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Carolyn Y. Johnson reports at the Boston Globe that a 16-person team at Harvard has solved one of the toughest problems in the field of food preparation: How to build a foolproof smoker that can repeatedly produce the perfect brisket, to be judged on texture, taste, and appearance. Tested by countless computer simulations of virtual brisket smoking, nearly two dozen weekend smoking sessions — often in snow or sub-zero temperatures — and 220 pounds of meat, the smoker is a rigorous, data-driven tool for making a feast. Making a perfectly smoked piece of meat may seem to be as far as you can get from an engineering conundrum, but engineering professor Kevin Kit Parker saw it as a problem that required a deep understanding of chemistry, heat transfer, materials science, prototyping, and solving problems. According to Parker, Barbecue has been a veritable Wild West in which pit masters build mishmash setups that incorporate garbage cans, cinder blocks, a giant rotisserie. “They are the biggest contraptions and pieces of junk you’ve ever seen,” says Parker. “Everyone had their own little mojo they brought to the problem.”
In the end, the secret was to precisely control the temperature both in the smoker and in the meat over the “low and slow” smoke. They had to keep the meat below 120 degrees long enough to let the enzymes in the meat break down the collagen and make it tender; they wanted the smoker’s shape to cause “cyclonic airflow,” meaning the smoke would circulate down toward the brisket. While the wood would burn at 700 degrees, the meat would gradually rise over a 15-hour period to about 190 degrees. The class settled on a material — ceramic — and a shape that resembles a cooling tower at a power plant. The design solved one of the big problems with the commercial smoker they used, by eliminating hot spots where the meat might cook too quickly and dry out. They built an app that would allow cooks to monitor the conditions inside the smoker and share their experiences through social media. How to measure success? "They look for perfectly cooked brisket to take on a mahogany hue," says Johnson. "When sliced, there should be a slightly pink section around the edge, called the smoke ring. The meat must be tender, but not falling apart." “They’ve gone from basic science," says Patrick Connolly, chief strategy officer for Williams-Sonoma, who plans to bring the design back to the company’s leaders, "to really understanding how you optimize for flavor and texture."
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @01:56PM
The issue of police brutality is a serious one. Nobody is doubting that.
The problem with gewg_'s submissions on the topic is that he always refers to questionable sources that just don't look like they can be trusted. Many times they're outfits with a very obvious bias with respect to what's being reported on.
If he could provide legitimate references to sources who are independent, or who at least try to remain as objective as they practically can, then his submissions would be okay. But he never does this.
The way the Michael Brown incident was reported here is a great example of how gewg_-style submissions are very harmful. At first that incident was allegedly all about "police brutality", but it quickly became obvious that it was anything but that. Michael Brown physically attacked a store clerk just prior to physically attacking Officer Wilson. Officer Wilson very reasonably defended himself against a violent, close-range attacker who tried to take his service pistol. It was clearly not a case of "police brutality". Yet the reporting here was atrocious, and incorrectly suggested that it was.
We can't properly discuss police brutality here if we keep getting these rottenly low-quality submissions from gewg_. We need to focus on the facts, not on his emotionally-charged rage-mongering.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Sunday May 10 2015, @02:50AM
SoylentNews is a user-driven discussion, not a reporting site. Opinions are going to be part of the submissions and stories that are run. Feel free to provide your own stories if you are unhappy with the ones The Mighty Gewg is providing, but it seems like he's providing a noticeable percent of the stories received.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]