Black Oar Studio · Engine Room 06
Parrilla Test Bench
An Argentine grill with a crank wheel, rebuilt and operable. The wheel pulls the V-grate on chains over the embers. The page calculates live how much heat reaches the grate, how long a hand can stand it and how the heat travels through the meat.
0kW/m² at the grate
Grate 15 cm · Time-lapse ×10
Drag to rotate · after a click the mouse wheel zooms · arrow keys crank up and down
The 3D model needs WebGL, which is not available in this browser. The charts on the right still work.
Camera
Bife
Raw- Grate height
- –
- Radiant heat
- –
- Core
- –
- Underside
- –
- Time on grate
- –
- Crank force
- –
- Fresh embers
- Mature
- With ash
Data sheet
- Design
- Parrilla with crank wheel, V-grate with grease channel, brasero (fire basket) alongside
- Grate
- 96 × 56 cm, 39 V-bars, tilted slightly forward, 18 kg (assumed)
- Ember bed
- 80 × 50 cm, embers added from the brasero
- Lift range
- 6 to 50 cm above the embers
- Crank
- Crank wheel 30 cm, chain drum 3.2 cm, 10.1 cm lift per turn, ratchet pawl holds any height
- Chains
- four strands, two direct, two over idler pulleys at the front, all on one shaft
- Embers in the model
- effective radiant temperature: fresh 700 °C, mature 600 °C, with ash 480 °C
- Meat
- Entraña 2 cm, Bife 3.5 cm, Vacío 5 cm, starting at 15 °C
How the model calculates
- Radiant heat: The ember bed is a surface with an effective radiant temperature. Embers under a layer of ash radiate less than their glowing core. The view factor of a small patch centred above the bed comes from heat transfer theory, plus Stefan-Boltzmann and the coverage of the bed: q = ε·σ·(T⁴ − T₀⁴)·F(h)·coverage.
- Hand test: an approximation from fire protection for the pain threshold under radiant heat, t = (35 / q)^1.33 with q in kW/m². Asadores do the test from experience. The number here is only calculated.
- Meat: Heat conduction through the thickness in 31 layers (beef: λ 0.45 W/mK, ρ 1,050 kg/m³, c 3,500 J/kgK). Radiant heat and hot air act on the underside, cooling on top. Above 100 °C, evaporating water cools the surface. Fat, bone and juice movement are missing.
- Crank: Grate plus meat hang on the drum. Hand force = weight × drum radius ÷ crank wheel radius ÷ efficiency 0.8.
No cooking time and no grate height advice. On a real grill, always check the core temperature with a thermometer.
