DIY Friday: Tech Grilling

Memorial Day Weekend Edition

In preparation for this weekend’s festivities, we bring you three Do-It-Yourself BBQ ideas—from the useful to the absurd.

Can-in-Can Grill

Originally designed as an efficient wood stove for developing countries (see: Vesto Stove), one DIY’er pulls together a similar version using household trash: 2 empty paint cans of differing sizes and a handful of rivets.

The complete step-by-step directions for this high-efficiency BBQ are here but the process is remarkably simple.

  1. Find two paint cans, one slightly smaller than the other—providing enough space to create an air chamber that will pre-heat the incoming air to increase the efficiency of the fire.
  2. Drill vent holes on the sides.
  3. Construct a top that the small can can be mounted to, allowing for an air chamber below the smaller can but within the larger can. This is done by taking the larger can’s lid, cutting out an inner circle about an inch smaller than the dimensions of the smaller can, then folding-in the excess material to attach the smaller can to.

A grill with an IP-Address

Rock’s BBQ has developed a piece of hardware that will monitor the temperature of your grill or smoker, including a probe to monitor the temperature of your meat. The hardware connects to fan that can throttle the temperature to your desired level. But what if you are slow smoking a pork leg for 17 hours and need to go to work?

Simple: monitor the BBQ "vitals" on the Internet. The "Stroker" has a built-in ethernet connection and web server that lets you control your grill from anywhere you have Internet access (see: large image).

Since this is DIY-Friday, try connecting the Stroker to a homemade smoker built from an inexpensive terracotta flower pot. Directions on building the pot-smoker are here and you can learn how to get your pot "online" here.

Now for the absurd: a USB BBQ

For the nerdiest of carnivores: by connecting 30 USB cords to a hotplate you can grill without ever needing to leave your desk or cubicle! The complete directions are in Japanese but you can read the translated page. And if you can stomach it, check out the video.

One Comment

  • noyon says:

    Originally designed as an efficient wood stove for developing countries.
    its very useful, i can see>”cubicle hardware” “Mail (will not be published) (required)” “recent comments” “powered by wordpress” “Mail (will not be published) (required)” “recent comments”site:.com “Mail (will not be published) (required)” “recent comments”