This morning I spotted on Wired that a group of Harvard students have created a fantastic looking Raspberry Pi BBQ! Now I come a lot of cool projects, but I think this one is is my top 5 (considering my love of BBQ food!).

The Ultimate Raspberry Pi BBQ System! Developed by a team at Harvard

The machine is the perfect Brisket smoker. The Harvard students ran many computer simulations before actually cooking the meat.

The Raspberry Pi here is used to help control the temperature inside of the smoker. Combined with software, this is the biggest difference compared to traditional smokers. The Raspberry Pi is connected to fans, and a PID controller. If you see the diagram below, the smoker works like this. The heat gradually rises until the temperature on the surface of the meat reaches 225 degrees. Once this happens, the fan starts up and works to maintain the 225 degree temperature for hours.

A Raspberry Pi BBQ Smoker – How It Works

The students even developed an app that provides users with the real time temperature and also works with you through the cooking process, recommending what you should do. They even added a variety of recipes and the best bit, it will automatically change its controls for the type and weight of meat.

They even want to look into commercialising the product as a business venture. I hope they do as a Raspberry Pi BBQ smoker is something I’d definitely purchase!