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When Nerds Do BBQ 149

Rick Zeman writes: On this 4th of July, the day when Americans flock to their grills and smokers, Wired has a fascinating article on a computerized smoker designed by Harvard engineering students. They say, "In prototype form, the smoker looks like a combination of a giant pepper mill, a tandoori oven, and V.I.N.CENT from The Black Hole. It weighs 300 pounds. It has a refueling chute built into the side of it. And it uses a proportional-integral-derivative controller, a Raspberry Pi, and fans to regulate its own temperature, automatically producing an ideal slow-and-low burn."

After cooking >200 lbs of brisket while fine-tuning the design, the students concluded, "Old-school pitmasters are like, 'I cook mine in a garbage can,' and there's a point of pride in that. A lot of the cutting edge is when you take an art form and drag it back onto scientific turf and turn it into an algorithm. I don't think we've diluted the artistic component with this."
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When Nerds Do BBQ

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    • What was that, the first video ever uploaded to the internet?

    • This was the last (?) of the "fastest way to start the grill" contests held by the Purdue Electrical Engineering honorary, Eta Kappa Nu.

      Fire department made them promise not to do it again.

    • by trout007 ( 975317 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @01:59PM (#50044741)

      If you even work with Liquid Hydrogen you can actually condense Liquid Oxygen out of the air. If it drips onto asphalt it can light it on fire just from the impact.

      • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        Yeah, we've all heard that tearful story about a worker dropping a wrench on asphalt and dying of explosion because someone spilled oxygen on it earlier. We tried to replicate that back we were students and even if you use pure tar mixed with porous sand, it just does not explode. It does not even burn unless you ignite it with a blowtorch.

        How did we get liquid oxygen? Easy. Just use liquid nitrogen to condense it from air. One large dewar of LN2 nets you about 2 liters of LOX.
    • by plopez ( 54068 )

      Bastard! you beat me to it :)

    • by mmclean ( 29486 )
      Came here on the RSS headline looking for GHG and not leaving disappointed.
  • I remember watching some BBQ competition TV series (figures, right?) and the winner was an asian dude who built his own PID BBQ fan controllers and used them with cheap grills. It's not impossible for a human to get that kind of consistency, but it's not expensive to let a computer do it any more.

    Now, why aren't all the things PID? People regularly retrofit even digital appliances to be PID because they aren't already, how insane is that?

    • I don't see how a PID controller will help much. You are cooking with very low temperature air (around 200 F). You have this massive ceramic cooker with large heat capacity. It's not a process that is going to run away from you even if you used a simple on/off controller.

      The most important thing for good BBQ is picking a good cut of meat. Do that right and you can throw it in your oven and it will be delicious.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I don't see how a PID controller will help much.

        It helped him win.

        You are cooking with very low temperature air (around 200 F).

        Yes, temperature control is what PID is used for in this context.

        You have this massive ceramic cooker with large heat capacity.

        No, I'm not talking about TFA, I'm talking about every other BBQ. Anyway you can buy a PID fan controller as a complete unit and stick it up your Weber's arse.

        The most important thing for good BBQ is picking a good cut of meat. Do that right and you can throw it in your oven and it will be delicious.

        That's not even BBQ.

        • by KGIII ( 973947 )

          I spent some time, a lot of it, in the South and Midwest. Kansas and Illinois had some of the best BBQs but I have to give the Pulled Pork Award to either Georgia, Alabama, or Florida. I also lived in North Carolina. Somewhere between GA and NC the secret to BBQ has been lost. Somewhere it became something you could do in your oven or, almost worse in some ways, something you did on top of a disposable open-top grill. Also, it is done in a half hour... *sighs* Louisiana does a good BBQ but they seem incline

    • by Anonymous Coward

      >why aren't all the things PID
      Probably because PID is only the simplest form of control. It's not actually that good if the thing you are controlling has nonlinear behavior.

      • by Agripa ( 139780 )

        why aren't all the things PID

        Probably because PID is only the simplest form of control. It's not actually that good if the thing you are controlling has nonlinear behavior.

        PID loops are not the simplest; they require frequency compensation. Hysteretic loops including constant on or off time loops do not and are simpler. A bang-bang type thermostat with a deadband implements a hysteretic loop. Hysteretic loops also have the advantage of not suffering from windup like the integral part of a PID loop althou

    • by sycodon ( 149926 )

      There are already commercial grade ovens the precisely control smoke and hea pretty much any BBQ shop that does more than a few hundred pounds a day uses these.

        MIT is reinventing the wheel.

  • by TWX ( 665546 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @01:46PM (#50044699)
    Part of the reason that some of us take pride in our low-tech solutions is because we can achieve results above and beyond that of others even if we don't have any resources. I'm reminded how when Richard Petty crashed a stock car in the sixties during a big race; the team got the car back into running shape and aligned it with string to compare the geometry and got him back into the race, which he won. No fancy computer alignment or specialized tools, some mechanics hand tools and knowledge got them the solution.

    It's great to use fancy tools or to construct a high-end system, but there's something to be said for being able to make it work without anything more than a brain and a few applied steps.
    • by plover ( 150551 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @03:50PM (#50045119) Homepage Journal

      Through lifelong dedication, a craftsman can align a car with a string, or smoke BBQ in a trash can, or whatever it is he or she does. But their activity doesn't scale beyond what they can personally produce. And if they end up smoking 100 pounds of meat per day to run their restaurant, that's it. There's little time left in the day to innovate. Craftsmen don't scale well, unless they industrialize their processes, (and then you risk ending up with a product with all the qualities of Budweiser.).

      The rest of us are dedicated to other things: jobs, families, other hobbies. Does our inexperience mean we can't enjoy products of similar quality as the craftsmen produce? What's wrong with distilling the essence of their wisdom into a PID controller and an Atmel chip? If my BBQ-bot fails, I'm certainly not going to fix it with string - but that's not the point. The point is I could occasionally enjoy a high quality smoked brisket, thanks to a machine that knows more than I do about the process.

      • by TWX ( 665546 )
        Smoking a brisket the traditional way, while requiring skill, is not something that's so complex that it can't be learned fairly quickly, probably more quickly than implementing a sophisticated control system to attempt to do it otherwise unattended. Besides, to implement one's own system one already needs to have mastered the skill to know what to implement in the first place, or has to learn the skill as one goes.

        I've learned that I should not cook on a large scale. My wife and I can only eat so much
        • by plover ( 150551 ) on Sunday July 05, 2015 @02:15AM (#50046881) Homepage Journal

          No, I don't have to learn any of the skills, at all, and I don't want to. I don't want to spend days or hours or even minutes learning the finer points of pit BBQ, and that's the entire point of buying this robot. I don't have to learn when to turn up the heat or turn it down, I don't have to know how much wood to put in or when. I don't have to check on the condition of the product. I simply give my charge card to Williams-Sonoma, haul the BBQbot home and plug it in, add meat and wood, and get delicious brisket out the other end. Every. Single. Time. I wasted zero of my time learning how to barbeque brisket - I just enjoy the results of other people's learnings. If the robot fails, I drag it back to Williams-Sonoma and ask them to service it. It would be no different than any other tool that I own that I don't fix myself.

          I don't understand your preoccupation with fear of breakdowns of systems. I know that some days, despite scheduled maintenance, my truck will breakdown in some way I can't fix and that I'll have to have to deal with a problem. Fear of the inevitable breakdown doesn't mean I sell my truck today and walk to work. It means that I understand the truck can break, and that some days I'll have to call for a tow. Similarly if the BBQbot fails in my restaurant, I tell the servers to 86 the brisket, and we sell grilled chicken until the replacement robot arrives.

          As a business owner, why would I buy a BBQbot instead of hiring a pit master? Because the robot costs me $20,000, and it stays in the kitchen 24x7x365. A pit master has weekends, takes vacations, calls in sick (or doesn't call in at all), and costs me $60,000 every year. I'd be far more worried about hiring a temperamental person that could quit and cripple the menu on a busy night. And if I discovered I was that utterly dependent on the robot, I'd simply buy two of them.

          Every business risks breakdowns of all kinds of complex systems every day: plumbing, fires, melted freezers, employees quitting, roof collapses, electrical problems, labor problems, yet most manage to stay in business even through disasters. Why? Because they know how to adapt to problems, and because taking the risks yields far more reward than doing nothing; instead of sitting there paralyzed by the fear that something might go wrong.

          • There are actually already a lot of BBQ products out there much like this one. And the issue is the cost and output capacity. That and there is a good bit of high importance effort that goes into good BBQ outside of the smoker. You want consistency in the cuts of meat, but you'll never get perfection so you have to learn to work with it. The meat needs to be trimmed properly. Seasoning needs to be mixed and applied, whether it's a marinade, dry rub, mop sauce, or table sauce. You've gotta keep the meat as c

          • by msimm ( 580077 )
            I agree with your business argument 90% of the time. And that's why we have artisans. A $20,000 BBQbot can cook consistently, but it will never get bored while on-shift and create something new to improve your menu (or your business in general). If you want to exceed the mean you'll still need the kind of SME that calls in sick and takes vacations.
    • -1 for car reference. It was going so well
    • Part of the reason that some of us take pride in our low-tech solutions is because we can achieve results above and beyond that of others even if we don't have any resources.

      There's that, of course. But I think a very significant part of doing things by hand, with simple means, is that you enjoy the actual process, being able to apply your skills and achieve something that isn't trivially easy, but requires insight into what you are doing.

      Years ago I worked for an American company, and I got to talk to one of the vice-presidents about fishing. To me fishing is something about trying to land a single fish or maybe two with a bit of cleverness and local knowledge, but to him it c

  • by trout007 ( 975317 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @01:52PM (#50044721)

    “Mechanical engineers, it’s not a required class for them,” says bioengineering major Jordan DeGraaf. “There are no mechanical engineers who take this class. They just run away.”

    This class is a ME for Non ME's. Everything in this project/class is what is the core of what ME is. Fluid Flow, Heat Transfer, Sensors, Controls, Materials, etc. I'm guessing the reason there are no ME's in it is because they are taking the real ME classes.

    This is similar to when I was in school for ME but I had to take one EE class for non EE majors. There were no EE's in there not because it was hard but because it was easy.

    • This class is a ME for Non ME's. Everything in this project/class is what is the core of what ME is. Fluid Flow, Heat Transfer, Sensors, Controls, Materials, etc. I'm guessing the reason there are no ME's in it is because they are taking the real ME classes.

      Also, no offense to Harvard, but Harvard is NOT generally known for its engineering programs. Just in the past couple of years, Harvard has started to try to make a shift there, but generally Harvard was a place to go for liberal arts, econ, and hard sciences. There's a much better engineering school "down the road" in Cambridge that's much better known for engineering. (And that school -- MIT -- is known to make fun of Harvard all of the time for its lack of engineering skills.)

      I'm not saying these Ha

  • So, as far as the old-school pitmasters go, look at it like this:

    Let's say someone wanted to go through engineering school using software that would do all kinds of mathematical equations for them, without them having to learn the underlying math and other discrete skills that the software automates for them. You'd frown upon that, right?

    That's kind of how the old-school pitmasters look at rigs like this. It has a purpose, and it has value...but you won't get any respect for using one.

    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday July 04, 2015 @04:57PM (#50045379) Homepage Journal

      That's kind of how the old-school pitmasters look at rigs like this. It has a purpose, and it has value...but you won't get any respect for using one.

      I don't want respect, I want brisket that isn't dried out like literally every bit of brisket I've had outside of Texas.

    • Let's say someone wanted to go through engineering school using software that would do all kinds of mathematical equations for them, without them having to learn the underlying math and other discrete skills that the software automates for them. You'd frown upon that, right?

      If they want to work as an engineer, sure. But if they just are a tinkerer or someone trying to get some stuff done, I don't really care unless safety is involved. I am an engineer and I run a company that makes wire harnesses. A LOT of the products we make were not designed by people with a background in electrical engineering. And that doesn't matter and I don't look down my nose at them for it. As long as what they do works it doesn't matter. If someone can play music beautifully I don't care if th

  • by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @02:11PM (#50044783) Journal
    My Rec Tec Grill [rectecgrills.com] has that, and it does a great job. I love to mix cherry and mesquite to do my slow-smoked brisket (12-14 hours at 200 deg F).
    • Can you tell the difference between pellets and real logs of wood? It seems like it would make a difference. Aren't pellets made from grinding up the wood into sawdust, then pressing back together with steam? Lots of sap/resin/aromatics would be lost in that process.

  • On this 4th of July, the day when Americans flock to their grills and smokers

    That's it? Seriously? Rather depressing [infowars.com]...

    • On this 4th of July, the day when Americans flock to their grills and smokers

      That's it? Seriously? Rather depressing [infowars.com]...

      "That's it" is baggage you're bringing to this discussion; it's not my baggage. Whether anyone is cognizant of what the fourth stands for or not is independent of the fact that both the ignorant and the enlightened are doing the same thing today: barbecuing. Except, perhaps, those trolling from their mother's basements.

      ~ the poster.

    • infowars.com

      Where the real 'Murikans hang out on the 4th of July.

      Because we know Alex Jones would never, ever say anything that's not the God's truth.

      • by mi ( 197448 )

        Because we know Alex Jones

        • Q: What do Illiberals have other than ad hominem?
        • A: Nothing.

        Please, don't hate.

        • Please, don't hate.

          Oh, look who's being the SJW now. Don't mistake laughing at the ridiculous for hatred.

          Here are some of Alex Jones' "mark my words" predictions:

          Bank runs in February 2009. 9/11-scale terror attacks in 2010. 50% of the U.S. population will be killed in a bio-weapons attack in 2009. 16 year-old soldiers will enforce nationwide martial law by 2012. A major terror attack will occur in the U.S. by the end of summer 2009 (oh, and it’s a false flag). The U.S. will go to war with Russia in

  • It interrupts their hacking sessions....

  • Alton Brown is King Geek Chef and has a rule about unitaskers, single-purpose devices: don't buy them. Turn this into a unit than can also BBQ lamb and cold smoke fish and cheese, please.

    • FWIW, Alton does admit to having one unitasker in his kitchen, although he's never needed to use it: a fire extinguisher.
      • by glitch! ( 57276 )

        That's interesting information, and of course it brings up the question, "Why not make it a multpurpose device?"

        "Hey Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
        "Well, I think so, Brain. If it had separate compartments and a switching valve, you could use it to fight fires, or quickly dispense spices and breading."
        "Exactly, Pinky! With such a device in every kitchen, we could take over the world!"

        • If memory serves, he did use a fire extinguisher as a rolling pin to crush something (I don't remember what, either nuts or ice.) in a special to celebrate the show's tenth anniversary, but never on the show itself.
          • by Gryle ( 933382 )
            He used it to rapidly chill fruit and make a smoothy. I was once at one of his live shows and he used the same principle to make ice-cream in something like 30 seconds.
    • Alton Brown is King Geek Chef and has a rule about unitaskers, single-purpose devices: don't buy them.

      While I'm as big a fan of Alton as anyone around here, I'll decide for myself what tools to buy thanks. There is nothing wrong with buying a unitasking device provided it meets a couple of conditions. 1) You actually will use it a meaningful amount and 2) It saves time or results in a better product. There is a lot to be said for having the right tool for the job. Sometimes specialty tools exist for very good reasons.

  • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    Smoke plus meat not hard. Og do great!
  • by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Saturday July 04, 2015 @03:39PM (#50045087)

    This is much like a commercial meat smoker. They have all of these features. They're completely automated. It's how we're makin' bacon in the modern day.

    • It's not *like* a commercial meat smoker, it *is* a commercial heat smoker... and they've been around for years. It's also a Big Green Egg with a few accessories, which has also been around for years. Yes, I know they claim it's better - but their claim is based on failing to operate the Egg properly, a hotspot should not exist under the vent and even if it did it should have no effect on an Egg properly rigged for a raised indirect cook.

      • by pubwvj ( 1045960 )

        Yes, that was rather my point. If you go to a commercial smokehouse company who smokes bacon, hams, hocks, trotters, etc you will find they have a box with similar brains that computer controls all the details and has recipes for different products.

        I've read about them a lot, studied them in situ and am working on building one for our on-farm smokehouse. What they hype in the article is quite familiar and not particularly novel. This is just media hype. PR.

        • What they hype in the article is quite familiar and not particularly novel.

          While the backyard pitmaster could assemble a similiar system from component parts (a ceramic grill like the Egg along with some aftermarket accessories), an integrated turnkey system is moderately novel.

  • Who builds something like that and then puts a brisket in it?

    If I put that much energy into making a grill... I'd put a better piece of meat into it.

    • Damn, that was beef?
      The meat they showed looks like pork.

      Don't you crazy americans don't know what beef is supposed to look like? Protip: if it's not red inside, it's overcooked.

      • by KGIII ( 973947 )

        LOL Someone is going to tell the beef capital of the world about beef? Beef, it is like the one thing Americans can do right on a regular basis. Well, assuming you stay out of chain restaurants. I suspect you have never tried it. People are often afraid of what they do not understand and tend to be critical of it as a defense mechanism. So, I understand. You should try some sometime.

  • As someone who has a bazillion different grills and smokers. I'm pretty sure these 'students' don't know their (pork) butt, from a hole in the ground. Science doesn't make great flavor, expertise does (otherwise we'd have robots cooking gourmet meals by now...those things can't even run the local mcdonalds, forget cooking quality brisket. Also love the nerds on slashdot claiming to know about quality bbq. How many people here know without looking what animal or what part of said animal the brisket comes
  • was one in Berkely at an industrial kiln for scientific equipment. They made chemistry beakers and the like, all to precise standards, using multiple kilns.

    Somebody got the bright idea many years ago to roast pigs and slabs of beef in these things. What would normally take hours to cook was done in one or two hours, and I have never had a better pig. It was delicious.

    I just hope I didn't get asbestos poisoning.

    • What you had was roasted as you said, not BBQ'd. BBQ is low temperature cooking using combustion for the extra flavor and color. The reason you want a low temperature over a long time is so that most or all of the connective tissue has time to melt without the meat being over cooked and so dried out. With good enough prep you can get nearly the same result with roasting by tightly wrapping the meat so it doesn't dry out but then you really end up with steamed meat, and you miss out on the smoke flavoring.

      Al

  • where else?

  • by quietwalker ( 969769 ) <pdughi@gmail.com> on Sunday July 05, 2015 @09:12AM (#50047711)

    Just to name a few:

    1. The water pan is there to keep the brisket moist, which not only helps keep the meat from drying out, which also aids in smoke penetration (which is where the flavor comes from). It's not there to catch drippings. In the case of an egg smoker, it's also there to reduce the impact of different burns.
    2. Offset smokers seem to be preferred by most "pitmasters"; direct heat really means you're grilling, not smoking, and that means you're mostly cooking over coals, rather than producing consistent smoke with an open-flame fire for the duration of the burn, and that means you're not getting enough flavor.
    3. The "fuel" - given rather short shrift here - is one of the more important parts of bbq, and very hard to automate. Green wood, seasoned, large chunks or small, each has an impact on the immediate heat, the curve that the heat follows as it burns, and of course, the flavor via the smoke.
    4. 220 lbs of brisket is decent, but good brisket places do 2000 lbs a day. If you're looking for something of quality instead of, well, acceptable, you're going to need to spend more time experimenting to figure out how to make a good brisket.
    5. In order to have a chance to regulate the temperature well - and not keep cycling through blasts of heat and cooling - they'll need multiple temp probes, and an awareness of the outside temp and humidity as well, since ceramic insulation or no, the external environment will play a huge factor.
    6. If the flat - the lean part of the brisket - is falling apart when you pick it up, the brisket has been overcooked. It means the point is going to have the consistency of pudding - or it's been destroyed entirely and is completely dry. It's harder to avoid this in a direct-heat smoker rather than an offset.

    It should probably look like this [andrewzimmern.com]. I remember seeing that shot in Franklin's book, Franklin Barbecue: A Meat Smoking Manifesto [amazon.com] ... which yes, sounds pretentious, but since he's lauded as the best BBQer in texas several times over, and that book is #1 in BBQ & Grilling books on Amazon, maybe he's allowed to be a bit pretentious. Go get that book if you're at all interested. Apparently fact checked by Harold McGee.

    There's more things I could pick apart too. I know, I'm sounding like a BBQ snob, but the fact is that I'm not very good at cooking it, and I haven't had a lot of experience. However, like any geek, I did my research. I read around. I checked things up on the internet. I talked to cooks. I volunteered at some cookoffs. I think I have just barely enough experience to recognize when someone else is doing it poorly. Anyone who's done this at all isn't going to be very worried about this invention, since, well, the parts that you can automate are the parts that are least likely to affect whether your brisket is going to taste good. You may as well have just stuck it in an oven with a few blocks of aromatic wood in a water pan underneath at 275 for an hour and a half per lb.

    • Some people geek out about cars, some computers, some sports, some beer. In the Carolinas, barbecue is on the list. BBQ is a religion around here, sounds like its similar all the way down there.

    • 5. In order to have a chance to regulate the temperature well - and not keep cycling through blasts of heat and cooling - they'll need multiple temp probes, and an awareness of the outside temp and humidity as well, since ceramic insulation or no, the external environment will play a huge factor.

      If your PID controller is cycling like that something is seriously wrong. Even a poorly tuned controller should eventually stabilize, unless the gains are way out from where they should be. The controller should be easily capable of overcoming fluctuations in ambient temperature, even in New England. [goodreads.com]

      • The problem is that with normal smoking, you're using split wood. It has a non-uniform size, and has been seasoned to different levels. Some may be greener than others, even in a batch of mostly seasoned wood. So some will burn hot and fast, and others slow and smoky (and some of those will be too smoky, and not fully combust, leading to bad tasting byproducts). A big piece of green wood won't burn the same as a small piece of dry wood, but by carefully adding the right wood at the right time - for the

  • My only question is: "When will this product become available to us the masses?"

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