High Heat Cooking???


 
R

RalphTrimble

TVWBB Diamond Member
One of the things that I was really looking forward to when I was building my Heater Meter was cooking pizza's in my Kamado grill. (which I didn't own yet at the time...) Recently I got my first Kamado grill, or as I call it, the FauxMado, because it is the Char Griller Kamado Kooker which is made with an insulated steel shell rather than being a real Kamado. At any rate, this thing can get HOT and will definitely cook some pizzas!

I've been quite disappointed, however, because I have been unable to use the Heater Meter for my high heat pizza cooks. I bought two Maverick High Heat probes, melted the first one inside the grill, melted the second one while it was just dangling inside the top vent (the probe was inserted up to the round part, the braided wire was completely outside of the cooker). After melting the second probe I gave up and have been cooking pizza's without the Heater Meter.

I would really like to get setup were I can use the Heater Meter to regulate my high temp cooks as well as low and slow cooks cause I think it would help the grill recover temps faster and keep the temperature from creeping upward (while I am eating the first pizza and not paying attention!). I plan on having a "Pizza-Palooza" soon and it would be nice if the grill would mind itself while I do the pizza prep, and I would also like to show off my Heater Meter to everyone in the process...

I am wondering if there are any better probes that can be used with the Heater Meter that could handle pizza oven temps without melting? Or perhaps another method I could use to accomplish this goal? I had thought of making a metal mount that would extend into the top grill vent that would clip to a maverick probe (with the probe completely outside of the grill), then set an offset for that probe to calibrate with the actual internal temps of the grill. This seems like it would work, but would probably be pretty inaccurate I would think?

So I decided to start this thread to ask the Heater Meter developers and users for ideas how I might go about accomplishing my goal of regulating high temp cooks with the Heater Meter???

I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions... Thanks.
 
NADDA???

I can't be the only one wanting to use the Heater Meter in a Kamado for pizza cooking? I was hoping to at least get a few comments and/or suggestions....
 
Like I said, I already melted two Maverick "high heat" probes. The second one was just inserted in the top vent a few inches and still fried.... Thanks for the link, I will check it out and see if there is anything good posted there....

EDIT:
Unfortunately there isn't much on that link. Same old Maverick probes that melted on me. 716 degrees max is too close the cooking temp for pizza and so these probes can not be in the pit at all for pizza cooking or they will fail. This is a real bummer for me...
Perhaps my idea of using a metal insert in the pit that extends outside where the probe clips to and then use an offset in the config is the best/only option for high heat cooking with the Heater Meter at this point...
 
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How about using a high temp thermistor as a pit probe? The first one I found while searching has a range of -40 to 900 degrees Celsius, that's over 1650 degrees F.... I assume I would have to come up with the parameters to use with it, but it seems like this could work??? It even says common application is commercial oven temp sensor.... What do you think?

http://www.vishay.com/docs/29150/ntcv101e4964hmb0.pdf

It would be really nice if I could just mount this thermistor inside my kamado and leave it there.... 25 to 750 degrees in 10 seconds seems like nice response time.... Could also use one on my pizza stone, cause fine tuning the stone temp vs the oven temp is important for getting the crust done right in the same amount of time it takes to cook the top. The Heater Meter could be really useful in fine tuning pizza cooking if I can just get the high temp scenario nailed down...
 
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Thanks for pointing those out, seems like they would work as well. The 1000 degree F fiberglass lead wire is a plus... (while supplies last apparently, something about production being down on that wire)

I would like to give either the high temp thermistor I linked or one of these other units a try.... I am hoping Bryan will chime in and suggest which one looks like it would interface with the Heater Meter best?
 
I think making an lmremote with the necessary circuit would probably be the easiest to integrate. "All you have to do" is get something to read the thermocouple like described in the Adafruit tutorial. The chip she sells is a little expensive but when you get into the world of trying to pick just the right single supply rail-to-rail opamp that you'd need to approximate the same design yourself, you're better off using something pre-made. I've got a side project to use 4 strain gauges to measure weight (to calculate volume) and I've bought $20-$30 worth of non-optimal opamps already and still don't have a prototype that works as well as I'd like.

Just that board, an atmega ($4), a boost converter to get it to run off a couple AA batteries ($3) (or 4 AAs and a LDO), and a probe like this good up to 900F. They also have probes good up to 2000F if you think you can get your pizza oven that hot.

The only problem is that now that I think about it, the ITPlus RF protocol is only good up to 69.9C for a raw temperature transmit so you'd have to use the HeaterMeter transmit mode, which uses the 12 bits as an ADC value to get calculated back on the HeaterMeter. That could give you up to 1024C in 0.25C resolution if you work the math out correctly.
 
Mark, I've got a gun for measuring the temp of the stone, but that doesn't help me get the Heater Meter to regulate the temp of the grill. I've cooked a single pizza a few times and it worked out good, but the other night I cooked 4 pizza's and found the temp in the grill and on the stone crept up a bit too high for my liking. The first pizza had the crust and the top both done perfect, by the time I did the last one the crust was over done and the top was under done.
Like I said in my original post, I would like the Heater Meter to control the grill so it doesn't creep up while I am prepping the pizza's, and I just want to use the thing.... At this point using the gun I can pretty much tell when the crust is gonna cook too fast and I would like to use the Heater Meter to stabilize the grill temp so that doesn't happen...
 
Bryan, Thanks for the explanation, doesn't sound like the easiest thing in the world to accomplish....

What do you think about using one of the thermistors that Alan or I linked instead? Do any of them look like they would work well with the Heater Meter? I was thinking of buying one of them and permanently mounting it inside my kamado lid, what do you think? The ones Alan linked are good for 1000 degrees F and the one I found is good for 1500 degrees F. That should be plenty of range, I was hoping you would comment on them and suggest which one might be the best to try with the heater meter? They aren't cheap but not expensive either, at about $25 each. I would like to experiment with them but was hoping to choose the right one the first time....
 
The resistive devices that Alan linked are RTD sensors. They're like thermistors except they have a linear temperature to resistance line instead of log curves. The problem is that that resistance is about 0.003925 ohms per degree C. That's on the order of 1/1000th the change in the thermistors we're currently using. As you can imagine, detecting changes that small requires very precise regulation and amplification which means you're back to our old friend the opamp.

The circuit isn't too complicated, just like the thermocouple version. One opamp to adjust the offset to subtract the lowest voltage of the output in the temperature range you want to measure. One opamp to ampilfy everything above that to scale it into the range of the ADC. If you had everything tuned to maximum theoretical perfection, that would give you a range of 32F to 1000F with roughly 1F precision. Opamps usually can't swing rail-to-rail though, unless you're willing to pay a small fortune for them, so you'd be lucky to get half of that practically.
 
That probably could work but how are you going to attach it to wires, considering regular 60/40 solder melts at 375F? Also you'd need to find wire with insulation that are rated for that temperature.
 
A crimp connection will work fine I think, like the thermistor on the hotend of a 3D printer, or just solid wires wrapped together old school electrician style. As for wire, if I get the thermistor working with the Heater Meter well I may drill through my Kamado shell (its a double metal shell with insulation between) and just poke the thermistor into the inside. This would keep the wires outside the grill and should work fine I would think... I could also just use the hole that is already there for the thermometer that is built in the grill. Or I could just dangle the thermistor in the top vent by the lead wire and keep the rest of the wire out of the grill....

If I decide not to drill through the shell (or you have a real ceramic kamado) perhaps solid (non insulated) wires could be pushed through a section of the felt/nomex gasket (which would keep then isolated), the wires could extend inside and outside of the grill a bit, inside they crimp to the thermistor outside they crimp to the lead wire. Hopefully a bit if wire outside of the cooker will to let it cool enough to attach a lead wire to it without melting. If the probe wires short out the only thing bad that will happen is you get no temp reading, right? Or will it burn something up inside the Heater Meter?

So do you think that Vishay thermistor is the best one to give a shot?
 
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Oh yeah crimp connectors, good point.

I can't say if that thermistor is the best but it does appear it will work. The default 10k bias resistor in HeaterMeter will center the linearity somewhere around 200C, which is probably just about where you need it too.
 
Thanks again for your input. I had thought at first I would find many other high temp thermistors since I found that Vishay so fast, but so far that's the only one I have found other than what Alan linked. I'm gonna check Digikey and search Mouser one more time, if I don't find any other options I will order one of these and give it a try....

If it works I think bare solid wire pushed through the gasket of a BGE should work for the high temp connection, I will probably drill and permanently install it in my FauxMado if it works out. I like the idea of having the temp sensor permanently mounted in my grill in the same exact spot, once I get used to it that should help me get more consistent cooks I would think....
 
Yeah permanent mounting would be great. Especially if you mount it on the back side of the dome, then you wouldn't ever have to worry about the wire getting in the way when you open the lid. The big scientific question is where to mount it to get the most accurate reading, closer to the top or closer to the grill.

EDIT: Whoa! Just saw that sucker is $25. Really hope it works great!
 
Yah, that's why I kinda wanted to make sure it was a good choice before I ordered. Unfortunately I just noticed it is out of stock and says it will be months before it is available... but who knows with Mouser, things come in and out of stock regularly... I sent an email to Vishay sales asking if they could sell me one or send me a "sample", lets see what they have to say about it....

If the thing will work well for the full range of cook temps including very high heat I would be glad to shell out the $$ for it, I already burned up $30 worth of Maverick "high heat" probes so this would have been a cheaper route if it works and dont burn up... I think if anything this thing should last, cause it says it has has long lifetime stability at 900C! WOW
 
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