Raise/Lower BBQ Grill - designs?

[Whiskeymike]

I'm looking to make a gaucho/wagon wheel grill where you raise/lower the grill from the fire and wondering if anyone has seen blacksmithing designs for the ratcheting portion.  It would be similar to these parts, but I'd like to stay fairly authentic.

So if someone know of a 1800's/early 1900's reference material to such a thing, I'd appreciate a pointer.  

Edited June 11, 2019 by Mod30
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[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I've heard them called a Santa Maria mechanism. Might do a google search for them.

[SmoothBore]

I'm doubtful that there ARE any "authentic" examples.

Barbecue grills are very much a "mid-century" American affectation, whose popularity was directly influenced by the surplus of commercially made charcoal briquettes..

A "Brazier" is a much older, more widely distributed system.

 

 

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[ThomasPowers]

Well the "fancy" onces certainly were,  Open fire cooking as done in the 1880's and 1890's at Chuckwagons in the American West tend to be simply made and contrived of local materials.

Can you show us a picture of what you are trying for?  Most of my historical cooking books tend towards the medieval and renaissance...But I have run into a bunch of books on the "Cowboy" period in the US recently.

I've never seen an example of the multiple grates mounted on two wheels in the field so to speak.

[Whiskeymike]

Perhaps this is a modern invention with no roots to the past.  I found this when searching - 

 

But I don't see any ratchet.  It seems to be a pin in his hand that just inserts to stop the wheel.    it also looks like something made from previous parts, but not in the pioneer period.  

I assumed there was similar mechanisms used in fireplaces, but perhaps they were all trammel hooks or a form of it.  

[Les L]

The ones I have seen did not have a ratcheting mechanism, the chain just wrapped around the cross pipe and the crank had a lock to prevent turning 

[Frosty]

I've always seen chain over an axle as pictured above with a lock pin. If a rancher or farmer were making one I wouldn't be surprised to see almost anything used to lock the axle shaft.

As a kid I recall dimly a BBQ in a masonry pit that had handles requiring a person on both ends to lift or lower it. I don't recall how it was held in position but I was pretty young. I do recall there wasn't a chain crane mechanism though, nothing above the pit.

I'm not much help but look forward to what you find.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Whiskeymike]

Much appreciated folks.  

[BillyBones]

There is a web sit that i like to look at from time to time called "instructables". Believe it or not but last weekend they had one on an adjustable height grill. A quick look and i could not find it again, of course.

Charcoal briquettes were first made becuase Henry ford had a huge pile of scrap lumber. The lumber was the cuts from the wood used to make the floor boards in the old Ford's. Henry's brother took those pieces, ground them to dust, mixed in a little coal dust and voila Kingsford charcoal was born. 

[Frosty]

Close on the origin of briquettes but Henry was using the crates parts came in for floor boards and truck decks he often shipped extra back to the supplier for a break in price.

The huge piles was charcoal dust as a result of making wood alcohol for the military, fuel ad other uses. The dust kept blowig over Henry's factories so he came up with something to do with it. There are a lot of binders, coal powder was an early one but so was milk or hide glue and wood pulp. 

Don't quote me but that's what I remember of the story of BBQing and briquettes from a History channel program back when they actually showed historical episodes. It's still a better channel than the "learning(?) channel has devolved into.

Anyway, my version is totally un-vetted but it sounds good. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[HojPoj]

I believe Jimmy Diresta also did a video recently about such a thing as well.