Pass wire through pressure cooker wall?

[jyl]

I would like to pass a thin wire through the wall of a pressure vessel without losing pressure. The thin wire is the cable of a probe thermometer, the vessel is a pressure cooker, and the pressure is 15 psi (greater than atmospheric).

Alternatively, I could cut the cable and splice the two leads to an electrical connector set in the pot.

Does anyone know a source for appropriate fittings?

[TimT]

Thermowells

[M.D. Holloway]

Done all the time in industry, that being said, I wouldn't try it at home...

[Joeaksa]

We do it all the time with airplanes but doubt that it would survive the heat and pressure of a pressure cooker. We work with -75 to + 130 and max delta p is around 10 psi...

[vash]

can you just measure surface temp of the vessel?

[jyl]

I want a probe measuring internal temp of the meat.

It seems like it should be pretty easy for a manufacturer, to have a terminal on the inside of the lid and a corresponding terminal on the outside. Plug the probe into one, plug the display into the other. Pressure cookers have rubber seals so this fitting can too, if it is necessary.

[RWebb]

yes, that has been done - never seen it in a home product tho

easiest & safest thing would be a probe that uses a small radio to communicate with the display unit.

Oddly, there seem to be no cheap WiFi probes out there.

[jyl]

I think a radio inside the pot would be in a pretty tough environment, though.

[James Brown]

My guess is your not using this for cooking, are you?

[vash]

Originally Posted by James Brown

My guess is your not using this for cooking, are you?

yea..for cooking?

a pressure cooker just speeds up the "slow" cooking process, right? you are not cooking a meat item to medium rare with a pressure cooker..

what are you up to?

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by James Brown

My guess is your not using this for cooking, are you?

Originally Posted by vash

yea..for cooking?

a pressure cooker just speeds up the "slow" cooking process, right? you are not cooking a meat item to medium rare with a pressure cooker..

what are you up to?

You 2 are on to him or he needs to put the thing away. PC's are all about time, not temp.

[vash]

wish i could find a garage sale one..to drill and tap one to make a still...no, i didnt say that..to make a distiller..

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by jyl

I think a radio inside the pot would be in a pretty tough environment, though.

see what Omega Instruments has - there are definitely such items made for a LOT worse env.s than a home pressure cooker with water in it!

you may need a nice budget for this...

[M.D. Holloway]

I think he is trying to enrich uranium! I can envision the black choppers coming in for him now.

[911pcars]

The seal for the probe into the pressure vessel doesn't have to be 100% does it? Normal source heat usually produces more pressure than needed anyway and the pressure regulator just bleeds off enough to maintain the desired cooking pressure. If you were to add a small orifice with an appropriate heat-resistance grommet, the small pressure it loses shouldn't lose any more pressure than the system can produce. I'd drill only into the lid.

OTOH, I'd research a Honeywell or Parker-Hannifin catalog for a bulkhead fitting. Thermocouple wire is pretty small diameter (~20-22 ga.?).

In my limited pressure cooking experience, the manufacturer's recipe/timing recommendations are pretty close for most common foods.

Or maybe install the temp. sensor for creating a baseline reference point for the foods you might prepare, then remove and seal the opening after you're satisfied with your calcs.

Sherwood

[James Brown]

I'm with Lube, something is up. I'm think Crystal meth or crack is going on.

[DARISC]

You may NOT have a pressure cooker.

You'll blow your eye out!

[jyl]

This is for cooking, believe it or not. I see a lot of pressure cooker recipes say "cook for X minutes then check that internal temp is Y" and it seems like a pain to release the pressure, open the cooker, check the temp, close the cooker, re-heat to build temp back, etc. I want to have a constant temp readout.

[James Brown]

Well that's pretty mundane, I'm thinking my direct read gauge will not work in a 15 psi 250˚+ atmosphere. you need to imbed a small temp probe deep in what ever you want to cook to make this happen. But, try the probe type with a long cable. or a Fluke temp probe. Small hole is all you need, just silicone it in.

[Evans, Marv]

I have used a pressure cooker for years, as have probably a bunch of people here. I think you are making this entirely too complicated. A pressure cooker cooks with steam, as everybody knows, since steam carries many more calories than boiling water. I forget how many calories per cc, but I imagine someone here remembers that too. Because of the increased pressure, the cooking temperature is around 256 degrees if I remember correctly. When everything is up to temperature and pressure and cooked for some time, I would imagine the meat is pretty much the same temperature as the outside of the cooker. You can measure that with an infrared thermometer. If you really want to hook up a probe, I'd look at the kind for ovens. For a place to access the cooker, the rubber pressure relief plug might be a good possibility. I would think you could run a probe wire through that and maybe silicone it to reseal it or use a small metal disk (for reenforcement of the top of the plug) around the wire to fit up into the bottom of the plug and silicone over that. I think the bottom edge of the plug are what gives if the pressure get to be too much, so something inside and up against the top of the plug might be a good place for a seal without getting into something really technical.