The HeaterMeter.

I’m a tinkerer; I always have been. I’ve always had a curiosity to know how things worked. I took bolts out of my crib when I was still crawling. I took apart toys, sometimes by force. As I got older, I took apart radios and electronics. Eventually, I even learned how to put things back together. This curiosity has followed me into adulthood, so now when I run into a snag, I’m sure, there is a way to make it easier or better.

This curiosity has followed me into adulthood, so now when I run into a snag, I’m sure there’s a way to make it easier or better.

When I get the chance, I like to cook food in my smoker. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but other people enjoy the results. My smoker isn’t a professional version with perfect seals and temperature control, and I like to smoke with real wood and charcoal. Unfortunately, this means that I spend a lot of time adjusting, tweaking, and monitoring. Letting the smoker sit unattended for 30 minutes can result in big changes in temperature which has a serious impact on the taste of the food. I knew there had to be a way to make it better.

Letting the smoker sit unattended for 30 minutes can result in big changes in temperature which has a serious impact on the taste of the food. I knew there had to be a way to make it better.

I’ve learned a lot over the years about the Internet of Things (IOT) and have done several learning projects with Arduino and Raspberry Pi. For those of you that aren’t familiar with those terms, they’re basically hardware and software solutions that can make things happen.

My goal was to create a temperature station that could monitor the meat and smoker temperature to put it on a website in real-time. It seemed simple enough for my first real project. However, I tried and failed for weeks to even get an accurate temperature reading.

Through my research, I found a group of people that are way smarter than me that had already solved my problem and then some.

The people over at HeaterMeter (https://github.com/CapnBry/HeaterMeter) have already solved the problem with an accurate temperature sensor with the ability to publish it to a web page. They also included some handy code to control the temperature of the smoker.

Since the software is open source, anyone can use and contribute to the project. It also solved my desire to build something.

After buying all of the components, I sat down at my kitchen table to get to work soldering and programming. Within a few hours, I had created a working monitoring system.

It took several weeks of tweaking and lots of changes for the system to be where I wanted it, but it’s the only way I smoke now. It can monitor three different pieces of meat, the temperature of the smoke, and can maintain the heat without me having to intervene every ten minutes. If I need to run to the store, I can even see the temperature from my mobile phone.

Now I’m looking for my next project. I’m not sure yet what that is, but the tinkerer in me is always looking. Now if I could just find the perfect rub…