I want to "go" on a project that has been rolling around in my head for years. I did 4 years in the Marines and have basic electronics knowledge and radio fundamentals. Have not touched my electronics training since I left almost 20 years ago.
The idea is a temperature regulated and controlled wood smoke barbeque. The basic design is what's called a "Texas Two-Stage" where you have one metal container for the burning wood and a second metal container affixed next to it for the meat. The smoke "flows" from the side where the firebox is through and across the meat and then vents out on the other side.
It's all about the brisquet.
In Texas, we do an apron steak, aka a "brisquet" which is a huge, 20 lb. slab of fatty and collagen-laced meat. The collagen makes the meat very, very tough to the point that it's inedible. To cook it you need to keep the meat at 225 deg. F. for about 10 hours. Some say 12. Personal preference comes into play here, but the primary reason for the extended cooking time is that it takes that long and that low of a temperature to break-down that collagen into fat, and so at the end of the cooking process you have a very tender slab of meat that is very moist due in part to the collagen breaking down into fat. (It's also very fatty to start with.)
The best way to do brisket is with wood, either oak, or mesquite or a combination of both. You can use any sweetwood like hickory, but in texas it's either oak or mesquite or both.
So the problem is maintaining a constant 225 deg. temperature in the cooking area using highly volatile wood. It's a constant, all day long affair of fiddling with air intake, and exhaust and not opening the lid of the meat, etc... You have to "fiddle" with it, constantly. And the temp falls to below 200, extending cooking time, or the temp soars to above 300 deg, which scorches the meat and degrades flavor, and it dries it out and sometimes there are fires due to the excess fat dripping off and catching on fire.
The solution, my solution, is to build a barbeque that has an electric fan, like one of those small squirrel cage fans you have in your bathroom's ceiling mounted "fart fan". The fan forces air into the firebox based on the temperature of the cooking chamber. In general, when the temp is low, more air gets forced into the firebox, and when the temp is high less air is forced. There might be some kind of a one-way "flapper" vent thing like what you have outside the house for your dryer, so that if the fan stops the flapper drops down and closes off the firebox so that no air gets into the firebox at all, which will cool a too-hot fire quickly and get things back to normal temps.
So I anticipate a lot of experimentation in terms of cubic feet per minute. Too much and you are blowing ash from the firebox all over the meat, so there will be a "hard" limit on CFM, therefore motor rpm, which will be a specific voltage (AC). So somewhere between "off" and "x" VAC are my parameters.
One thing I wonder if the fan should be either full-on or off, maybe high, medium, low, off, or totally analog.
Another benefit I imagine it will have, in addition to more consistent temperature and so therefore shorter cooking times, is that the wood will burn more efficiently, since the "highs" of the highs and lows consume more of the wood than is needed.
So that's the general idea. What I'm looking for, for my first prototype, is a basic electronic circuit, a temperature sensor and a fan.
The idea is a temperature regulated and controlled wood smoke barbeque. The basic design is what's called a "Texas Two-Stage" where you have one metal container for the burning wood and a second metal container affixed next to it for the meat. The smoke "flows" from the side where the firebox is through and across the meat and then vents out on the other side.
It's all about the brisquet.
In Texas, we do an apron steak, aka a "brisquet" which is a huge, 20 lb. slab of fatty and collagen-laced meat. The collagen makes the meat very, very tough to the point that it's inedible. To cook it you need to keep the meat at 225 deg. F. for about 10 hours. Some say 12. Personal preference comes into play here, but the primary reason for the extended cooking time is that it takes that long and that low of a temperature to break-down that collagen into fat, and so at the end of the cooking process you have a very tender slab of meat that is very moist due in part to the collagen breaking down into fat. (It's also very fatty to start with.)
The best way to do brisket is with wood, either oak, or mesquite or a combination of both. You can use any sweetwood like hickory, but in texas it's either oak or mesquite or both.
So the problem is maintaining a constant 225 deg. temperature in the cooking area using highly volatile wood. It's a constant, all day long affair of fiddling with air intake, and exhaust and not opening the lid of the meat, etc... You have to "fiddle" with it, constantly. And the temp falls to below 200, extending cooking time, or the temp soars to above 300 deg, which scorches the meat and degrades flavor, and it dries it out and sometimes there are fires due to the excess fat dripping off and catching on fire.
The solution, my solution, is to build a barbeque that has an electric fan, like one of those small squirrel cage fans you have in your bathroom's ceiling mounted "fart fan". The fan forces air into the firebox based on the temperature of the cooking chamber. In general, when the temp is low, more air gets forced into the firebox, and when the temp is high less air is forced. There might be some kind of a one-way "flapper" vent thing like what you have outside the house for your dryer, so that if the fan stops the flapper drops down and closes off the firebox so that no air gets into the firebox at all, which will cool a too-hot fire quickly and get things back to normal temps.
So I anticipate a lot of experimentation in terms of cubic feet per minute. Too much and you are blowing ash from the firebox all over the meat, so there will be a "hard" limit on CFM, therefore motor rpm, which will be a specific voltage (AC). So somewhere between "off" and "x" VAC are my parameters.
One thing I wonder if the fan should be either full-on or off, maybe high, medium, low, off, or totally analog.
Another benefit I imagine it will have, in addition to more consistent temperature and so therefore shorter cooking times, is that the wood will burn more efficiently, since the "highs" of the highs and lows consume more of the wood than is needed.
So that's the general idea. What I'm looking for, for my first prototype, is a basic electronic circuit, a temperature sensor and a fan.
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