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Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

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Re: Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

#51

Post by dekhn »

lambdaelite wrote: post #10

I love kamados, but if one is really concerned with temperature control I don't see how one could beat a water bath for cooking with a separate smoking step. Also, while interesting, that hyperboloid profile has significant disadvantages compared to the more traditional ovoid used by the BGE and clones: more difficult to manufacture, internal stresses, smaller cooking area, more weight, etc. Good engineering practice…

When Nathan Myhrvold visited Google and spoke, I asked him what he thought the "best" way to make BBQ ribs was (with a stretched definition for "BBQ"). He said: sous vide, arrest via dipping in liquid nitrogen, deep fry, then smoke.

Re: Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

#52

Post by feld »

tmuir wrote: post #39
el_benhameen wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to throw it up on github, I'd love to see the code that you're running. I'd understand if you want to avoid that if you're planning on commercializing it, though.

I'm an embedded developer, so this has been my first experience in HTML/CSS/JS/Websockets. Here's a general overview: The Python server periodically reads the thermocouple chip over SPI and sends a JSON object over the websocket with temperature and time data. The javascript websocket handler is a switch statement to parse the incoming JSON, which is data updates, log info, and graph data. Each button on the webpage…

why not bluetooth then and make a real app instead of a webpage?

Re: Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

#53

Post by buttproblem »

kwantam wrote: post #5

I wonder if they used the "Texas Crutch," i.e., wrapped the brisket in foil after ~4 hours. The upshot of the Texas Crutch technique is: after about 2 hours on the smoke, the internal temperature of a brisket will plateau for 6-8 hours before climbing toward its final temperature. According to experiments by Greg Blonder[0], this stall is caused by evaporative cooling: once the internal temperature reaches a point wh…

Nathan Myhrvold in Modernist Cusine writes about a similar technique. Sous vide first, followed by a brief time in the oven, and finished on a smoker. This seems to be the reverse of the crutch. (The oven is used to prime the meat for smoking and is apparently based on a German technique for making sausages.)

Of course if you cringe at wrapping your smoked food in foil you'll hate this way too. I'm also not sure if this is the technique he used to win his bbq medals, perhaps that's a secret.

Re: Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

#54

Post by lambdaelite »

dekhn wrote: post #51
lambdaelite wrote: post #10

I love kamados, but if one is really concerned with temperature control I don't see how one could beat a water bath for cooking with a separate smoking step. Also, while interesting, that hyperboloid profile has significant disadvantages compared to the more traditional ovoid used by the BGE and clones: more difficult to manufacture, internal stresses, smaller cooking area, more weight, etc. Good engineering practice…

When Nathan Myhrvold visited Google and spoke, I asked him what he thought the "best" way to make BBQ ribs was (with a stretched definition for "BBQ"). He said: sous vide, arrest via dipping in liquid nitrogen, deep fry, then smoke.

I'm so conflicted with Myhrvold: I hate Intellectual Ventures and what they do with the passion of a thousand suns, but Modernist Cuisine is an incredible and seminal work of art and science.

The modernist methods for BBQ do consistently produce a great que, but throwing a butt on an egg slow and low tastes just about as good and takes a lot less work.

Re: Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

#55

Post by dekhn »

lambdaelite wrote: post #54
dekhn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Nathan Myhrvold visited Google and spoke, I asked him what he thought the "best" way to make BBQ ribs was (with a stretched definition for "BBQ"). He said: sous vide, arrest via dipping in liquid nitrogen, deep fry, then smoke.

I'm so conflicted with Myhrvold: I hate Intellectual Ventures and what they do with the passion of a thousand suns, but Modernist Cuisine is an incredible and seminal work of art and science. The modernist methods for BBQ do consistently produce a great que, but throwing a butt on an egg slow and low tastes just about as good and takes a lot less work.

The other thing I asked him about was BBQ stall.

He had done some nice work providing evidence against the "it's just fat melting" theory (he prefers the idea there is water vapor around the meat, absorbing the heat). I suggested that one could wrap the butt in aluminum foil, which would eliminate the evaporation and cause much more of the low heat to stay within the body of the meat.

That would presumably affect the bark, which is why he suggested the deep fry, although I don't think that's really the same as a slow bark.

Re: Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

#56

Post by tptacek »

malnourish wrote: post #9
tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as the meat reaches ~130f, it's not going to absorb any more smoke.

Could you explain why? Is it a property of the meat?

I should be more careful in how I write comments. What I should have said was: a few Cooking Issues episodes ago, Dave Arnold talked to the head smoker guy at Underground Meats in Madison, who said something to the effect of: there's minimal penetration of smoke into meat after ~130f.

Re: Harvard engineering students devise BBQ smoker

#57

Post by [deleted] »

dbg31415 wrote: post #48

Somehow I suspect this would have turned out better if they were UT or A&M students. Oh wait... can we just put brisket Texas students make using tin foil and a crock pot up against the brisket made by the Harvard kids? I'm pretty sure talent and experience will triumph over technology.

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