Ulika Kitchen Update

First of all, the Egg is back. The kind folks at Embers in Cool Springs were very helpful in getting me the piece that I needed to make my Egg whole again.

With the Egg back intact, I was able to use my newest toy - the BBQ Guru.

I have been cooking bbq now for a few years and I've known about the guru for sometime, but I was always a little hesitant about the whole idea of a fan controlled cooker. Well let me tell you, this has to be the greatest bbq accessory ever. The guru allows you to set the temperature of the pit and a fan control keeps the temp constant. Last night, I put two pork butts on the egg at 4:00am and went to bed. I woke up and wrapped the butts when they hit 165-degrees and then pulled them off at 195. I never once had to adjust the dampers or even worry about my temperature. The guru did all the work. Two 10-pound pork butts cooked in just 11 hours. After the butts came off, I ramped up the temp to 275 and put on 2 racks of baby backs.

I am really going to enjoy this new device. It will allow me to completely keep my focus on the food without having to worry about the temperature maintenace at all. If you have a cooker and the guru works with it, I highly recommend the purchase.


With my time off during the holidays, I decided to undertake a much needed project. With the egg disaster and my recent purchase of the Stumps Smoker, I was really in need of a level cooking area. With my old stick burner, I used jacks to level out the trailer and I had been using some plywood to level off my egg.


With the assistance of my father-in-law (thanks John),the nail gun (thanks Ben), and the hammer drill (thanks Matt), I built a mini deck right off the Ulika Kitchen. We placed extra reinforcements where the Stumps is going to "live" because the thing weighs 1100 pounds. The Egg will have a new home on the deck as well as I received an Egg Table for my birthday.


Since I now have a guru for the egg and the Stumps uses a guru, I needed some electricity outside. We added a plug outside as well as some flood lights pointed directly at the 2 cookers.

Future Home of the Stumps Elite 7

Now I am just waiting for the Stumps (January 23rd) and the Egg Table (any day now). Pictures to follow...