connecting the Flame Boss 200 to a Vision Kamado Grill with ProZone

Ah, yes: like any Texan worth their weight in Cooper's brisket, I love the smell of BBQ smoke in the morning! After watching BBQ Pitmasters, this hobbyist smoker learned that controlling temperature over long periods of time is key.

Season 1 of Pitmasters featured Harry Soo of Slap Yo Daddy BBQ who used Weber smokers and computer controlled fans to control his temps. Pretty dang cool! While hanging out with a cousin-in-law from Houston a few weeks ago, he turned me on to Flame Boss 200, a wifi-based computer controlled fan for Green Eggs. He regaled our taco table with stories of adjusting his temp while at his sprog's baseball game. Pretty dang cooler! And then, to top it all off, Santa brought me one for Christmas. Pretty dang coolest!

But there's one problem: Flame Boss equipment doesn't work with most Vision grills, the grill that we own (see photo above). Pretty dang anticlimatic.

But wait! I figured out how to hack the kit to work with my grill. My story is below.

Herein lies the problem. My Vision includes the (ahem) ProZone controller bay. It consists of an opening to electric-start the coals (the "lump" is what the cool kids call it), a large dial to control air flow for grilling, and a smaller dial to control air flow for smoking. That's right: I got pro control over my flaming lumps.

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The Flame Boss 200 kit assumes your grill has the more standard sliding control for your grill, what I like to call the (ahem) AmateurZone:

The sliding air controller for your average "AmateurZone"

The Flame Boss 200 comes with three adapters for variously sized sliders:

Unfortunately, these adapters--key to connecting the fan to your grill--do not work with ProZone equipped Vision grills.

A square peg for a bunch of curvy holes...

Flame Boss has a separate kit (the 100) with a more general adapter, but even that doesn't look like it will work with the Pro Zone. Plus, I want to BBQ this weekend: I don't want to send the 200 back and wait for this damn thing that might work or might not.

After inspecting my grill and the Flame Boss for a bit, I realized that I could easily hack the Flame Boss 200 to work with my grill by only drilling one (or two) holes in one of the Flame Boss adapter plates. Here's how to do it!

Step 1: Remove the Grilling Dial from the ProZone

The Grilling Dial is the dial on the right (when facing the grill) and is the bigger of the two dials.

Open the drawer to expose the back side of the dial where you will see the dial assembly with a couple of nuts attached:

Yes, I know: I need to dump out my ashes. 

Using a 10mm wrench, remove the nuts and the associated bits. For my grill, the nuts were easy-peasy to remove. 

Here's what the assembly looks like once removed:

If you forget, you always have the assmebly for the smoking dial for comparison, but it's a good idea to put the pieces back together they way they were:

Less likely to lose parts this way. When putting it all back together again, be sure to not tighten too much. 

So now the back side of the ProZone should look like this: 

Step 2: Remove the ProZone badge from the Pro Zone

Because of the size of the Flame Boss adapter plate, the ProZone interferes with the plate and therefore has to go. To me, this is no great loss: If you have to so prominently declare yourself a "ProZone" how actually pro is your zone?

Peering around back we can see that the badge is held on by two Phillips-head bolts.

So, using a medium-sized Phillips head screwdriver, remove said bolts.

Given the tiny size of the bolts, the holes left behind are surprising large (and both feed into the draft for the fire). I didn't, but you might want to put a dummy bolt (with washer) in there to block the left hole (the right one will be covered with the adapter plate). I don't think that the holes will add too much air to the mix, but it may be enough to prevent you from shutting down the fire when you are done grilling.

An alternative to removing the ProZone badge is hacksawing a chunk out of the adapter plate to accomodate the badge.

Step 3: Drill a hole in the Flame Boss adpater plate

The Flame Boss 200 comes with three adapter plates:

You want the largest one, the one on the far right.

We're going to use the hole for the dial to attach the adapter plate to the ProZone. I first test placed the plate to see where I needed to position the plate and drill the hole.

So here's the front of the ProZone:

And here's how I want to position the plate to maximize exposure to the airhole in the ProZone:

(Note that in the above photo I had just figured out that I needed to remove the ProZone badge, so it is not removed yet!) 

Conveniently, the bottom of the square cutout lines up with the bottom of the airhole in the ProZone. That meant that all I had to do was measure from that location to the center of the dial hole. 

It turned out that was exactly half an inch.

I then measured and marked where the hole needed to be on the adapter plate:

Then I dinged the mark with a nail to help keep the drill bit on-spot:

I then drilled the hole being careful to hold the plate firmly as I was drilling into lest the plate turn into the Spinning Blade of Death.

There's nothing magical about the hole size. I chose 3/16 inch: seemed big enough for a bolt to hold the plate but not bigger than the hole in the ProZone. 

Step 4: Attach the adapter plate to the ProZone

First, you need to scare up a bolt, nut, and washer to use to attach the adapter plate:

These were some bits I happened to have in my shop.

Then you just need to bolt the plate to the ProZone using the same hole for the Grilling Dial:

And wa-la! The adapter plate is attached! You'll notice in the photo above that the plate covers one of the holes for attaching the ProZone badge. The covered hole on the right might-could be used as a second point to attach the adaptor plate. I didn't do it here, but I plan to: It'll provide more support to the plate (pulling it closer to the ProZone front) and help control air flow, especially when the air is "off". You can also see the other badge hole. Be good to block that off as well (you'll need a tiny bolt like the one used to attach the badge else the ProZone won't seat well against the body of the grill).

And now the adaptor plate is ready for the fan, which simply "hangs" off the plate via a tab at the top and side:

Here you can see why an upper bolt through the rigth badge hole might be desireable. The weight of the fan pulls the plate a wee bit away from the ProZone body).

Finally, put your spare parts in a safe place so if you want to grill with the dial later, you can easily install it back!

Step 5: Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

You are now ready to go! Good luck!

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the last (planter) stand

I know everyone has been waiting with juicy anticipation on the outcome of the planters, so here we go!

The landscaper finally installed the last piece of the puzzle: the white metal planter, but it was not without its glitches. When the crew first installed it, they put it in the wrong place:

I can almost hear the conversation: "Jim, these here plans don't look right. It says to place it all offset way over here. That don't make no sense. It needs to be all lined up." "Then let's line it all up." Ironically, this was the much more difficult option since they had to cut out a bunch of pavers to achieve the placement shown immediately above.

I hate making people do stuff over again, and sometimes mistakes turn out to be fortunate, but this wasn't one of those times: we needed sliding volumes here. So after a quick phone call and a quick friendly agreement to slide the planter, a week later the planter was moved.

I didn't push on replacing the pavers so we could see if (1) they did it on their own or (2) if they didn't, what it looked like without pavers. They did Option (2) and we felt it looked fine (and perhaps even better) without pavers.

So there you have it: planters planted in the back patio!

Our only regret is that we didn't do this when the house was getting built (make note those of you building): it would have cost less and we would have had and enjoyed them from the get-go. The planters really finish out the space and cozy it up.

our house got egged!

We've been on the look out for a good grill with Modern design tendencies, but it's been hard to find one. They are either not Mod enough or horribly expensive. And I have pretty much lost faith in stainless steel grills: they are not well built and self-destruct in two to three years. Our current one, bought three years ago, has had it's guts replaced once and now shoots flames out the front by the temp controls. Seems a little dangerous. 

Several of my pals have splurged on Green Eggs and swear by them. But, you know, they're green, and we enjoy the convenience of gas. I often whispered myself: If someone came out with an egg that was white with freshly polished steel and wood the color of sawdust (aka the "Dot Egg" so named because of Dorothy Parker's description of a Modern 1920s New York apartment), it would be mine. Lo and behold, last week's Sunday advertisements had an ad for this beauty on sale from (cough, cough) Chair King:

I could live without the fake rattan surface and the cheesily named "PRO ZONE" at the front, but, as the closing music from the Republican National Convention wailed "You can't always get what you want." All in all this is not bad.

This is a Signature Series Plaza Kamado Grill by Vision. We ventured out west to the Green Egg store to see what we would be missing by not getting a Green Egg. The hardware on the Green Egg is much more stout, but the Vision hardware is stout enough. And my oh my does she look beautiful on the back patio:

"You sound like a girl!" says my lady friend at the office from East Texas. Dudes in Texas aren't supposed to worry about stuff like this, I guess, so don't tell anyone.

We've used the egg twice so far, and so far so good. Even broke out the antique iGrill to check temps in the egg and in the chicken last night. Perfect!

Kamado grills generally use charcoal (the real deal, not briquettes), but on this one the "PRO ZONE" can slide completely out and be replaced with a gas insert.

These things aren't cheap, but it will surely last longer than the gas grills I've been buying (a grilling site, when asked how long Kamado grills last, responded with "Ask your kids what color they like, because they're going to inherit it.").

No egg on our faces here.

lingering landscapes: installation pt. 5--ponded! arted! treed! slivered!

Some more progress on the lanscaping. The photo above shows the sculpture planted out in the front yard. 

The grass sliver finally got installed. The splash of green looks really good there and balances out the hardscape:

Everything is still alive outside the master bedroom. Ground cover and shrubbery that pulls around the corner plus a formal pedestal for the "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" statue. Really digging that concrete pedestal. Thinking of making more on my own for potted plants and what not...

The landscaper came and sealed the pond. After it set for 24 hours, we filled it up with rainwater and then went up to Hill Country Water Gardens to pick out some plants and fish. We shoudl ahve waitied on the fish since they were all dead inside of 48 hours. Need to let the tank equlibrate before fishing it, it seems.

Finally, the scaper planted three Anacacho Orchid trees along the back fence to green it up back there.

Still waiting on the metal planter to complement the concrete one toward the back of the patio. 

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