Smoking brisket is a commitment. We're talking 14+ hours of low and slow cooking, and temperature control is everything. A 10-degree swing can mean the difference between melt-in-yer-mouth perfection and a very expensive bit of leather.

So naturally, I built a monitoring system.

The Hardware

Four K-type thermocouples at different points in the smoker (two in the meat, two ambient), connected tae a MAX31855 amplifier board, all feeding intae a Raspberry Pi 4. The Pi runs a wee dashboard I built in Python with Flask and Chart.js โ€” live temperature graphs, alerts if anything drops out of range, the full works.

The Software

Data logs tae a SQLite database every 30 seconds. I can pull up the full cook history for any brisket I've ever done and compare them. Proper nerd behaviour, I know, but it helps dial in the perfect cook.

Bluetooth alerts tae ma phone mean I dinnae have tae sit outside in the Scottish drizzle watching a thermometer. Progress.

The Brisket

Oak and whisky barrel chips for the smoke. Salt and pepper bark, nothing fancy. 110ยฐC for 12 hours, wrap in butcher paper at the stall (around 74ยฐC internal), back on until 95ยฐC, then rest for two hours minimum. The IoT setup means I caught a temperature drop at 3am and sorted it before it ruined the cook. Worth every penny.