First let me preface this by saying, while I can weld and am reasonably handy, I am by no means an electrical engineer, nor am I qualified to be one's note taker so any recommendations need to be relatively simple to construct, electrically speaking, if at all possible.......lower cost solutions would be preferred as well.

That said, I want to deal with at least one and probably both of two BBQ variations. I have what I would call a standard type ranch BBQ cooker, that is, the cooking section is about 8 feet long and about 3 feet in diameter, with two lids, removable racks and a smokestack on one end and the fire box in a separate compartment on the other end, so you heat on one end, smoke/cook in the middle, and exhaust on the other. We currently cook quite a bit of wild pig, deer ribs, brisket etc in this cooker and it works well for a "standard" BBQ smoker type use with the meat on racks.

I want to be able to run a spit through the middle of this cooker and rotate (after removing the racks obviously) a whole smaller pig or other meats (multiple chickens, lamb, goat) inside of it for cooking. My problem is, how do I gear down or whatever an electrical motor that will turn this spit SLOWLY with say up to 50 pounds of meat on it? Obviously the spit has to have some type of pulley arrangement on one end and the motor has to be able to turn the loaded spit SLOWLY for hours on end. What HP motor would I need? We have electricity available on site, but 110 is all we are wired for at this time.

The second situation is basically the same thing but I want to be able to turn say a medium sized calf or a bigger hog over an open fire, so I would have to construct a couple of forks to hold the spit, with or without bearings and it would probably need to be a heavier duty set up than the pit rotisserie because of greater weight of the subject meat.

Any ideas or help would be appreciated. I know this isn't rocket science and has been done many times before, but I don't know how to do it, so I'm asking.

To go from ~ 1750 rpm to SLOW you need a worm gear. That's all I know !!

I learn quick - you need a "gear motor" which is a motor with gear box attached .Look for used or new one . Should be readily available.1/2 HP is all you need becasue of the reduction. Use something like a 1" dia stainless steel pipe.

MagicCater used to make a rotissiere motor and shaft that might meet your needs. I had one at a Culinary school I taught at, it could turn 6-25 pound turkeys without too much strain.You can find Magic Cater on the web, or contact your local restaurant supply house.

mete:

Thanks for the help and I may still go the home made route, it just seems to me I should be able to put something together a bit cheaper (see below) and it might have a bigger "satisfaction" quotient having made it yourself. It was interesting to note that even the biggest units used a 1/4 HP gear motor set up for direct drive. OTOH.....

saxon:

Thanks for the tip....after considerable searching, I finally found ONE price for the Magicater rotisserie 60 inch unit and delivered it would be over $600, whether a better prices is available would take some more searching and calling. Magicater looks like it has some really nice and high quality units, that, to be frank, I never heard of them before, but I'm not sure how universal the rotisserie would be. While searching for that I came up EZ Que their site and while more expensive they seem to have the size and universality in some items that I might need. I'm thinking on it.

I saw something just right for you on TV last night . A bicycle powered rotisserie. Sit on the bike, pedal away and the roast turns round !!!

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
I saw something just right for you on TV last night . A bicycle powered rotisserie. Sit on the bike, pedal away and the roast turns round !!!

Great idea! Do you think we can patent it?

OTOH, an electrically driven bicycle wheel small gear sprocket connected to a very big rotisserie drive sprocket might work.....hmmmmmm.....

I've been waiting for the oportunity to reveal this and this is probably as close as I'm going to get....while in NY a year or so back for an auction, I visited the less reknown Museum of Sex, just so I could say, "been there, bought the coffee cup." It was fairly mundane but among the contraptions they had on display was a stationary tricycle that was designed for women......pedal it and a moveable gear driven "thingy" would pleasure the rider, without getting too anatomically specific. I wonder if the patent has expired?

go to ebay and browse "rotisserie".. there'll be several of the little electric motor drive boxes with the square drive and the spit rods.. when i checked about 10 minutes ago, i found 2 for less than $10.... kinda cheap for even a rube-goldberg type contraption...

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
I saw something just right for you on TV last night . A bicycle powered rotisserie. Sit on the bike, pedal away and the roast turns round !!!

Great idea! Do you think we can patent it?

OTOH, an electrically driven bicycle wheel small gear sprocket connected to a very big rotisserie drive sprocket might work.....hmmmmmm.....

A friends set up with a 1/3 horse motor and a bike chain/sprockets turning a spit. His spit is 1/2" pipe and the grill is 72" long. It does several whole hogs a year [1 at a time]. Gianni

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/1LNG2 try this one from grainger

They are big on rotisserie cooking in the Balkans. Portable spits are generally driven by windshield wiper motors.