking.....

- TNW

Update to the Kamado Joe Review

2011-08-07T09:40:00.000-04:00

We just posted a small update to the product review of the Kamado Joe classic kamado-style cooker. We forgot to tell you about the lower vent on the cooker! Whoops! The new material is flagged as an update and is at the end of the photo tour section.

- TNW

Senor Beli's Baked Brie

2011-08-06T10:07:00.000-04:00

We have just posted a wonderful recipe for Baked Brie which came to us from Beli Davila, a regular poster over at the Big Green Egg forum. Instead of encasing the brie in pastry, all the flavors are placed on top. When you cut into the rind, all those flavors just flow with the cheese and wow! We hope you enjoy! Here's the link:

Maple Planked Baked Brie del Sr. Beli

- TNW

The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire Expands Its Facilities!

2011-08-05T21:04:00.001-04:00

We would like to announce the massive upgrade currently underway at the Naked Whiz Publishing Empire Plaza! We have spared no expense and brought in the finest architect and builder in North Raleigh, Dan Gargello to plan, oversee and implement every stage of this massive project. Here is a photo of the location of the new building site before ground breaking:

This next photo was taken after the ground breaking was complete and the foundations of this massive structure were poured:

Demolition of the existing site was extensive, but of course you must dispose of the old before you can build the new:

As of this writing, this is the current state of this massive project. The new support structure and decking are in place:

Yes, those are 6x6 posts you see. We expect that on Monday, the new railing will be in place and our massive expansion will be complete! 40 square feet of new massively over-built decking to hold.......

To hold what? You'll have to keep watching. It may be four weeks or four months before we can reveal what required this massive new facility. Stay tuned....

- TNW

Product Review: The Kamado Joe Classic Charcoal Cooker

2011-08-05T17:51:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been a while since we have posted something significant to the web site, and here's the reason why. We have been busy working on a product review of the Kamado Joe classic kamado-style cooker.

Kamado Joe has been around for a couple of years and we recently got our hands on one for some testing. We put it through its paces and now you can read the results and our conclusions at our web site. Please take a look and read the review if you are interested in this competitor in the ever-growing kamado-style charcoal cooker industry.

- TNW

Update to the pitmasterIQ.com iQue 110 temperature controller

2011-07-23T14:38:00.001-04:00

We just posted an update to our review of the pitmasterIQ.com iQue 110 temperature controller. After some discussions with the manufacturer, we decided that because we had used a different method of measuring and calculating the performance of this unit, comparisons with other brands weren't really valid.

We re-ran our tests and measured the cooker temperature in the manner in which we did for the BBQ Guru NanoQ, and we calculated the accuracy and swing numbers using the same method we used for the NanoQ and the Auber Instruments controller.

Bottom line? Well several of the numbers got better and a few got a little worse. Our personal view hasn't changed, however. This is a great little controller that we will continue to use when we want a quick and simple controller that will keep our cooker close to our target.

- TNW

Review of the pitmasterIQ.com iQue 110 Temperature Controller

2011-07-11T19:12:00.004-04:00

07/13/11 UPDATE: We just had a discussion with the manufacturer regarding the methods we used to compare the iQue 110 with other controllers. The methods used to measure the temperature of the cooker were different between this test and the testing we did on the Auber and NanoQ units. This may or may not have affected our results, so we are going to investigate. If we find that indeed our comparison is affected, we will be redoing the testing on this unit and updating the review. We hope to have this completed in the next week or so.

We have just posted our latest product review, that of the pitmasterIQ.com iQue 110 temperature controller for charcoal cookers. You can read the review here: pitmasterIQ.com iQue 110 Product Review

This is a unique entry into this market with it being the first unit to use an integrated blower. That's one less wire you have dangling about. And using it is as simple as simple gets. Plug it in, dial the temperature you want, and bingo: you're set to cook.

So please take the time to read our review if you are interested in automatic temperature controllers!

- TNW

Happy Father's Day with a leg of lamb....

2011-06-19T09:58:00.000-04:00

It's Father's Day, which has nothing to do with a stuffed leg of lamb unless you just so happen to be cooking a stuffed leg of lamb for Father's Day. (Which we aren't. Our son wishes to take us out to lunch.)

But here is our recipe for cooking a boneless leg of lamb by stuffing it with spinach, feta cheese and toasted pine nuts. We hope you enjoy it: Stuffed Boneless Leg of Lamb

- TNW

How To Make A Gasket.....

2011-06-17T18:59:00.001-04:00

Now that we know it's safe to use Permatex Ultra Copper gasket material to make a gasket for your cooker, let's show you how! Thanks to Frank from Houma, a regular poster on the Big Green Egg forum, we can now give you photos and a description of how he made permanent silicone gaskets for for his mini, small and XL Big Green Egg ceramic cookers.

Here's the link to our newest web page: How To Make A Permanent Gasket For Your Ceramic Cooker

- TNW

Gasket safety again....

2011-06-12T09:52:00.001-04:00

Another debate has recently broken out on one of the ceramic cooker forums regarding the safety of using a silicone-based gasket making product to either form a gasket or adhere a Rutland or Cotronics gasket to a cooker. So once again, we've gone out and found some relevant information on Permatex Ultra Copper High Temp RTV Silicone so that you can make your own decision about using this material on your cooker.

You should read the information, but to make a long story short, we don't find anything in the information we've seen that would scare us away from using it. As always, you should read the information and make an informed decision for yourself. Here's the link: Permatex Ultra Copper Safety Information

- TNW

What's Up At The Empire....

2011-06-10T21:19:00.002-04:00

We thought we'd let you know what's currently underway at The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire. We are in the middle of a review of the iQue 110 temperature controller. (You can get a look at one by visiting their website at www.pitmasteriq.com.)

To our knowledge this unit is the first to use a variable speed blower, integrate the blower into the control unit, and also the first unit to utilize RTD sensor technology rather than thermocouples. What's RTD technology? We'll explain in detail in the review, but for now, an RTD (resistance temperature detector) sensor is more accurate and more stable than a thermocouple, and it doesn't require calibration. It is also worth noting that this is the lowest-priced temperature controller that we have ever tested, so this should be interesting!

We haven't put the unit through its paces yet, but we hope to get most of the testing done this weekend and possibly next weekend. Keep your eyes on this Whizlog or our website for the review!

- TNW

High-Que Charcoal Grate for Large BGE

2011-06-05T20:24:00.001-04:00

Just a quick update to let you know that we have just posted are review of the High-Que Replacement Charcoal Grate For Large Big Green Egg Cookers. If you have been struggling with airflow issues and if you find your stock grate from Big Green Egg is constantly getting clogged with ash and charcoal chips, take a look at this replacement option. It's made from 304 stainless steel and does a super job of letting the air come up and the ash and chips go down! We liked it a lot and will be using it full time in our large Egg.

- TNW

Cleansing Your Cooker With Fire....

2011-06-02T13:42:00.006-04:00

(Click on photos for larger versions)

"Give me leave to speak my mind, and I will through and through cleanse the foul body of th' infected world." -- As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7.

We sometimes think that those who seek to cleanse the inside of their ceramic cookers are akin to those that would place great grandma's 100-year old cast iron skillet in the dishwasher to get that hard shiny black stuff off. Nevertheless, some are driven to clean the inside of their cooker with a cleansing fire, expecting a lily-white interior just like when they bought it.

We normally would not perform such an act, but recently we had occasion to do just that, but for reasons other than cleansing. Our large Egg is about 10 years old, so there was some "stuff" that could be cleansed. We placed enough charcoal in the fire bowl to come up about half-way between the top of the bowl and the holes. We lit it, took off the top cap, opened the bottom vent all the way, and then let be what would be.

The fire got up to about 1000° for over half an hour and then took about another hour to cool back down to 300° as the charcoal was consumed and the fire grew smaller and smaller. We then closed the vents and went to bed. You can see the results in the two photos above. Obviously, we didn't get that lily-white restoration that some hope for. Granted, any greasy residue is gone, but things don't look a whole lot better than when we started.

What else did we get? Well, we got a lid stuck shut. We easily fixed that with a large screwdriver, a hammer and some clever and judicious tapping to drive the screw driver twixt the top and bottom gaskets. Then a simple twist of the handle popped the lid free. And then there was the fact that what little was left of our gasket was now even littler. Not a problem for us since we were planning to install a new gasket anyway, but not exactly a welcome sight to someone with a serviceable gasket in place.

So, there you have it. If you want to make great grandma roll in her grave, at least now you know what to expect.

- TNW

We're Buying a Komodo Kamado....

2011-06-01T12:39:00.002-04:00

Many of you may remember that we were given a damaged Komodo Kamado cooker back in mid-2006 and that we did a product review of it. Well, we decided it was high time that we purchased a new Komodo Kamado cooker and sell the cooker that appeared in the review. At press time, the tile choice we probably will make is shown in the photo where we have photoshopped a factory image into a picture of our deck.

So what brought us to this decision? A couple of things. First we wanted an undmaaged cooker with tile of our choosing to grace our back deck. It's been nice with the 2006 black textured 23-inch OTB supreme, but it would never have been our first choice of style or color. We have always wanted a tiled cooker and of course, to choose our own color. Second, there have been a number of significant improvements since 2006 such as interlocking base and dome, food grade silicone seal, and an elastomeric tile adhesive. We decided we wanted to have these improvements on our cooker. (Reason 3 is a secret, but it will be revealed all in good time!)

Some folks might be a bit wary of spending so much money on an item made so far from home. We have said it before and we'll say it again. Komodo Kamado is the real deal. From the very beginning they have shown that they are dedicated to superior products and superior service. Period. Cast your worries aside. Komodo Kamado will take care of you, no if's, no but's. So, we are excited about getting a new Komodo Kamado. About as excited as when we purchased our first Big Green Egg ten years ago. Keep an eye on the web page for an updated product review this fall or winter after we take delivery. It's time we put our money where our mouth is and the time is now.

One final note. In the process of selling the black Komodo Kamado, we received several inquiries, one of which was most distressing. One person thought this cooker was made by Kamado, the infamous company that has acquired a reputation for taking deposits but not delivering cookers, and ignoring customer pleas for warranty service and replacement parts. Komodo Kamado is not Kamado. You can visit the Komodo Kamado website at www.komodokamado.com.

- TNW

Thoughts on planks....

2011-04-27T13:05:00.000-04:00

No, we're not talking about those bastard things you do at the gym.
A comment in response to our planked shrimp post got us to thinking about smoking planks. Specifically, we've been thinking about natural grilling planks (natural meaning an oval cross-cut out of a log) vs. traditional rectangle smooth planed boards.

We received a few samples of Northern White Cedar natural planks from the good folks at Maine Grilling Woods a number of years ago and used them to cook some salmon. (You can see them in the photo above.) We have a few more in our garage but have never used them again. So, we've been thinking about why.

The planks we used were fairly rough-sawn ovals and it was use once and that's it. You couldn't clean or scrape the surface you cooked on. In fact, since you are cooking on the end grain of the wood, the wood is going to absorb any fluids involved in the cooking, fluids you might wish to include in your next cook. Of course, the other side of the oval plank was charred from the fire so you wouldn't want to put your food on that side for a subsequent cook. Smooth planks can often be cleaned up by scraping the cooking surface so if the planks didn't get too charred, they can be reused a second time. Those natural planks we used were pretty much done after the first use.

Also, these oval planks are pretty thick. You couldn't hope to cross-cut a log into thin slices without the slices cracking, so they have to be cut fairly thick. (In fact, in the photo above, you can see one of the planks has cracked during the cooking process.) The result is that you are paying for a lot of wood you don't really need for cooking purposes. The rectangular traditional planks are usually cut to about 1/4 inch vs. the much thicker natural planks.

And of course, natural planks are relatively small which makes them even more expensive to use as you may need to use two planks instead of one. Being oval in shape also cuts down on the cooking surface vs. the rectangular traditional plank.

We did some poking around on the internet to compare prices and indeed, the natural ovals are more expensive. They ranged from 12.9 to 16.4 cents per square inch, while the traditional planks ranged from 4.2 to 8.3 cents per square inch.

So, all in all, we think nice big planed traditional planks just thick enough to do their jobs seem to be the best choice, both from the standpoint of efficiency and economy. We suppose it might be fun to serve your food on individual ovals in a sort of rustic atmosphere, but in general we think we'll stick to traditional planks.

- TNW

Jamaican Hot Dog Cuban, you say?

2011-04-18T08:17:00.000-04:00

Yes, we have decided to explore the concept of fusion. You know. Fusion. Where you take a bunch of stuff that didn't used to go together but now it does because you put it together? Well, this is our fusion cuban sandwich.

We love coco bread, so we decided to use it instead of traditional cuban bread. While we were on the Jamaican theme, we decided to roast our pork with a Jamaican rub for flavoring. And then we thought kids like hot dogs, so why not substitute hot dogs for the ham and get the kids involved in a little fusion, too!

The end result is our Jamaican Hot Dog Cuban sandwich and it was mighty delicious. If you are interested, here is a link to the recipe: Jamaican Hot Dog Cuban Sandwich.

- TNW

Cedar Planked Shrimp on an Alder Plank, tee hee

2011-04-11T20:19:00.003-04:00

We recently found ourselves in agreement with a fellow ceramic owner that cedar wasn't our first choice for planking fish. No one in their right mind would use cedar chunks for smoking meat, so we wondered if perhaps the popularity of cedar planks was due to some pseudo-romantic notion that since Native Americans did it, we should too? We don't know, but we just finished up a batch of what we are jokingly referring to as "cedar-planked shrimp on an alder plank." We'll be writing this up more formally in the near future, but we thought we'd just express our opinion of how divine the alder smoke fusing with the roasting shrimp was as we cooked this dish. This was definitely a keeper and like we say, keep an eye out for the web page write up in the next couple of weeks.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the page: Cedar-Planked Shrimp on Alder Planks

- TNW

Halls Hill Charcoal Review Posted

2011-03-28T13:54:00.000-04:00

We were contacted by the manufacturer of this charcoal recently about doing a review and we just got the review done this past weekend. We have just posted the review on our website at this web page. The charcoal is essentially made by hand in small batches. It is made from 100% shagbark hickory wood, and while expensive, this charcoal has a smoke that is divine. Feel free to read the review, and if you have ever used Halls Hill Lump Charcoal, you can leave your comments or give it your rating on the survey page.

- TNW

Oh, no! It's Beer Can Chicken Again!!

2011-03-23T08:24:00.016-04:00

Sorry, Mr. Bill. But we came across something that we just couldn't resist posting. As regular readers will know, we did a lot of research on beer can chicken and concluded over and over that the only reason for using a beer can is to get the chicken upright. Beer and other flavorings in the can do nothing to add flavor or juiciness to the chicken.

Well, we just came across a recipe for "Beer-can chicken: 'Modernist' cuisine for tailgaters" in this week's issue of The Week magazine. We'll just quote the article:

"The beer can’s principal contribution is that it holds the chicken in an optimal roasting position. It also lets the juices “drain away, so they don’t accumulate and make the skin soggy.”

Notice anything missing? Like flavoring the chicken? Making the chicken more moist? In fact, the instructions in the recipe direct you to:

"Empty a beer can (“the fun part”), and insert can into cavity of bird. Adjust can so chicken sits upright."

Empty a beer can. As in take all the beer out. It does not direct you to add any other liquids or flavorings. Just use the empty can as a prop to hold the chicken up. Which, as anyone who has done beer can chicken can attest, is sometimes rather a dicey proposition as the chicken isn't exactly stable sitting on a beer can.

But then comes the punchline, so to speak:

"But the real key to the technique is that the skin is pulled away from the meat before slow cooking begins, then crisped quickly with high heat."

The REAL secret to beer can chicken isn't even the beer can.

So, there you have it. Yet another vote that beer can chicken isn't about flavor or juiciness. And we'll take it a step further and suggest that you get a proper "chicken sitter" type of device to hold your bird up and avoid the tippy bird on a can. And yes, we have to admit, we enjoyed this. Forgive us. We have this weakness when it comes to setting the record straight on beer can chicken and wet charcoal. We promise. No more beer can chicken posts for at least a week. So sorry, Mr. Bill!

- TNW

Improvement to the Charcoal Reviews

2011-03-22T09:32:00.003-04:00

We are close to publishing a new lump charcoal review and thought we'd alert you to a change in the format of our upcoming reviews. Those of you who are familiar with our lump charcoal reviews will no doubt recognize the image to the right which shows the "Quick Stats" section that appears in every review. As you can see, this section of the review provides a quick overview of the charcoal and it includes the results of our tests related to burn time and ash production.

We decided to make a small improvement to this section, in keeping with the changes we made to our ranking pages some time ago. We were constantly getting emails from readers who were confused by the terms we used when categorizing the performance of the charcoal. For example, if the ash production graphic in the Quick Stats section said "Low", did that mean that it produced a low amount of ash, or did that mean that its performance was low compared to other brands? One is good, while the other is bad. We tried to assist by color coding the graphis (green is good, red is bad) but we still received emails from folks having difficulty with our graphics.

As a result, on our ranking pages, we switched to using stars, where 1 star was poor performance and 5 stars was superior performance. This resulted in a big drop in the emails asking us to clarify the way we reported charcoal test performance.

We are now going to move this improvement into our reviews by doing two things. First we are taking the ash production and burn time graphics out of the Quick Stats section. Instead we are now going to include a new section at the beginning of the review labeled "Key Performance Indicators." You can see a sample in the image at right. This new section will appear just below the Quick Stats section.

Second, this new section will use the 1 to 5 star graphics from our ranking pages to indicate the performance of the charcoal, and for the first time, reviews will now include the performance graphic for all 5 of our key tests:

Chips and dust content
Lighting performance
Maximum temperature
Burn time performance
Ash production

As far as all of the existing reviews, we won't be going back and updating all 86 reviews with this new section, but we will replace the old graphic indicators with the new 1 to 5 stars graphics to try to make it easier to understand which brands did well and which brands did poorly in our testing of burn time and ash production.

We hope this little improvement will help you as you read our upcoming reviews.

- TNW

Review of the Auber Instruments Controller

2011-03-06T11:29:00.005-05:00

Most of you are probably already familiar with the barbecue temperature control devices such as the product line from The BBQ Guru and The Stoker from Rock's Barbeque. Well early in 2010 there came a new player to the market, Auber Instruments. They have produced a low-cost simple controller that probably should be viewed as competition for the BBQ Guru NanoQ since, like the NanoQ, it only controls the temperature of the cooker and it doesn't monitor the meat temperature like the higher-priced models.

We put it through all the tests that we have performed on the other brands (plus a couple more!) and have written a review for your enjoyment. You can read the review at our Product Reviews web page. The review contains a side-by-side feature comparison with the BBQ Guru NanoQ to help you decide which controller may be right for you.

- TNW

The Big Green Egg Company Unveils New Brand Identity, Logo and Tagline

2011-03-03T09:15:00.001-05:00

Well, after over 30 years of existence, Big Green Egg is changing their logo and tagline. Many of you probably know that the Big Green Egg bills itself as the "World's Best Smoker and Grill™", but now that is all changing. Big Green Egg is now calling the Egg "The Ultimate Cooking Experience™". We suppose this is a long overdue change since anyone who owns an Egg knows that it is far more versatile than just smoking and grilling. (For those of you interested in seeing just how versatile, here's our Ceramic Cooker Thermometer.)

And in addition to the new tagline, Big Green Egg is also changing its logo. The old logo featured an image of their older cookers with the little roller cart and the scissor hinges. This new logo includes an image that, while not an exact rendition of a Big Green Egg cooker, is more up to date and representative of their current cookers.

You should start to see this new log and tagline appear in advertising materials throughout the month of March. You can read the full text of Big Green Egg's press release here.

- TNW

McRib Is Back. How's It Stack Up Vs. Burger King?

2010-12-16T21:11:00.001-05:00

We whizloged a while ago about the dreadful attempt by Burger King to sell pork ribs. They were way too expensive, way too small, and way too bad tasting. Well, now McRib is back and we know you are all dying to know what we think of it. Here goes.

What do we think of it? Well, the last one we had was probably in 1981 when they were first introduced to the nation. We didn't like them then and we don't like them now. There are two main problems with it. First, waaaaaay too much sauce. Second, waaaaaaay too much smoke flavor in the sauce. (It probably is just a coincidence that today there is a thread on The BBQ Forum about the two worst things you can do to a piece of meat being too much sauce and too much smoke.)

But how does it compare to Burger King's effort? Well, all things are relative, aren't they? If you put a stick in our eye and forced us to pick one, we'd go for the McRib. It's better value for your money. You can scrape most of the sauce off. And it sort of actually does taste like pork meat, sort of. Kind of. Nope, in the race to the bottom of the pork barrel, Burger King got there first. We'll take a McRib if you really insist.

- TNW

Primo Lump Charcoal Review

2010-09-09T20:45:00.000-04:00

Back in May while attending a Big Green Egg festival, we managed to score a bag of Primo Lump Charcoal at the hosting dealer. We were finally able to get the review done this past weekend and we have just posted the review on our website at this web page. Some interesting results. Feel free to read the review, and if you have ever used Primo Lump Charcoal, you can leave your comments or give it your rating on the survey page.

- TNW

We Don't Know What Happened To The Big Green Egg Forum

2010-08-31T21:18:00.001-04:00

The title pretty much says it all. We know nothing and have no affiliation with the BGE forum. We can only assume that they are doing some sort of maintenance or upgrade on the forum software. Time will tell....

- TNW

Flashback HD The Movie

2010-08-31T08:08:00.003-04:00

Well, we finally did it. After an agonizing 15-day countdown, fans of The Naked Whiz were rewarded last night with the world premier of "Flashback HD". You can view it on YouTube at this location.

We thought we'd publish a few comments about this movie. Obviously, this movie was made by a team of crack professional idiots. Please don't try this stuff at home. If you do, don't say we encouraged you, because we didn't.

The flashbacks in the movie were all real and were all done without the aid of any accelerants or other trickery. This was a pure and simple charcoal fire in a ceramic charcoal cooker. No gasoline, lighter fluid, nitrous, nothing.

And lest this movie scare you off from buying a ceramic charcoal cooker, please remember, these flashbacks were created under "ideal" conditions. We used a scorching hot fire, we let the fire burn up all the oxygen in the cooker and then we rapidly opened the lid all the way. Flashbacks that you might encounter while cooking will not be as big or spectacular. And of course, if you follow our advice, you should experience flashbacks only rarely.

So, what is our advice on how to avoid the flashback? Before you open the lid, open the top and bottom vents for 10 seconds or so to allow oxygen back into the cooker. Then SLOWLY open the lid. You can read more about flashbacks at our website.

- TNW

Beer Can Chicken, We Hope For The Last Time....

2010-08-22T14:23:00.005-04:00

Ok, we took the challenge again and re-did some of our testing, as well as adding some new testing. You can read all about it on our web page, Beer Can Chicken, Myth or Fact?.

What was the new challenge? Well, some folks said they can make the beer boil, so we felt we needed to try a few new things. We tested using different devices such as a cheap metal pan, porcelain chicken sitters, and a pricey Weber device made from heavy aluminum. Yes, we found you could make the beer boil in these devices with no chicken in place, so we then added a chicken and re-did our test of "beer vs. no beer."

When we did our previous test, we used an expensive porter, but we didn't document the brand. So some skeptics thought we should try a better beer. We used a strong and intense Imperial Stout (Czar Imperial Stout from Avery Brewery), added crushed garlic and tons of a strong rub. We cooked two birds side by side on two chicken sitters, one empty, one with the beer mixture, and then submitted them to blind taste testing.

The results? You'll have to read the web page. Whether or not you choose to use this method of cooking chicken, you will find some useful information. Good luck, whatever your choice!

- TNW

Beer Can Chicken, Part 1,753

2010-08-11T08:27:00.001-04:00

The beer can chicken saga continues. To summarize events so far, we originally published an article that debunked the myth of beer can chicken. We hypothesized that the method could do nothing because a) not enough of the chicken is exposed to any output from the can of beer, b) the beer probably doesn't boil, so there would be little output to begin with, and c) the serous lining of the chicken's inner cavity wouldn't allow any output from the can to penetrate the bird.

We then proceeded to do some testing. We found that indeed the beer didn't even approach boiling temperatures, and in a side-by-side blind taste test, we found that the beer can chicken bird had no flavor of anything that had been placed in the beer. This included the porter beer, 5 crushed cloves of garlic, and 2 tablespoons of a very spicy rub.

Well, you know there are two kinds of people in this world: those that take our word as gospel, and those that don't. (That was a joke, by the way.) One that didn't take our word as gospel did some testing of his own and he claimed that he could make the beer boil and that he could taste the flavor of the beer in the chicken he cooked. Although we found his methods suspect, we decided to do some more testing.

Thus it was that in Beer Can Chicken, Part 93 we reported results of trying to make beer boil in a can of beer with no chicken attached to it. In theory, the naked can of beer should get hotter since you don't have a chicken carcass absorbing some of the heat. Indeed, we found the can of beer would get hotter (206° F) but still not hot enough to boil. At that point, we revised the article, but we still had this nagging suspicion that there was more to be learned.

We decided to try to replicate the methods used by our comrade-in-beer-can-chicken-testing. We ordered a ceramic turkey sitter, two ceramic chicken sitters, a cheap metal tray with a frame to hold a can of beer, and a somewhat pricey Weber beer can chicken appliance made from relatively heavy aluminum. We then proceeded to see if beer would boil in any of these setups with no chicken attached. Any device that achieved boiling beer would then proceed to the second round of the playoffs where we would add the chicken to see if the beer would boil when a chicken was in place.

So, here we are. We won't be reporting specific results until all the work is complete, but we can report that we have achieved boiling beer. So, the next step is to add the chicken to the equation.

The other part of this new work is that we will be attempting to replicate (with methodoloy corrections) the results reported which spurred this whole new wave. We were questioned as to what type of beer we used when we were unable to detect any difference between the beer bird and a plain bird. We remembered that we used a high-quality dark porter, not Budweiser, but we couldn't remember the brand. So, we will be repeating the experiment with a) a beer of known provenance that closely resembles the beer used in our comrades testing, and b) a device that comes closest to achieving boiling beer with a chicken attached.

So, there is a lot of new exciting work going on. It's going to take some time to get the chicken cooking done since you can only eat so much chicken, but we are determined to see this through to the end. And of course as always, you'll see the results, good or bad, on our website.

Oh, and one final thing. We are still working on our topest mostest secretest project of all time. It is mostly done, but now we have to work on the mechanism for releasing it to the world. This could be good....

- TNW

This 'n That

2010-08-03T08:08:00.002-04:00

First of all, we would like to thank our 1 follower. Yes, we said 1. Ben, if you are watching, thanks for following Whizlog!

Well, the pizza thing didn't happen. We didn't have the time to get to it after we spent most of the weekend on our Topest Mostest Secretest Project. (TMSP) We had planned to work on just the next segment of TMSP but got carried away. We finished it, or so we thought, so the time was well spent. However, whenever you finish a project, you really need to set it aside for a day and let it ferment and then go back and take another look. We decided that it wasn't as good as it could be so we went back and redid a major portion of it. (That's what we were doing last night, in case you happened by and noticed strange sounds and lights coming from our back deck.) We were pouring with sweat and covered with charcoal dust, but last nights results were much better. We think you will be pleased. Keep an eye on our website for an announcement in the next couple of weeks where all will be revealed. Tee hee!

As for other work in progress, we still have the damp charcoal thing to get on with. We have the raw data and now just need to do a bit of analysis and then we can write up part 1.

We have a few more experiments we'd like to run regarding this beer can chicken myth. We'll need to find one of those ceramic beer can chicken holders to make this project complete.

And of course, we still have Primo Charcoal and Royal Oak Charcoal to do reviews on. (We did a review a long time of the Royal Oak, but that was before we did the in-depth reviews we do now. It's time to bring it up to our normal standards.) But it's too damn hot to do any reviews. So, that will have to wait.

But as you can see, we are busy and keeping out of trouble, although last night the wife (yes, the wife who...) might have thought we were trying to get into trouble. Time will only tell.....

- TNW

Wet Charcoal. Again. Yep. Again.

2010-07-27T21:31:00.000-04:00

Well we finally went and did it. We really really wanted to read the paper presented at the International Association for Fire Safety Science symposium, so we joined the IAFSS! Yep, we are now proud member number 1604! We found some interesting stuff in the paper including a possible source for this myth about storing wet charcoal causing fires due to self heating and spontaneous ignition.

So, we have reorganized the web page, breaking it up into smaller bites. We have added new material from the paper, as well as adding two new references that also assert that the wet charcoal myth is indeed that. And finally, we have added a checklist of these references that you can print out and give to the fire marshal if he tries to blame a house fire on wet charcoal.

You can read all about it here: The Myth About Storing Wet Charcoal.

- TNW

Beer Can Chicken, part 93

2010-07-22T07:56:00.003-04:00

We suppose it is no surprise that with the grilling and barbecue season in full swing that discussions of Beer Can Chicken would crop up. We have always maintained that Beer Can Chicken is either a) a waste of time, b) a gimmick, or c) both. We wrote about our experiments doing side-by-side cooking of chickens with beer, chickens with an empty can, chickens with beer and gobs of spices and garlic in this article on our web site. What we found was that a plain chicken sitting on an empty beer can was no more juicy and had no more flavor than a chicken sitting on a can of dark porter loaded with spices and garlic.

In addition to the side-by-side cooking, we also measured the temperature of the beer in the can, inside the chicken. What we found was that the beer never boils and in fact never gets above 170-180° during the cooking process, thus bringing into question the very idea that the beer was being vaporized and then somehow transported into the chicken meat.

Well, a recent discussion questioned that number, suggesting that perhaps if more of the can were outside of the chicken, i.e., more of the can were exposed to the heat, the beer would get hotter and boil. Of course, none of the recipes we had ever seen suggested that this was a critical factor in Beer Can Chicken success, but we took the challenge and tried a new experiment.

We put ½ can of beer in our cooker with a temperature probe in the beer. We recorded the temperature of the beer over the course of a one hour cook, using the same temperature we had used in all our previous experimentation. This represents the best possible situation for getting the beer hot since there is no chicken keeping the beer shielded from the heat.

What did we find? Well, we will be updating our Beer Can Chicken, Myth or Fact? web page this weekend with all the details, but the short story is this. The beer never boiled. It got hotter and got hot faster, but it never came close to boiling. Look for the update to our web page where you will see the graph of the beer temperature vs. time, along with a few other observations.

One additional bit of information: In a recent article in the Detroit Free Press, a writer claims that Beer Can Chicken will make a nice moist chicken, but add no flavor. At least he got it half right.

(UPDATE: We have just posted the update to the web page so you can see the graph.)

- TNW

2010-07-20T15:15:00.000-04:00

Like the swallows return every year to San Juan Capistrano, there's been another gasket "debate" regarding the safety of using Rutland gaskets on a ceramic charcoal cooker. (Actually, we know that the swallows no longer return to San Juan Capistrano, but now go to a golf resort about 50 miles away, but we digress.....) We have written articles on the safety of the Rutland gasket, the Cotronics ceramic gasket, and the Nomex gasket used by Big Green Egg. We had planned to write an overview article to compare the information about all three in a summary format, so maybe this Whizlog entry will form the framework of that article get us off our behinds.

Why the debate? Ah, there's a story. There have been claims made by various parties in the past that:

The Rutland gasket will harm unborn fetuses.
Rutland says it is unsafe to use their products around food.
The MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for Rutland's product contains information showing it is dangerous to use around food.
The MSDS for fiberglass from Corning contains information showing it is dangerous to use around food.

Actually, none of the above statements are true. Let's address them one by one:

The Rutland gasket will harm unborn fetuses. This myth got started because an employee of Big Green Egg made this statement to some of their customers, claiming that Rutland had told them that their product could harm unborn fetuses. First of all, as you can see in the letter from Rutland, Rutland never made any such statement to Big Green Egg. Secondly, we had a phone conversation with this employee who said that they had never been told this explicitly by Rutland, but that Rutland had made it sound like using their product around food was very dangerous and maybe it could do something bad like harm unborn fetuses. However, again, if you view the letter from Rutland, they say they have never made this statement.

Rutland says it is unsafe to use their product around food. If you read what Rutland says, they say that they have no safety data. If they have no safety data, then they will not be able to make a statement that it is safe to use their product around food. However, this is quite a different matter than saying it is unsafe. There is no indication whatsoever in the letter that Rutland says it is unsafe to use their product around food.

The MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for Rutland's product contains information showing it is dangerous to use around food. You can read the Rutland MSDS and you will find nothing in it saying it is dangerous to use their product around food. The MSDS is the place where they would document any dangers associated with using their product and there are no such warnings regarding its use around food. (It is also interesting to note that the Technical Data Sheet for Rutland's gasket only says "Not recommended to come in contact with food" as opposed to saying it is dangerous to use it AROUND food.)

The MSDS for fiberglass from Corning contains information showing it is dangerous to use around food. Again, you can read the Corning MSDS for fiberglass and you will find nothing other than a warning about ingesting a large enough quantity to cause physical blockage of the intestines. The Rutland gasket also contains graphite. You can read the details on our web page about the Rutland gasket, but the bottom line is that graphite contains trace amounts of silica, and there has to be prolonged exposure (20-30 years) to high levels of the silica to cause problems.

So, we need to get cracking on that overview article, but for now we hope that you will try to ignore the hysteria and just simply go read the data and make up your own mind regarding the use of any of the three most popular gasket materials used on ceramic charcoal cookers. One place you can find this data is on our Information Central web page. Look for the section on gaskets and you will find all the data we have compiled so far. We think you will find that it is probably safe to use any one of these three materials.

-TNW

2010-07-20T09:37:00.001-04:00

We have just published out latest charcoal review, Charcos Coconut Charcoal. We were a bit hesitant to review another coconut charcoal since lately it seems like there is nothing but junk being sold. Of course, readers will remember the saga of Kamado Extruded Coconut Charcoal. Then there was the aFire Coconut Charcoal disappointment.

However, we checked out the Charcos web site and read the specifications on this charcoal, and it looked promising. You will need to read the review for all the details, but suffice it to say that we were not disappointed. If you have ever wanted to try coconut charcoal for your cooker, you might want to take a look at Charcos. It looks like it would be great for overnight low and slow cooking, as well as for hot and fast grilling.

- TNW

What Have We Been Doing?

2010-07-19T08:13:00.000-04:00

Ok, it's been a while since we updated you on all our projects, so here we go!

First of all, if you haven't heard, we are donating all of the proceeds in the month of July from our Google Ads to American Spirit BBQ. If you aren't familiar with ASBBQ, they cook BBQ for various military groups as a way of saying "Thank You!" to our troops for their service to our country. So far this year, they have cooked for a number of units, and they have 10 more events planned just through the middle of September! We have documented their efforts in an earlier post to this Whizlong so we hope you will consider taking this pain-free way of donating to their efforts. Just click on the ads at the bottom of our webpages and the money generated in July will go to ASBBQ. So far, we have raised about $130 which will feed about 120 people at one of these events.

So, on to what else is happening. We are currently juggling several projects that we need to finish up and get published:

Charcos Coconut Charcoal Review We have completed all the work necessary and are in the midst of writing up the review, so keep an eye out for this!
Damp Charcoal, Myth or Fact? This started as a small discussion on the Big Green Egg Forum. Will leaving charcoal out in high humidity make it damp and therefore hard to light or hard to get up to high temperatures? We will answer this question pretty definitively. We ended our data collection yesterday, and now need to do the analysis and write the web page up.
Bincho Charcoal We are playing around with samples of this expensive commodity. We started by delving into some safety issues. Eventually we plan to do most of what we normally do for a review in order to help you decide if you want to use this type of charcoal. This is a long term project, but one worth doing, we feel.

We suppose you aren't interested in spraying weeds or scrubbing the algae off of the brick walk in front of our front door, but these vital tasks must be performed in order keep the Naked Whiz Publishing Empire running!

And we almost forgot! We are working a project so big, so incredible, so stunning, we can't tell you what it is. We are taking our time so that we get this right. Or at least as right as we can get it. We plan a big announcement party when the time is right, so don't be surprised if you see something really wild and crazy when you visit our web pages in the next couple of months!

- TNW

Wet Charcoal, Part Deux??

2010-06-25T20:12:00.001-04:00

If you are a fan of our web page, you may have run across our page The Myth About Storing Wet Charcoal. You see, every fire department web site seems to warn about storing wet charcoal, but there doesn't appear to be any information or theory that would support this notion that wet charcoal with spontaneously ignite. We have never had anyone provide us with an eyewitness report of this happening. Every news article about it seems to follow a familiar pattern: 1) House burns down, 2) Fire Department gets fire under control, 3) Fire Department investigates after the fire is out, 4) Fire Department says it was caused by wet charcoal. But, never anything like "I was standing there next to this wet bag of charcoal when it burst into flames."

We have also never had any fire official contact us to explain these warnings or provide any justification for them. We have never had any fire official contact us at all.

That is, until now. We have received an email from a Fire Marshal in Washington state who has provided us with a reference that claims a 50 pound bag of charcoal could spontaneously ignite. So, ever the curious investigators that we are, willing to spare no expense to get to the truth, we have ordered a used copy of Kirk's Fire Investigation from Amazon to see what this is all about.

So you can expect some sort of update to our web page in the next several weeks as we look into this new information. We doubt it will change our minds regarding the possibility that wet charcoal can spontaneously ignite. If it were happening as often as the media reports would have us believe, we should be able to recreate this spontaneous combustion ourselves. But we can't. We are considering offering a cash reward to anyone who can provide a step-by-step procedure for making 20 pounds or less of any brand of charcoal spontaneously ignite due to getting wet. Stay tuned....

- TNW

Burger King "Pieces", followup...

2010-06-25T09:30:00.001-04:00

We hope we don't lose all our Facebook friends and fans over this, but we recently found ourselves in a Burger King again (we were getting lunch before heading over to Ft. Bragg for the troop cook last week) and well, we just couldn't believe that Burger King "pieces" could be as bad as the ones we had written about earlier. There we were, standing in line contemplating whether to get a double Whopper or a Steakhouse burger when we noticed that you could add a 3-piece portion to any order for $1.99. Should we give it another go? Since this Burger King was located some distance from the first Burger King, we decided to give it a go. Maybe this Burger King would be better than the other one. What's to lose, except $1.99? After all, this is what we do, experiment!

Yet another reason for giving it another go is the astonishing fact that America is gobbling these "pieces" down at such a prodigious rate that Burger King was about to run out of "pieces"! (This was a limited time offering.) We despair for America, knowing that they are paying so much money for such bad pieces of bone and meat that appear to have been cut out of a pig. But Burger King was close to ending the promotion and this was our last chance to verify our original findings.

Well, of course, you know this could only end in tears. Indeed, these "pieces" were just as bad as the "pieces" we originally tried. The flavor is odd and if you want sauce, you have to find a way to dip these "pieces" into a little tub of not-so-hot barbecue sauce. Nope, these "pieces" were just as bad as the original "pieces" we tried. Experiment over.

So we promise, readers. No more "pieces". Honest. If we want a bad fast food product that appears to have come from a pig, we'll wait for McRibs to return. There's a reason why the pig in the Burger King commercial didn't fly. Let's hope Burger King figures it out and this is the last we see of "pieces".

-TNW

Binchotan: The Other White Charcoal

2010-06-19T19:37:00.000-04:00

We have finally pulled out the samples of binchotan that were sent to us to do a bit of playing around. What's binchotan, you say? Well, we will cover that in detail in a future web page, but for now suffice it to say, it is a very hard dense charcoal made from oak in Japan. Normally, the "good stuff" sells for between $10 and $12 a pound (yes, a pound!) and is prized for its heat and ability to burn without much, if any, smoke. We have acquired a sample and will be playing around with it in order to bring you a special report on this unique charcoal.

By the way, it is called "white charcoal" because of the slightly white color it attains as the result of one part of the production method. We'll explain more when we produce the final web page. For now, though, we have testing to do!

- TNW

Ft. Bragg Photos Are Online Now

2010-06-19T09:58:00.001-04:00

Just a short update to let you know that you can view the photos from the Ft. Bragg Family Day celebration for the 3 Bn 27th Field Artillery Regiment. You will find them at this link: Operation BBQ Photos

- TNW

Supporting The Military With BBQ

2010-06-17T08:53:00.003-04:00

On this past Tuesday and Wednesday, we had the opportunity to witness a small miracle in the form of a troop cook put on by American Spirit BBQ (aka Pete Benac, aka Celtic Wolf). We are sure that most of you are aware of these troop cooks which have been held under a variety of names such as American Spirit BBQ, Operation BBQ and BBQ For Our Troops. Essentially, folks that can cook BBQ either contact or are contacted by various military units and they cook BBQ for the troops as a way of saying Thank You to the folks that sacrifice so much to keep us all safe. Often times, these events are being held as a part of a unit either returning from deployment or units about to deploy. We have been documenting the events that we have been able to attend on our Operation BBQ web page: Operation BBQ Event Photos.

These events are paid for by donations, and the military only has to provide drinks for these events. The cookers, the cooks, the food, the plates, you name it, are provided by the group doing the cook. And needless to say, in these "tough" times, groups that do these troop cooks are struggling for funds and volunteers. The folks running these troop cooks often times end up making up what they don't have to pay for the supplies out their own pockets. We don't mean to sound maudlin, but if every fan of these groups on Facebook were to donate $5.00 or $10, quite a number of these events could be paid for totally out of donations. (You can visit the BBQ For Our Troops and American Spirit BBQ Facebook pages if you are interested in donating your time or money to this effort.) Pete calculated that he spent $1.05 per attendee to put on this event. As you can see, it doesn't take much of a donation to support a large number of troops!

But back to the minor miracle we witnessed. As we said times are "tough" and donations of both time and money have lagged. We went down to Ft. Bragg to document Family Day for the 3d Battalion 27th Field Artillery Regiment. We expected to see Pete pull up with at least a couple of helpers. We wouldn't have been surprised if a second truck hauling a cooker behind it had shown up, too. But nope. Pete showed up hauling his trailer and Pete had no help with him. No other trucks hauling cookers pulled up. This was going to be a one man show.

Pete got some of the soldiers to help him unload his six large Big Green Eggs and the monster coolers which held all the meat, slaw, potato salad and beans. During the event, soldiers helped to serve the food. But the cooking was all Pete. He started the cookers up, prepped the meat (18 pork butts, 6 beef briskets), tended the fires, pulled and chopped the pork, chopped the brisket, all by himself. This was a one-man effort and truly shows the desire on the part of American Spirit BBQ to says thanks to our troops. We helped now and then, but of course, our job was taking photos to document the event. It was hot and humid and at the end of the event, we were exhausted. We can only imagine how tired Pete was after the
event.

So, we just wanted to express our admiration for American Spirit BBQ and their drive and energy to get some of these events completed. We hope you will think about the individuals making these events happen and will possibly monitor their Facebook pages, looking for opportunities to donate your time or your money. It's a worthy cause and one that needs your support.

By the way, if you are wondering about the photo, as a part of Family Day, the unit put on a live fire demonstration. The photo shows one of the HUMARS launching a rocket that traveled about 7.5 miles before coming down who knows where. (Actually, the Army knows where it came down. They spent a whole lot of time making sure they knew EXACTLY where these rockets were landing!) It was pretty impressive, and just another reason to attend one of these events. There is often an opportunity to view some of the "neat toys" the military uses as a part of their mission.

- TNW

So, How Did The Weekend Go?

2010-06-13T20:10:00.001-04:00

We didn't get as much done as we would like, but we did get the damp charcoal experiment kicked off. Since this one is going to take at least a month to complete, it was important that we get it started. So, we now have a couple of T/RH data loggers logging the temperature and relative humidity in our garage and inside of a bag of charcoal in our garage. We have some charcoal sitting out, uncovered, in the garage and we will see if it picks up any moisture as a result during the hot humid days of summer!

We did narrowly avert a real disaster, however. If you have read our reviews of extruded coconut charcoal, you will know that we bake the charcoal in our oven at 300 degrees in order to drive all the moisture out. We have even done that with some Royal Oak lump charcoal. We won't name the brand since we feel it is irrelevant, but we were lucky to notice that the charcoal we were drying this weekend had actually ignited in one small place! We figure in another 10 minutes, the whole tray might have been glowing red. So lesson learned! Next time, 250 and more frequent monitoring.

Incidentally, we will be travelling to Ft. Bragg, NC on Tuesday to photograph a cook for the troops being run by American Spirit BBQ. This will be for the 3-27th Field Artillery Regiment. We can't say enough how important this is to the troops, so if you can find a way to donate money or your time and talents to this effort, please take a look at American Spirit BBQ's Facebook page and do what you can!

- TNW

This Weekend At The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire

2010-06-10T11:34:00.000-04:00

Time for another update on plans for this weekend's playtime. These posts usually help us sort our mind out and make a plan for the weekend. There are two things we definitely want to get started on.

First, we really really need to get started on an article on binchotan charcoal. What's binchotan charcoal? We'll if we had a short and simple answer, we wouldn't have to do an article, would we? Seriously, binchotan, also know as white charcoal, is a traditional charcoal of Japan. It appears that it's primary strong point is that it burns with no smoke and thus does not add any flavor to the food. But we have a lot of information to get straight in our head before writing an article. We also have a small sample of this precious material that we plan to play around with. We have been putting it off and really need to get started on this!

Second, those pesky little data recorders are now on a UPS truck out for delivery. We will be using them as part of some experimentation in the area of damp charcoal. We exposed the Myth of Storing Wet Charcoal, but what about damp charcoal? This one will take a period of time to complete the tests, but it should be interesting. Ever wonder what the humidity level is inside of a Harris Teeter? We're going to find out!

Finally, this weekend we hope to continue some of the leg work for doing a review of Charcos Coconut Charcoal. We'll see how it all goes, and of course, keep an eye out on our website's What's New box, and you'll be the first to know!

- TNW

Rustic Savory Galette Recipe now posted.

2010-06-06T17:26:00.001-04:00

We just finished posting our recipe for the rustic savory galette that we teased you with a few days ago. You will find it on our website at this web page.

We must say, it took us most of our free time this weekend to put the web page together and it took most of an afternoon and evening last weekend to make the gallete and do the photography. It certainly makes us appreciate all the effort that goes into putting together entire cookbooks!

In any event, we hope you enjoy the recipe and if you enjoy it, you will find more recipes like it in Wood-Fired Cooking: Techniques and Recipes for the Grill, Backyard Oven, Fireplace, and Campfire by Mary Karlin, which was the source of our adaptation.

- TNW

Our Latest "To Do" List

2010-06-02T09:02:00.001-04:00

We have a number of items on our "to do" list. If you are waiting for any of this information, here's what we have in store:

Review of Kebroak Mayan Lump Charcoal -- We have done all the testing and are in the process of writing up the review. Then we go through the process of updating the database so all the rankings pages reflect the new addition. We hope to post this before the end of the week.
Review of Charcos Coconut Charcoal -- Like many of our reviews, we were contacted by the manufacturer who asked us to do a review of their product. While strictly speaking not lump charcoal, coconut charcoal has always caught the attention of ceramic charcoal cooker owners for its slow and even burning characteristics. This makes it desirable for those low and slow overnight cooks. Coconut charcoal was first introduced to the BBQ world by Kamado back in 2002 or so, but since then Kamado has switchd to shipping some really dreadful coconut charcoal. As a result, we are always on the lookout for a decent replacement. We have had time to run one quick test on the Charcos charcoal and let's just say that it has piqued our interest for now. Stay tuned....
Review of Primo Lump Charcoal -- This one is sort of low on the list since it was not sent to us by a manufacturer requesting a review, but we'll get to it eventually.
Everything else -- Sigh, we have a list of about 20 things to do. We have a couple of test projects almost in progress (whatever that means!) and we have some ideas for other interesting but essentially useless tests (the best kind!). One biggy we'd like to get concluded is an article bringing together all the cold smoking techniques into a summary article to help you decide how best to do cold smoking.

So, as you can see, there's lots to do, and there will be lots of updates to the Naked Whiz web site coming up in the next few months. Keep your eye on the "What's New" box on our front page to keep up to date on the latest features!

- TNW

Rustic Savory Galette

2010-06-02T08:32:00.001-04:00

Another tease for you! Last weekend while the wife (yes, the wife who...) was up in Vermont, we got cooking. We made this rustic savory galette. We'll be publishing the recipe on our website when we get a chance, but here's some basic information.

We adapted/modified this galette from a recipe we found in Wood-Fired Cooking: Techniques and Recipes for the Grill, Backyard Oven, Fireplace, and Campfire by Mary Karlin. The crust is made from fresh corn, goat cheese, flour, corn meal and lime juice. The filling consisted of basil, oregano, fontina, heirloom tomatoes, fresh corn kernels, goat cheese, garlic, and thinly sliced bulb green onions. As we will note in the recipe when we publish it, this galette cried out for a bit of crumbled bacon and we will use some next time we make this.

So be looking for the recipe on our web site in the next week or so!

- TNW

Cowboy "Quick Fire" Charcoal

2010-05-27T08:16:00.000-04:00

We were in Lowe's yesterday buying some of those damned expensive lightbulbs that you discover are damned expensive only AFTER you install that stylish light fixture, but we digress. We were in Lowe's yesterday and came across "Cowboy Quick Fire" lump charcoal. Here's the specs"

2 lb. cowboy "quick fire" bag
100% natural lump charcoal with a paraffin coating
A single use bag
Easy to use and provides great wood flavor

Saavy readers will recall that we reviewed a similar product several years ago: Original Charcoal Company Instant Light Lump Charcoal. This was a lump charcoal product where the lump was impregnated with a vegetable-based wax. We liked the OCC product, so we snapped up a couple of bags of the Cowboy Quick Fire charcoal and will be doing a mini-review in the next couple of weeks.

- TNW

Memorial Day Weekend At The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire....

2010-05-26T15:37:00.001-04:00

The wife's away, the charcoal reviewer will play. Weather permitting, we plan to do the reviewing legwork on Kebroak lump charcoal this weekend. In the wings, we have Primo lump charcoal and Charcos coconut charcoal. We scored the Primo charcoal at the first annual Carolina Eggfest, while we were contacted by folks associated with Charcos. The coconut charcoal should be fun (it usually is) so we'll probably run a few tests over the weekend on Charcos too.

We had so much fun doing the Mojo Pulled Pork photo shoot that we thought we would try another dish this weekend also. It's a rustic savory tart that we will be baking in a ceramic charcoal cooker used like a wood-fired oven. The tart should be good and we'll see if we can take another mouth-watering photo to tease you all with. Of course, if it doesn't work out, we won't say anything and we'll never speak about it again. :-)

So, here's to a great Memorial Day weekend for you all. Cook something special and enjoy the Turkey Grand Prix and the Indy 500!

- TNW

Ceramic Charcoal Cooker Festivals, a few thoughts.....

2010-05-25T09:06:00.001-04:00

We were sitting idly here at our desk viewing the 'Fest Map on our website. You can do the same, too, if you like at this address:

The 'Fest Map

Jeez a mighty! There are a lot of ceramic charcoal cooker festivals out there! Washington state to San Francisco to Texas to Florida to New Hampshire to Minnesota! Upon closer viewing, however, it becomes apparent that all these festivals are held by Big Green Egg owners/dealers/distributors. We began to wonder why that is. Our web page is devoted to all brands of ceramic charcoal cookers and we feel that festivals are something all brands should try to organize in order to promote the whole ceramic charcoal cooker concept.

Certainly, one reason is that Big Green Egg is far and away the most popular ceramic charcoal cooker in the US, as measured by units sold. We once had a conversation with a marketing director from one of the other manufacturers and he stated that his company thrived off the crumbs that Big Green Egg allowed to fall off the table. We also once heard the figure (this was about 4-5 years ago) that Big Green Egg shipped 1,000 units per week. Clearly, Big Green Egg owners are everywhere and getting a group of them together isn't too hard.

But why don't Primo and Grill Dome at least have festivals at their headquarters? Both have headquarters in the Atlanta area, so it seems reasonable that they should have a relatively large following available to attend a festival. We did see a discussion on the Grill Dome forum and it seemed that maybe they were just being too ambitious for their first festival and letting the size of it get in the way of just one getting started. The first Eggtoberfest was a very small event with only 15 cooks and about 100 attendees in all. Look at it now. It has grown so large that they have moved it to the Atlanta Motor Speedway!

(We can speak from experience in the difficulties in getting a dealer to host a festival. Our local dealer just thought it was too much work. He didn't seem to want to consider the facts that a) local Big Green Egg owners would be volunteering to help, and b) he could sell 15 to 20 cookers in one day. We may approach him again some day with a more modest proposal just to show him the possibilities.)

In the case of Komodo Kamado, it's almost certainly the fact that the headquarters are in Indonesia and the cookers are so expensive that there just isn't a critical mass of owners in any location that would make a Komodo Kamado Fest possible.

And in the case of Kamado, it appears that the company is virtually comatose now. There is very little activity on their online forum except for customer complaints which are then deleted. There are no reports from any new owners receiving cookers. You would think that a company located in Las Vegas, for heaven's sake, could generate some interest in holding a party!

Whatever the reasons, we hope that some of the other companies can get some sort of action going on organizing a festival. If you hang out on the Big Green Egg forum for any length of time, the excitement generated by all these festivals (34 this year by our current count) is tremendous. We are all proud of our ceramic charcoal cookers, whatever the brand, and raising awareness in the general public and having the opportunity to share good times with fellow owners is a positive thing, for manufacturers, dealers and owners. Here's to hoping we'll see some Primofest's and Grill Dome Fest's spring up!

-TNW

Burger King "Ribs": It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

2010-05-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

Ok, we'll admit it. Curiosity got the best of us and we just tried the Burger King grilled ribs. "6 pieces", fries and a medium drink for $7.49. With tax, the total was $8.18. So how was it?

Well before we get to that, let us say that we had seen many of the posts on the BBQ Forum bashing the BK ribs, but you sort of have to take that with a grain of salt. Most of those folks can cook a mean rib, but you know how experts are. Many of them love to brag about their own skills but sort of look down on the efforts of others who aren't in the club? So, we took their comments with a grain of salt and headed on down to BK to try them for ourselves. We should have listened to the "experts."

God these "ribs" were horrible. First of all, what they have done is taken spare ribs and sawed them into two-inch lengths. So remember those "6 pieces" we ordered. Sure enough, we got 6 "pieces", not anything resembling 6 ribs. And there wasn't much meat on each of those "pieces." We figure if you went to a proper BBQ restaurant, you would get the same amount of meat if you ordered 2 spare ribs. Simply amazing.

But how did they taste? Pretty bad. No smoke flavor, no rub, no sauce. There was a hint of a grilled taste, but that's about it. You get little tubs of ultra-sweet and ultra-smokey BBQ sauce on the side. While the sauce does provide a little flavor, heck, you can get that flavor at home by buying some BBQ sauce and putting some ribs under your oven broiler.

So, if anyone suggests you try Burger King's new ribs, run away. Run away! To think for $3 less, you could have a Whopper that contains more meat than a serving of ribs! No, run away as fast as you can. We wouldn't even order these ribs if we were dying for some ribs and BK was the only option. These ribs don't even score well if you consider it's fast food. We'd rather eat a McRib sandwich. This could be the most monumental failure in fast food history, because while most Americans probably don't know a good rib from a bad rib, they certainly know that $8 for a few small bites of pork on a bone is a terrible deal. We shall see.....

- TNW

Mojo Pork Recipe now posted

2010-05-18T22:22:00.000-04:00

Just a quick update to let you know that the recipe/technique for Mojo Pulled Pork was just posted. You'll find it here:

Mojo Pulled Pork

Enjoy!

- TNW

Mojo Pork Sandwich

2010-05-17T08:46:00.006-04:00

We spent Friday and Saturday working on adapting a recipe given to us by Chef Antonio Riaos. His recipe roasts the pork in an oven, but of course, we wanted to smoke it and pull it, and end up with a mojo style of pulled pork barbecue. In essence we wanted to add the smokiness of pulled pork barbecue to the tartness and spiciness of mojo pork. You can see the results in the photo. Yum. We will be posting the adaptation on our web site once we have written it up, but we thought you would enjoy this bit of a tease until then.

Basically, the flavoring part of this adaptation is a two part process. First you make a spice paste that you rub on the pork and allow to marinate. When you smoke the pork butt, you do it just like you would normally smoke a pork butt. Then, once that pork is finished cooking and you have pulled it, you pour a mojo sauce over it all and let the meat soak up all that flavor! We can assure you it was worth the work and the wait!

- TNW

The 'Fest Map Is Now Up To Date!

2010-05-15T20:55:00.001-04:00

Just a short update on the 'Fest Map status. The service provider for our 'Fest Map was having application problems and we couldn't update it. Well, they seem to have fixed it and the 'Fest Map is now up to date with four new Eggfests showing on the map!

Also, we are halfway through the legwork for our Frontier Lump Charcoal review. Many of you know that they have brought out a bigger bag containing lump charcoal made in the US. Their original charcoal wasn't all that great, so we'll see how the new stuff does!

- TNW

What's Up at Naked Whiz Plaza

2010-05-12T21:08:00.000-04:00

Glad you asked! We just published a review of True 'Cue lump charcoal. It is being rolled out in Home Depot stores across America, which means it will be easy to find for a lot of folks. You can read the review here:

Review of True 'Cue Lump Charcoal

We also recently published a web page about safety information regarding the use of Cotronics ceramic tape as a gasket on your ceramic cooker. There's a lot of information going around relative to these gasket materials and not all of it is very good. We share with you what we found out, including a letter from Cotronics:

Cotronics Ceramic Tape Safety Information

What lies ahead? Well, we have some tests we'd like to run and document. You'll probably see them when you see them. We have 3 (count 'em!) brands of lump charcoal in line for a review. In no particular order we have the re-review of Frontier Charcoal, Primo Charcoal, and Kebroak Mayan Charcoal. We hope to get at least one of them done this weekend.

And we have some exciting playing around to do with "binchotan" or white charcoal. This is the chokingly expensive charcoal used in Japan for grilling. We have come across a source and if nothing else, we will at some point be publishing an information article on it.

Oh, and there's all sorts of little itty bitty things to do. So, as you can see, it never stops at The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire. We're going to sleep now!

- TNW

The New Frontier -- Lump Charcoal That Is....

2010-05-02T17:47:00.001-04:00

There's been a fair amount of talk/questions regarding the "new" Frontier charcoal. We hear you! Right now we are in the middle of finishing up (does that make sense?) the testing portion of our review of True 'Cue charcoal. What makes this one interesting is that is supposed to replace Cowboy charcoal in Home Depot stores, so it should be available to a large number of chef's out there. I'm sure everyone is as curious as we are as to how it will turn out.

However, Frontier charcoal is now available in some Sam's Clubs and Ace Hardware stores, and it appears to be totally different from what we reviewed before. So we have it next on our list of charcoals to review. It won't be next weekend as we will be attending the first Carolina Eggfest in Winston-Salem, NC, but it could be shortly after that. Keep your eye on our "What's New" box on the front page for announcement of when each review has been posted.

- TNW

The Ceramic Events Calendar

2010-04-29T09:35:00.000-04:00

We have a number of events listed on the calendar that say something like "no details yet, keep checking back." Well, it looks like the details are rolling in as updated web pages have appeared for quite a number of the 'Fests we have listed. We will be updating the calendar with all the new information this weekend, so hopefully you can stop having to "keep checking back."

And for what it's worth, we have started the review on True 'Cue charcoal from the folks that brought you the Bubba Keg metal cooker. It's been a while since we reviewed a lump charcoal, so we are really looking forward to this.

By the way, if anyone owns a Bubba Keg metal cooker in the North Carolina region and wants to let us play with it contact us. Or if you want to give us $450 so we can buy one, let us know! :-)

- TNW

Back From The Granola State, Time To Get Cracking!

2010-04-28T09:19:00.000-04:00

Well, the Naked Whiz Publishing Empire is cranking up again and it's time to get busy again. We just purchased a quantity of True 'Cue charcoal from Home Depot and plan on starting a review this weekend. This is brought to you from the folks who brought you the Bubba Keg grill. If this turns out to be a good brand of charcoal, it will be another option for buying lump charcoal from a store that is nation-wide. We'll see how it turns out and hope to have the review published in a couple of weeks.

As for other projects, we need to get cracking on all sorts of things, too numerous to list. One major item is to re-review Frontier Lump Charcoal now that they have a US-sourced charcoal. We also have a few tests we hope to run and publish in Information Central. So be on the lookout for more web site updates over the next couple of months!

- TNW

Time to follow The Whiz on Twitter?

2010-04-13T19:52:00.000-04:00

On May 8th, we will be attending the first ever Carolina Eggfest in Winston-Salem, NC. We will, of course, be taking pictures and posting photos, but we will also be Twittering away a live feed to keep you up to date on events. You will find us on Twitter at this address. Follow us and find out what's happening at the First Annual Carolina Eggfest!

- TNW

Wordpress has its own set of annoynances, it seems....

2010-04-12T14:27:00.000-04:00

Wow, go to Wordpress and they won't let you advertise or customize a template without having to pay a fee. Their import feature either doesn't work or takes forever. Looks like we are doomed to try to fight our way through this nonsense on blogger.

- TNW

Bah, this is rubbish.....

2010-04-12T09:24:00.000-04:00

We can only make the Whizlog look the way we wish by essentially treating the Whizlog as a new website, meaning we will have to do dual maintenance whenever we wish to update the overall look of the page. Bah, this is rubbish...

- TNW

Just as we suspected......

2010-04-12T08:54:00.004-04:00

We migrated our Whizlog to the blogspot servers using their migration tool, and just as we suspected, our Whizlog no longer looks the way we want it to. We aren't sure if we can overcome the crippling effect of Blogger's wonderful new way of doing things, so things are still up in the air. Don't worry if things look funky or broken over the next several weeks as it is probably just us trying to uncripple our Whizlog....

- TNW

This blog has moved

2010-04-12T08:41:00.002-04:00

This blog is now located at http://nakedwhiz.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
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Note that this post was automatically created by Blogger and inserted into the Whizlog as a part of the Whizlog migration.

Major Change of Some Sort Coming

2010-04-12T08:34:00.006-04:00

Blogger has decided to urinate on their users and are removing a very basic function. This may prevent us from continuing to use Blogger as our Whizlog service. We may no longer be able to have a Whizlog that looks like a Whizlog and that we are not prepared to do. So we shall be investigating other options and will let you know on our website what will happen to Whizlog. Sorry, but you know how it is when a service gets gobbled up, digested and then expelled by Google. Blogger is sorry, so we are sorry. Uh, huh.....

- TNW

Oh dear, it's been a while again.....

2010-04-11T20:30:00.002-04:00

We really don't keep up with this blogging stuff very well, do we? We suppose it is to do with the fact that we spend so much time keeping the web site up to date with new features. Oh well, if you haven't been watching, we added a number of lovely little gorgeous little things to the website.

1) The Event Calendar and 'Fest Map. A list of events that are related to ceramic cookers, and an online interactive map showing the location of all the ceramic 'Fests that we come across. Interesting how every last one of them is an Eggfest. The map really drives home how wide-spread this phenomenon has become.

2) We've added two cold smoking articles, one using "SmokeCones" and the other showing how to build a cold smoke generator using a paint can, dryer hose, elbow and pipe clamp. There's more to come, but we'll get there when we get there.

3) Now's the time to start following The Naked Whiz on Twitter. We'll be doing a live Twitaganza from the first ever Carolina Eggfest on May 8. You won't want to miss a single exciting post, lol!

4) How here's something to excite you. We finally scrapped using scraps of paper to make lists of things to do for the website and started using the "Tasks" function of Outlook to track and prioritize all these damn projects. We've got a number of charcoals to review, recipes to document, tests to perform, and on and on. Now we have no excuse for forgetting!

- TNW

Lunch from Celtic Wolf Again

2010-01-29T19:46:00.001-05:00

Just a quick blog update today to say that we had another lunch from Celtic Spirit BBQ. We had a Cuban sandwich made with smoke ham, pulled pork and home made cuban bread, all from Pete's Big Green Egg ceramic charcoal cookers. The sandwich size was generous and the sandwich was just plain superb. The sides were some very very tasty potato salad and some slaw. Dessert was some bread pudding to die for. All this for $7.95 and we were all stuffed and happy.

We're telling you, folks. If you live close enough to have Pete deliver lunch, you need to take advantage of this. It's time for our nap now....

- TNW

Big Green Egg Announces New Firebox Design

2010-01-21T07:59:00.003-05:00

Did we miss it, or has there really been nothing posted anywhere about a new firebox design? Our dealer just showed us an announcement from BGE about a new firebox design that is being phased in as old inventories are depleted. What we saw was a bad copy of the announcement, but from the picture on the announcement it looks like what they did was something like if you took an existing firebox and made a vertical saw cut down the back of the box. This would presumably allow expansion and contraction and prevent breakage.

There was no word of a similar change to the firering, but then we've always thought that firering breakage was pretty rare, based on the number of posts on the Big Green Egg forum.

So, it should be very interesting to see how the new firebox does in the field. We're sure we have all wondered about how bad the warantee expense must be to BGE to replace broken fireboxes. Here's to hoping that they have solved the problem.

- TNW

Update: Reports are that some dealers have already received shipments that include the new firebox.

Review of aFire Coconut Charcoal Posted

2010-01-20T20:49:00.002-05:00

Well, we finally posted the review of aFire Coconut Charcoal. We felt that a word of explanation was in order. It took forever because we thought of a few new things to test, because we wanted to verify or disprove the claims on the box, and because we have been waiting for a response from the owner of aFire regarding a very serious issue with the charcoal

The box we purchased was almost 2 pounds underweight. We asked a dealer to weigh a couple of boxes and both boxes they weighed were also significantly underweight. We waited 2 weeks for the owner to respond, but we finally gave up. If the owner does respond, depending on the nature of the response, we may change our final rating. But as expensive as this charcoal is, getting 11% less charcoal than is advertised is just not acceptable.

So you can read the review (it's one of our most in-depth reviews ever) and view the results. You should obviously base your buying decision on the price and the performance. But for now, we can't give an acceptable rating as things stand.

- TNW

Lunch in Central North Carolina Just Got A Whole Lot Better

2010-01-19T19:25:00.003-05:00

We try to keep this blog related to BBQ, ceramic charcoal cookers and charcoal, but we don't think we're getting too far adrift by blogging today about a fledgling lunch business that is starting up in central North Carolina. Yep, you know him as Celtic Wolf and his business/website is Celtic Spirit BBQ. You'll find it at www.celticspiritbbq.com, funny enough!

Celtic Spirit is delivering quality lunches, all cooked/baked/smoked on their stable of Big Green Egg ceramic cookers. Last week we hosted a trial run before the official opening with a smoked turkey sandwich on ciabatta bread with potato salad and cranberry sauce. The smoked turkey was spot on, moist and with a nice amount of smoke flavor from the charcoal fire.

But that was a dry run. Today we hosted the real deal with Celtic Spirit BBQ delivering 8 lunches to our official place of business. On the menu was an Italian chicken sandwhich with aioli, potato salad, and fennel slaw. Comments from the 8 customers ran from "Excellent!" to "...best slaw I've ever had!" to "Great value for money." This particular lunch was delivered to our door for $6.95. All eight customers are looking forward to our next lunch from Celtic Spirit BBQ.

The food really is a cut above most anything you would expect to get if you went out to lunch. The portions were good, the flavor was great and the cook is really putting something special out in the way of his selection of items. If you are looking for something different and better than your usual lunch, especially if you would like to serve something above the rest at a meeting you are hosting, you should give Celtic Spirit BBQ a try. Check out his weekly menu to see what's in store. You won't be sorry you did.

- TNW

Current Status of aFire Coconut Charcoal Review

2010-01-16T19:47:00.000-05:00

We have finished all the tests, we've finished typing the review, we've finished proofing it. But we are still waiting on a response from the company regarding an issue we are having. We'll give them several more days but then we go to press without their feedback

- TNW

What's Up at the Naked Whiz Publishing Empire this week!

2010-01-11T08:37:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been cold here in North Carolina, but that hasn't stopped us from resuming activities on the latest project: aFire Coconut Charcoal. We nearly froze to death (the temperature was actually BELOW the freezing point of water, where unbelievably, water actually turns into a solid!), but we did manage to conduct another test that allows us to compare this coconut charcoal to lump charcoal when grilling. We also did a simple hamburger taste test. (Someone has to do it.) Now all we have left to do one more taste test. Additionally, we are still waiting to hear back from the manufacturer about an issue we have with the charcoal. So, things are progressing and we hope to have the review on the web site soon.

We have other projects waiting in the wings, so keep your eye on the web site for all the latest!

- TNW

Happy New Year from The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire!

2010-01-07T07:21:00.007-05:00

Well, New Year's came in with a whimper here at The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire. We went down to Hilton Head for Christmas, and then spent a quiet week at the Empire for New Year's. It seems most of the children in our neighborhood have grown up and left since there were no fireworks going off at midnight on New Year's Eve. We thought about pulling out some of the original Kingsford lump, though...

So, what's up? Well, we suppose we need to address the continuing delay in publishing the review of aFire coconut charcoal. We decided we wanted to try a couple more things in order to try to completely address the claims made by aFire. We are finding out that things are little more complex than we had assumed. We also wanted to try cooking some chicken over it to see if there is any flavor contributed to the food by the charcoal. Needless to say, between the weather and the holidays, we have had trouble finding the time and conditions to complete our work. But, weather permitting, we may try to finish up the research this weekend or next.

We recently published a white paper on the safety of using a Rutland Grapho-Glas gasket on a ceramic charcoal cooker. We wanted to get the "facts" out there in light of the arguing that has gone on in the past on ceramic charcoal cooker discussion forums, particularly the BGE forum. We contacted Rutland to get their position on the matter, as well as to clear up this fiction that Rutland has told people that their product will harm unborn fetuses. We gathered data from various sources including Material Data Safety Sheets from the manufacturer and from other companies on fiberglass and graphite. We also included a report from The International Agency for Research on Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organization, on the cancer risks of crystalline silica, a minor ingredient in graphite. You can read to white paper to learn our conclusion on the matter, but you should read the information and make your decision about using this product.

We have several other projects in the works and we'll be letting you know more about them as they approach conclusion, so stay tuned!

We hope you all had a good holiday as we look forward to another year of exciting (?) projects here at The Naked Whiz Publishing Empire!

- TNW

It's Christmas! Time To Play "The Stupid Ford Remote Start Game"

2009-12-17T13:08:00.002-05:00

Yes, folks! It's that time of year again when you can play the hot new sensational game, "The Stupid Ford Remote Start Game"!! It's almost Christmas. The mall parking lots are full and that provides the necessary elements to play the game: Lot's of Fords! Here's how you play:

1) Go to the biggest and busiest mall you can find.
2) Start looking for Ford cars, trucks and SUV's.
3) Locate vehicles that have the number pad on the driver's door.
4) The pad has 5 buttons labeled 1|2 3|4 5|6 7|8 and 9|0
5) Make sure no one is looking and then simultaneously press the 7|8 and 9|0 buttons. You should hear the doors on the vehicle lock.
6) Now, press those two buttons simultaneously again, but this time press them twice in a row in quick succession.
7) IF THE VEHICLE HAS REMOTE START, THE FREAKING ENGINE WILL START!!!!
8) Don't worry, if the owner doesn't come within 10 minutes, the engine will automatically stop.
9) Run away and take up an observational position a safe distance away.
10) If the owner doesn't come before 10 minutes is up and the engine stops itself, YOU WIN 1 POINT!
11) If the owner comes before 10 minutes is up and they stop the engine, YOU WIN 2 POINTS!! (Take a photo of them if you can.)
12) If the owner sees you do it, YOU WIN 5 POINTS!!
13) Go find another vehicle.

(This is true. The engine will start if you lock the doors twice in quick succesion and you have remote start installed. It will also start if you press the lock button on your key fob twice in quick succession. Amazingly, if you are inside the car and press any lock button inside the car twice in quick succession, the engine will start. Wonderful little game for the kiddies to play, eh? What was Ford thinking?? It will even start if you press the fob button followed by the door button. Or the door button followed by the inside lock button. Or any combination.)

Merry Christmas!

- TNW

Disclaimers:
1) There is no such game in reality.
2) We do not condone anyone actually try to play this game which doesn't exist.
3) If you do play the game, which doesn't exist, you do not actually win any points.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-16T12:02:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas to everyone! We hope you have a safe and happy ceramic charcoal cooker type of holiday!

We are still working on our review of aFire coconut charcoal briquettes. It has turned out to be a bit more complex than we thought. We have made a couple of discoveries along the way that have motivated further testing. So we hope to have it done by New Years weekend.

If you live in the Raleigh, NC area, take a look at www.celticspiritbbq.com. Pete is going into the lunch catering business for a while. We've tasted is sauce for pulled pork and we're looking forward to tasting other little goodies for lunch!

So once again, Merry Christmas to everyone!

-TNW

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T12:49:00.007-05:00

Holy smokes! Has it really been since July 22? We apologize for our Rumplestiltskinsian behavior. First of all, of course we'd like to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and we hope you are ready for the big day tomorrow. Remember that if you are thinking of cooking your turkey on a ceramic charcoal cooker, there's no better guide than the mad max turkey method. If you haven't seen it then click here. We have the whole technique, daily tips, and new for this year: video from Fred's Music and BBQ!! We hope you have a great day and a successful meal.

A few other new items to note. We have added an Events Calendar for owners of ceramic charcoal cookers. This calendar contains Eggfests (or any other manufacturer's 'fests if they hold any), demonstrations, classes, you name it.

In order to fit the Events Calendar on our main page, we have combined Recipes and Cookbooks into one menu item. If you click on it, you will be taken to a page where you can choose between our recipes page, our cookbooks page, and a new page that lists all of the Living Cookbook recipe databases that we have available. Everything you used to find from our main menu is still there, just arranged a bit differently.

Don't miss our recently-posted review of the BBQ Guru NanoQ, their latest addition to their line of digital temperature controllers for charcoal cookers.

Our next addition to the web page will be a review of a new brand of coconut charcoal, so keep your eyes on our What's New section for that!

Again, we hope you have a happy holiday!

- TNW

What's Up At The Naked Whiz Plaza This Week

2009-07-22T21:06:00.002-04:00

We have too many things in the air at one time, wethinks! Ok, here goes.

We have paused working on top secret project number 1 until September. Sorry, you'll just have to wait. It's a massive undertaking and we just don't have the time and the weather is too hot.

We have paused working on top secret project number 2 for a week or two. The son is headed off to law school in 3 weeks and he has to sell his car so he can buy our car so we can buy a new car.

We are almost done with our review of Fred's Music and BBQ Supply restaurant charcoal. We should be posting it by this weekend.

We are almost done with our review of another charcoal that will remain anonymous until we publish it. This also has been a major undertaking as it required all sorts of extra tests and we ended up making a short video to complement the review. Plus it is quite lengthy and we've been trying to proofread it quite carefully both for spelling and grammar as well as for factual content and tone. We'll give this one until the following weekend.

So, we're trying to get stuff done and we hope you think it was worth the wait when you finally see it.

- TNW

Oh, and one other thing.....

2009-07-13T09:10:00.002-04:00

We have decided to enable comments on our Whizlog. All posts subsequent to this one will have comments enabled. Be nice! :-)

- TNW

Weekend Report

2009-07-13T08:58:00.006-04:00

Well, it was mixed results this weekend at Naked Whiz Plaza. First of all we had a successful Operation BBQ event in Raleigh, NC at the Naval Operational Support Center. This one was run by American Spirit BBQ. We just showed up to take pictures for this one, but we got some nice photos. You can view them by visiting our Operation BBQ web page.

Then we reported that we would be making a movie for our latest charcoal review. Ooops. We made a movie alright, but unfortunately at little bitty eensy weensy resolution, so it looked pretty bad. We'll have to recreate the effort and film it again next weekend. Of course, the nice thing about screwing it up and then viewing the results is that you have an opportunity to improve upon it. Which we will do. Oh well, such is the life of a Naked Whiz.

- TNW

What's Up At Naked Whiz Plaza This Weekend!

2009-07-10T15:54:00.002-04:00

Well, let's see. We will try to make a movie to include in our latest charcoal review. This will be a first! We will try to complete another charcoal review that was suspended when we ran into a small problem. We may also try to make some more progress on our current "Build It Yourself" project, which of course, is a secret. And finally, we will be attending the American Spirit BBQ event on Saturday morning for about 300 Naval reservists in Raleigh. So, we have plenty to keep us busy!

- TNW

July 2 Operation BBQ at Camp Lejeune

2009-07-06T09:35:00.002-04:00

The event was a big success! About 1000 Marines and their families dined on pulled pork, brisket, hot dogs, potato salad and beans. There were games for the kids and games for the Marines. The weather was hot, but clear. All in all it was a wonderful time. You can view all the photos at this link: Operation BBQ Photos.

Consider giving your time to this worthy endeavor. You can visit the BBQ For Our Troops website for more information. Another group with a big cookout coming up in August is American Spirit BBQ.

- TNW

Ok, Here's What We Learned About Being Green

2009-06-24T07:43:00.003-04:00

Inquiring minds and all that you know, but one afternoon we were idling away the time when it suddenly popped into our head. Does an LCD monitor use more electricity when it is displaying all white or when it is displaying all black? Yes, that is what popped into our heads and thus was born the mini-quest for knowledge.

You may think it is obvious that a monitor must use more electricity when it is all white, but you have to remember, these monitors aren't your grandfather's monitors. We aren't talking about cathode ray tubes which turn on the electron beam (use electricity) when painting a portion of the screen that isn't the background color and turns it off when painting a portion of the screen that IS the background color. LCD monitors have a backlight that is always on and then little gremlins, thousands and thousands of little gremlins who live inside your monitor, open and close little light faucets that allow the backlight to shine through or not. So, maybe these little gremlins need more electricity when the valves are open or closed or who knows what?

So, off we went to Google on a quest to answer this question. And as usual, we found answers that indicated anything you want to believe. So as a result, we chose the answer that we wanted: LCD Monitors use less electricity when displaying a black screen than they do when displaying a white screen. Ok, we have a little bit of reason to think this might actually be the correct answer. We came across a search engine called "Blackle" which is located at www.blackle.com and purports to have saved over a billion watt-hours of electricity by having a black background on their pages. In support of their claim, the provide a link to this study by researchers at the Energy Analysis Department, Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California in Berkeley, California. And there on page 19, are the numbers. LCD monitors displaying a black screen use slightly less electricity than monitors displaying a white screen.

So, how does this make The Naked Whiz web site green? Dude! All of our screens have black backgrounds. Geez, we must have save a billion watt-hours ourselves! So. Be green! Visit our webpage. Be annoying. Write to web sites with white backgrounds and tell them to switch to black. We'll save this planet one pixel at a a time!

- TNW

What's Coming Up at The Naked Whiz Plaza...

2009-06-22T10:38:00.001-04:00

We are sort of working on a new secret project. This is a smaller secret project than the big secret project. The big secret project will probably resume in September. This small one should only take a day or two, so we hope to get it done soon.

We have a new charcoal on the way. This one will take some time and effort since we will be comparing it to past incarnations of this charcoal. There will be extra tests and photos and writing it up will be a challenge, but it should be worth it. It's been a long time in coming and we look forward to finding out how this "new" charcoal does.

- TNW

The KCBS Controversy, whew!

2009-06-16T09:24:00.007-04:00

People have asked where we stand on this recent explosion of controversy. Well frankly, we don't know but it is certainly something to behold. We don't compete on the BBQ circuit, just like when we flew a hot air balloon, we didn't compete in balloon rallies. We just don't like these sorts of competitions. 'nuff said. We have never joined the Kansas City Barbecue Society since we don't compete and we don't really see a reason to join otherwise. That said, we are certainly curious about what's going on in KCBS at the moment.

A member of the board of directors has resigned over the behavior of another board member. The member who resigned is Rod Gray. The member who has caused all the grief is, well, we don't know who it is because apparently everyone associated with KCBS knows who this is and have known for some time who this is, but no one is allowed to name this BOD member for fear of slander accusations, apparently. As we are not "in the know" regarding all things KCBS, we don't know who this member is and certainly can't have an opinion on what's going on.

We do find it curious that as a regular lurker on the KC BBQ Forum, we had never heard about the behavior of this board member until recent weeks. Now that Rod Gray, by resigning his seat on the BOD, has referred to the elephant in the room, everyone is now posting to The BBQ Forum about how this BOD member has tyrannized the board along with a long list of other objectionable behaviors. There are now calls for the removal of this BOD member and posts about Missouri law governing removal of BOD members from organizations. It truly is one of the most bizarre things we have ever seen.

So, like we say, we have no opinion nor do we have any information that would help us form an opinion. For what it's worth, here is a link to Rod Gray's blog in which he details the reasons for his resignation: Pellet Envy Blog. Also, here is a link to a broadcast tonight on LA Talk Radio (Channel 1) in which Rod will be interviewed: LA Talk Radio. All we can say is that it should be interesting. We'll be listening. How about you?

Whatever happens, here's to hoping we can all get back to arguing over foiling ribs...

- TNW

Leading the Green Revolution in BBQ?

2009-06-16T09:15:00.003-04:00

We have to write this one up, but it appears that The Naked Whiz web site has been leading the green revolution in barbecue and we didn't even know it! What do we have that the World Famous Kansas City Barbecue Forum doesn't have? (Or perhaps more accurately, what does the World Famous Kansas City Barbecue Forum have that we don't have?) We'll fill you in with details later, but for now, rest assured that every time you visit The Naked Whiz web site you are helping to save the planet! (Very big wink!)

- TNW

Another call for volunteers...

2009-06-01T09:26:00.002-04:00

There will be another Operation BBQ event at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina coming up in July. The event is July 2-3 and volunteers are welcome. You can email us using the link at the bottom of every one of our web pages and we'll forward your name to the organizer.

If you have never attended an Operation BBQ event before, the schedule goes something like this. We usually meet at the main gate at 11 am on July 2nd. We get situated at the site provided for the event and then we all sit around for a while wasting time and thinking about lunch. Around 5ish or so, the meat gets prepared and by 8 or so, the meat is in the cookers. The next morning, the pork is pulled, the brisket is sliced, the beans are heated and everything is made ready for the lunch at 11:30 or so.

It is a great event: you get to meet young Marines serving our country; you get to talk barbecue; you get to eat barbecue. Sometimes you even get a tour of some of the Marine Corps' neat toys! So, email us if you are interested and we'll get you hooked up. Hope to see you at Camp Lejeune!

- TNW

CyberQ II review is up!

2009-06-01T07:47:00.007-04:00

We have just posted (well, ok it was Friday) the review of the CyberQ II Temperature Controller from The BBQ Guru. (www.thebbqguru.com) The CyberQ II is the first offering from The BBQ Guru that has computer connection and dual cooker control.

This is possibly our most in-depth review ever, so enjoy it!

- TNW

Cyber Q II review status

2009-05-28T09:38:00.003-04:00

We have been working on this product review for quite some time and we are close to publishing it. We need to update a few images, proof read and possibly conduct one more test and then we can publish. We hope to have it done by this coming Monday, so keep an eye out for it!

- TNW

Kingsford Competition Briquettes

2009-05-01T10:43:00.000-04:00

We recently published our report on Kingsford's new "Competition Briquettes." You can find the report at The Lump Charcoal Database in the "Other Charcoal Testing" section. You can also find it by visiting our main page and looking in the "What's New" box.

There's a lot of interesting information in the report, but if you just want the bottom line, Kingsford Competition Briquettes are better than their original briquettes (what wouldn't be?), but they still fall short of the best all natural briquettes. We feel that if you can get them, Wicked Good Charcoal's Weekend Warrior Briquettes are still the best briquettes out there.

As a side note, we recently picked up a bag of Stubb's briquettes, an all natural briquette from Cowboy Charcoal. These are the same folks that bring you Cowboy Lump Charcoal. We should be publishing a mini-report on Stubb's sometime soon.

- TNW

Today's status....

2009-04-20T09:39:00.001-04:00

Well, not much to report. Or, a lot to report. I guess it depends on your point of view. The wife (yes, the wife who....) went to Vegas for a few days. So, while the cat's away.....

We have completed all our testing on the Kingsford Competition briquettes. We are almost done writing up the report for the web page. We just need to proof read, write the conclusions, and then remove all the snippy comments about Kingsford. We need to keep our objectivity intact, you know. But one does have to wonder why they claim that "high heat" is good for "slow cooking!" And one does have to wonder why they couldn't come up with a new name rather than use one that has been used before for a lump charcoal. Oh well. The new web page should be published in the next few days.

The latest excitement is that we just received our new CyberQ II from The BBQ Guru. We need to start making plans for a full review. We hope to do this around mid-May. Keep your eyes glued to our website!

- TNW

What's In Store

2009-04-14T16:28:00.003-04:00

Well, for one thing we have a bag of Kingsford Competition Briquettes sitting in the garage. Wonder if Kingsford has finally figured out how to make an acceptable briquette? So do we. We'll find out this weekend.

We are still waiting on some product in order to finish up our secret project. We're not sure why it hasn't shown up on store shelves yet, but unfortunately, it is holding us up. So, we plod on with other things.....

- TNW

Ft. Bragg Whizcast posted...

2009-04-14T16:25:00.003-04:00

We have finally completed the Whizcast of the Ft. Bragg barbecue for the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade and posted it on our Whizcast webpage: http://www.nakedwhiz.com/whizcast We hope you enjoy it!

- TNW

Ft. Bragg was a big success!!

2009-03-18T21:18:00.004-04:00

Well, you folks missed a great time at Ft. Bragg on March 12 and 13. The weather was miserable but we had a damn good time feeding the soldiers. If you would like to see photos showing the whole event from start to finish, soup to nuts, yin and yang, just visit operationbbq.nakewdhiz.com.

There are many opportunities for you to volunteer for these events. Visit www.bbqforourtroops.com for a schedule or to make a tax deductible donation. We hope to see you at an event!

- TNW

P.S. We hope to put together a podcast about the event in the next week. Watch our website for the announcement.

Anyone want to volunteer?

2009-02-21T17:22:00.003-05:00

Any of you readers out there need to work off any community service time? :-) Or maybe you just want to volunteer? March 12-13 are the dates of the Ft. Bragg, NC Operation BBQ being held for the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade and their families. It is being organized by Pete Benac, a.k.a. Celtic Wolf and he needs folks to cook, folks to serve, folks to just plain help. If you don't know how to contact Pete, send me an email via my website and I'll hook you up.

If you think you can't be of help, you can. The last Operation BBQ we attended was in last June at Camp Lejeune, NC. One group of volunteers was essentially a BBQ cook and a bunch of members from his church, including kids who all helped. We hope to see you there!

- TNW

All the latest news

2009-02-18T15:30:00.002-05:00

We just published the Publix GreenWise review. You can find a link at www.lump-charcoal.com or in the What's New box on our front page.

We think we have what we need to finish up the BBQ Brick review. Although published, there were still questions about the source material and whether or not it is a "green" product. You will have to read the review to find out, lol!

The Ono charcoal from Hawaii has arrived. We need to start doing a little research now to get ready for the review. It's made from Kiawe wood, which makes it unique. There's a little history behind it so we'll be sure to enlighten you in the review.

And, we should be able to get started now on a new little project which we are keeping secret for now. Actually, this is our second secret project, tee hee. We've been working on our first secret project for quite some time now. We hope to finish it up soon. It will require an investment of about $80 though....

- TNW

Our Latest Progress Report

2009-02-11T13:07:00.002-05:00

Well, we just finished the BBQ Brick writeup, although there is a little touch up that needs to be done. We asked the manufacturer what it is made from. They said "charcoal". Ok, we won't push it. We're sure it is coconut charcoal, so we speculated as such in the write up. The manufacturer contacted us and said, "No, No. It's made from charcoal, not coconut." Sigh. We're going to burn a piece and confirm that it at least smells like coconut charcoal so we can clarify this point.

We will be publishing the Publix results soon. The work is all done, but we need to write it up and update the database.

And in an exclusive announcement for fans of the Naked Whiz, we have some charcoal coming from Hawai'i! Yahoo! This should be interesting. Lump from the island of Mau'i.

And we are also going to try to get started on our second secret project. This will be a lot of busy work, but it should be fun too.

- TNW

What's New At Naked Whiz Plaza?

2009-01-16T13:41:00.009-05:00

There's a lot going on at Naked Whiz Plaza these days. Some of it doesn't show on the website as the results often come out in dribs and drabs as they are published. But we thought you might like to find out what's in the works, what might get published, what might not. So, welcome back to Whizlog where we will endeavour to keep you up to date on all the latest news.

The first exciting news (ok, not really) is that you can now become a Fan of The Naked Whiz on Facebook! Wow, huh? We don't know what this will buy you, but it's there for you to add to your collection. Just search on Naked Whiz and we should show up so you can become a fan. We just looked and so far we have 3 fans! Two if you don't count us.

Here are a few things that are in the works or at least in line to get into the works at some time in the future:

We are currently finishing up a review of Harris Teeter lump charcoal. This is actually manufactured by Nature's Grilling, so it should be a good one. You can read the review as soon as it is published. You can find all the latest pages that have been published in our What's New box that shows up on our front page.

We are still pondering and playing around with a product called BBQ Brick, an extruded coconut brick. You may recall a product review we did of a King's Grill product. This is very similar. Look for a report in the next week or two.

In the way of future lump charcoal reviews, we have some Publix charcoal sitting in the garage waiting for warmer weather. In addition, we are told that Cherokee Charcoal will be marketing their Cherokee Brave product soon. This is lump charcoal made from oak and hickory, vs. their current Cherokee Chief product which is made from hickory only.

We are toying with the idea of doing some sort of review or comparison of a number of types of wood chunks. We don't intend to evaluate them or judge their quality, but merely present information on different brands. This should be interesting!

That's it for now. We'll update this Whizlog as news becomes available!

The Naked Whiz

P.S. One addition. Yes, we have our eyes open for the new Kingsford "Competition" Briquettes. Too bad they couldn't think up a new name of their own...

Welcome To The Naked Whiz's Whizlog

2007-06-27T21:07:00.000-04:00

Welcome to our Whizlog. It's the newest way that you can log your thoughts and ideas to the Internet. Just like we pioneered the introduction of Whizcasts to bring audio material to the masses around the world, we bring you Whizlog! This might be as successful as the chat room we used to host! :-) Or the online discussion forum. :-) again. Whatever, if anyone asks if The Naked Whiz has a blog, you just tell them "No, he has a Whizlog!" We don't plan to limit ourselves to charcoal or ceramic cookers here, but rather post about anything we damn well please. So, again, welcome. We hope you enjoy the show.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!

And don't forget that Whizlogs, just like those old fashioned blogs are upside down. Up is new, down is old. We thought you'd need to know that. That's why in a few days if we post something new, the "welcome" post will be at the bottom. Isn't it strange that the more you read, the further back in time you go? Sorta like some kind of time warp or something....

TNW