Vertical Rotisserie Build


 
I'm loving following this post and its development. Kudos to your creativity and craftsmanship, Robert. I love the input and problemsolving in this community. Truly, some talented cooks and craftsmen working together here. I have a feeling the food coming off this spit will taste twice as good because of the effort put into it.
 
Robert-R said:
fwiw - after looking at the pix that ChuckO posted, I think the rotisserie is manual. I don't see a motor at all. That would make for a much easier build, although I'd sure hate to to use it like that.
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That is the case, they do manually rotate the cook and the reason being, the cook done over a long period of time. They typically put the food on the spit around 5PM and serve off it well into midnight. They'll face the towards the fire and when they receive an order, they turn the part that's been towards the fire out, and "chip away" at it. If no customers are present, they put a sheet of metal between the fire and the food, to slow / delay the cook. At Pepe's, they can serve off the cook as early as 10 to 15 minutes of it first being put on, by simply only using the part that faced the fire. I will admit, that for them, part of the appeal of eating there is watching the guy work the pit. He makes for great showmanship, chipping away in such a way that he sends the chunks flying, catching them in the taco. He'll do back spins, catch behind his back, even chip at people to catch the chunk in their mouths. It's really quite fun, especially after adult beverages have been consumed. It gets really fun around midnight when it's "body shot hour" but that's a discussion for a different forum :)
 
I saw this at lunch today so I snapped a picture just for fun.

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ChuckO said:
That is the case, they do manually rotate the cook and the reason being, the cook done over a long period of time. They typically put the food on the spit around 5PM and serve off it well into midnight. They'll face the towards the fire and when they receive an order, they turn the part that's been towards the fire out, and "chip away" at it. If no customers are present, they put a sheet of metal between the fire and the food, to slow / delay the cook. At Pepe's, they can serve off the cook as early as 10 to 15 minutes of it first being put on, by simply only using the part that faced the fire. I will admit, that for them, part of the appeal of eating there is watching the guy work the pit. He makes for great showmanship, chipping away in such a way that he sends the chunks flying, catching them in the taco. He'll do back spins, catch behind his back, even chip at people to catch the chunk in their mouths. It's really quite fun, especially after adult beverages have been consumed. It gets really fun around midnight when it's "body shot hour" but that's a discussion for a different forum :)
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Thanks, Chuck. Good info & even better story!
 
Robert-R said:
Thanks. I'm think Chuck was correct when he made the observation that the one I'm building is too deep.
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No way! Yours will hold smoke and heat better, won't have to be dialed in as perfectly, and will probably be more efficient.
 
I loaded the bottom basket with RO lump & fired it up:

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Temps were in the 250 - 280* range within 15 minutes. However the coals were almost gone 45 minutes late.
Feeding the cooker lump would be problematic unless I redo the back of it and make one large slot.

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Not much ash:

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I think I'll try some K Lump briquettes - they might burn longer. Not sure where I could get RO Lump briquettes around here.

Found a few small rocks, small pieces of concrete & stucco in the ash during clean-up.
 
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I bet anything other than solid hardwood sticks would burn really quickly in that, you'll have to find a way to cut the air flow. I wonder if you covered a majority of the front with a thin piece of steel? Might have to have the baskets mainly solid to do that.............
 
So howz' this coming along? I'm ready to drive down and have some Tacos Al Pastor, I'll bring the drinks :)
 
It's being revised. Am going to use a rocket stove as the heat source. Should solve several issues with fire management: ease of adding fuel, maintaining cooking temps, clean burning/hot fire & ash accumulation/removal. Got the metal for the stove yesterday.

I'm remodeling the Queendom (quilting room) and would risk life & limb if I get sidetracked. Might be a while.
 
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Robert-R said:
It's being revised. Am going to use a rocket stove as the heat source. Should solve several issues with fire management: ease of adding fuel, maintaining cooking temps, clean burning/hot fire & ash accumulation/removal. Got the metal for the stove yesterday.

I'm remodeling the Queendom (quilting room) and would risk life & limb if I get sidetracked. Might be a while.
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Did you ever end up trying this? I had an idea to use a rocket stove by taking the inside vertical face of the chimney and replacing it with a diamond grate to allow flames and heat through, but am unsure if this would mess with the airflow of the chimney too much. Haven’t had any time to actually build anything to test yet though.
 
Trevor.Dobrinska said:
Did you ever end up trying this? I had an idea to use a rocket stove by taking the inside vertical face of the chimney and replacing it with a diamond grate to allow flames and heat through, but am unsure if this would mess with the airflow of the chimney too much. Haven’t had any time to actually build anything to test yet though.
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No, I didn't. It ended up being a stick burner. Works well.

I made a rocket stove & gave it to my daughter & her husband. We did some cooks on it while visiting them this fall. As such, I wouldn't remove a face of the chimney & attempt to use it that way. You could possibly angle the chimney into the rotisserie unit. However, I think the rocket stove would have to be lower than the cooker - so that means a two story build. iirc - the chimney on the rocket stove has to be 1 1/2 times (maybe more) the length of the intake or it won't draft properly.
 
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