Comments on: CyberQ: a wireless meat-probe and BBQ thermostat

By: Greg Miller

Greg Miller — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:19:00 +0000

That’s neat, I’ll definitely look at that for the next generation of my temp controller setup.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 07:11:00 +0000

That sounds delicious and worth its metal.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 22:27:00 +0000

I think that it was a lobster mousse. It shouldn’t have been particularly acidic although it might have had a tiny bit of lemon juice in it.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 21:22:00 +0000

WTF?! Dissolved?! Were you eating acidic compounds again, Antinous?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Little discolored spots on the food where it had dissolved.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Like it melded with the food and got absorbed or did it rip off and you could see little flakes of foil on the food?

By: Teller

Teller — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Deeper reading reveals you are quite right. Best for low-temp charcoal bbq-ing and wood smokers; useless for grilling hot and fast. The fan keeps the charcoal temp mostly constant. Got it. Its featured remote access, however, eliminates the finest perk of grilling or bbq-ing – avoiding the in-laws and listening to the ball game.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:40:00 +0000

It depends on what else you have in there. Antonius, I’m willing to bet you had tomatoes or some other highly acidic (or base, for that matter) food in contact with the foil.

But if you’re concerned about plastics leaching you should be aware that there is a decent chance of aluminum doing the same thing. It’s more a concern in the water supply of homes at this point, as tap water seems to take it on easier, but if you’re going to be paranoid, don’t stop halfway.

By: bbqbob11

bbqbob11 — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:55:00 +0000

These controls are for charcoal smokers and grills

By: bbqbob11

bbqbob11 — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:54:00 +0000

This malware issue has been fixed. We took care of it right away.

By: bbqbob11

bbqbob11 — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:51:00 +0000

Any Charcoal, wood or electric smoker or grill

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:58:00 +0000

I remember covering something with aluminum foil, leaving it in the fridge for a day and found holes in the foil where was contact.

By: bolamig

bolamig — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:47:00 +0000

Need the wifi-enabled Son 2.0 for seamless dynamic loading of the fuel.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 04:04:00 +0000

Is cooking with aluminum foil really that bad if you don’t burn it? I’ve never tasted anything using foil and I just checked Mayo Clinic on aluminum and they just mention it in a recipe to wrap around some fish to cook.

I found one link to one study here: http://www.7daysindubai.com/Link-aluminium-foil-Alzheimer-s/story-16079164-detail/story.html

But nothing else from any reputable sources saying that aluminum foil leeches into food in any significant amount to be dangerous.

Do you have more info on this? I’m finding some flakey sources online saying it might be bad, but nothing reliable. Like to see some solid studies on this.

By: RJ

RJ — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 02:03:00 +0000

Alternatively, you could just learn how to run a smoker.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 01:58:00 +0000

We roll with an electric kettle, which uses a lot less heat than our oven. Plastic bags are about as bad as the aluminum that’s leeching into your fish, so it’s kind of a push on that one.

Seriously though, sous vide is much easier than I thought it would ever be, I was really impressed at how much more time I had for other things.

By: DreadJester

DreadJester — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:27:00 +0000

Well if it’s got a fan then call me impressed! And if it keeps the temp like you say it does Bill then it’s probably worth every penny. Have to remember this when the warrantee runs out on my son. He only came with an 18 year /5,000 lecture warrantee and it’s about to run out in 2 years.

By: noggin

noggin — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, definitely don’t use boiling water, as Bill B points out. You want the temp of the water to be at the ‘done’ temperature of the meat. For fish, ~145F. While it might be tempting to try this in a large pot of water stuck in an oven (mine will do 140, so of course, I tried this with pork chops) practically all ovens have dumb thermostats (not PID control loops) and so can’t reliably keep the food at the desired temp for long periods. Not a problem if you are only talking a couple of hours of holding, since most food remains safe for a couple of hours below 140, but after that, the risks of food-born illness outweigh the benefits.

I know some people use ziplocks instead of a vacuum, but there are similar risks if you have air bubbles. Not saying don’t do it that way, just saying there is a greater risk of air insulating the meat and not having a safe meal.

Starting with frozen fish would also be a bad idea without a PID loop system to compensate for the cooling effect that would have on the water, again, resulting in unsafe cooking.Sounds like a lot of trouble, but done right, the fish will taste great since the plastic chemicals that leach out those temps are flavorless.

By: noggin

noggin — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 23:29:00 +0000

Thanks for the tip. Looks exactly like what I had in mind. It’ll save me a lot of time.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 23:06:00 +0000

Did you forget a comma?

By: Bill Bumgarner

Bill Bumgarner — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:51:00 +0000

It controls a fan and, thus, keeps the pit temperature at whatever you set while simultaneously allowing you to monitor food internal temps, too.

I.e. it is not passive.

By: Bill Bumgarner

Bill Bumgarner — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:50:00 +0000

Use zip-loc bags. They are temperature stable to 230ºF. Boiling water in the cooler is way way too hot, especially for fish.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html

http://www.tinyurbankitchen.com/2010/05/sous-vide-salmon-in-magic-cooker.html

By: nox

nox — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:29:00 +0000

What kind of pit does this control? I got the much cheaper/simpler Maverick, and it's one of my favorite BBQ/oven tools now.

By: nox

nox — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:29:00 +0000

Get out.

By: Ted Brzinski

Ted Brzinski — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:17:00 +0000

My friends and I have been hacking together smokers for the past couple of summers, and one of my co-BBQers just put together a 3-probe temperature monitor (pit, 2 x meat) with an Arduino. It took him about a month of fiddling in his spare time, and he’s spent about a third of what units like this usually run (once you count probes, etc). He’d never even soldered before this past year, and is still mildly intimidated by the electronics, but handling the arduino was painless, as he’s a programmer by trade, so if you start out with half the prerequisite skillset, the internet, and the will, it’s a fun, and not overwhelming DIY project. I think our next steps are going to be adding temperature control and bluetooth/wifi monitoring to our current smoker.

By: jklett

jklett — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 22:06:00 +0000

Go vegan!

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:53:00 +0000

I’m sure there’s something you do enjoy that others might find tedious.

Yes, apparently cooking salmon in an oven instead of boiling it in a plastic bag.

Well, by that reasoning, I could claim that’s why I like restaurants even more.

Not really, it takes much longer to do that, it’s far more expensive and god only knows how clean anything is or if the salmon is truly wild or replaced with a farm-raised switcheroo.

If you really wanted to celebrate a lack of work on your part, you’d get into sous vide and fill a cooler with boiling water, stick your fish in a ziplock and call it a day without heating up your kitchen

I’d like to see you boil water without heat. :D But, thanks for the tip! I’m going to try it! But, I have to wonder how good something tastes after it’s been boiling in a plastic bag that’s leeching its chemicals into the water/fish?

By: Chris Duggan

Chris Duggan — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:52:00 +0000

You guys should check out the heatermeter. Arduino based, but you can stick it in any openwrt suported router and have web-based display and control.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:35:00 +0000

Thinking about it, defending oneself from local hoodlums trying to steal my beef.

By: mccrum

mccrum — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Well, by that reasoning, I could claim that’s why I like restaurants even more. But I’m sure there’s something you do enjoy that others might find tedious.

Grilling in general does not require this stuff. However, this is specialized gear for specific cooking purposes like a 24 hour pulled pork.

If you really wanted to celebrate a lack of work on your part, you’d get into sous vide and fill a cooler with boiling water, stick your fish in a ziplock and call it a day without heating up your kitchen.