In certain parts of the world, cooking meat in a regionally-specific way is a critical part of the local culture. From barbeque in the American south to boerewors and braaivleis in South Africa to Montréal smoked meat in French Canada, almost every location has its cookout specialty. So much so that various manufacturers of the tools used for these foods include all kinds of gadgets to monitor the sometimes days-long process of cooking various cuts of meat. [megamarco833]’s smoker, though, includes some tools of his own design.
The smoker is made by a company called Pitboss and includes a rotary switch and control board for maintaining a precise temperature in the smoker. The switch works by changing the voltage value sent to a small microcontroller. By interfacing an ESP32 to this switch, [megamarco833] can remotely change the smoke level and temperature of the smoker. On the software side, it uses a combination of Node-RED and Domoticz to handle the automation and control.
For a cookout that can last hours (if not days) a remotely accessible smoker like this is an invaluable tool if you want to do something other than manually monitor the temperature of your meat for that much time. And, if your barbeque grill or smoker of choice doesn’t already have an embedded control board of some type, we’ve seen analog cooking tools adapted to much the same purpose as this one.
Thanks to [Peter] who sent in the tip and also helped [megamarco833] with the reverse-engineering of the control board!
“For a cookout that can last hours (if not days) a remotely accessible smoker like this is an invaluable tool if you want to do something other than manually monitor the temperature of your meat for that much time.”
I don’t know. Seems like the perfect thing to grab a few beers and shoot the proverbial s**t with whoever shows up to enjoy the time and food with you. The drinking part especially make the time it takes to cook worth it. It’s about doing something you enjoy while you wait for something else you also enjoy to be ready.
Not against that hack. I too have a similar setup. But usually when I am up to the waiting around, I’ll just let the cooking happen overnight. It’s perfection really, 3 hour in the smoker outside, wrap in foil, set oven to correct temperature, cook overnight, then another 1/2 hour to 1 hour in the smoke again in the AM if desired, but usually not needed. This is how I do my dino style ribs, overnight on sunday, enough to last for lunch all week long.
My smoker holds temp better than an oven. No fancy electronics needed if you start with a quality smoker and a good bed of coals.
24-48 hours of (eager) child labor got it done when i was young ;)
No electronics (ok, maybe flashlight at night), small fireplace, long underground tunnel to cool smoke down, 200L metal barrel with wire trays for stuff that you smoked. 20+ Kg cold-smoked meat in weekend.
Unfortunately not possible in urban setting ..
Fun times “camping” with my cousin in sauna ~200m away from main house, swapping ghost stories, playing cards and checking smoking station every now and then. Who needs a sleep at age 12!