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Backyard Chefs Fired Up Over Infrared Grills
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat May 26, 2007 10:46 PM
from the there's-no-manly-technology-icon dept.
from the there's-no-manly-technology-icon dept.
Vicissidude writes "With the expiration of a key patent, major gas-grill manufacturers have scrambled to bring infrared cooking to the masses. The grills are still powered by propane and have traditional gas burners that heat mostly by convection — or hot air. But they also can cook foods with radiant heat generated by one or more infrared burners. Char-Broil says its advanced burners operate at 450 to 900 degrees, hotter than the 450 to 750 degrees of standard gas burners. And unlike charcoal, which can require 20 to 30 minutes to reach its 700-degree cooking temperature, heat from the infrared burners can be adjusted quickly. Bill Best, founder of Thermal Electric of Columbia, S.C., developed the technology in the 1960s, primarily to give automakers a faster way to dry the paint on cars."
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Apocalypse (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Apocalypse (Score:4, Interesting)
I have not tried cooking sausages on it at the time (in a hindsight - I should have).
Parent
Paris, is that you? (Score:3, Funny)
YRO? (Score:5, Funny)
Will owning this grill magically make my Firefox not fit in my internet tubes? It's from all the hamburgers isn't it?
Maaaaybe, it's for roasting my Thunderbird on a spit glazed in BBQ sauce. I guess that's somehow related.
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Informative)
So much for patents being an incentive to innovation...
Parent
This is perfect topic for slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Everything gets grilled.
The idea is analagous to car technology.
And there was a patent involved.
Parent
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
With the expiration of a key patent, major gas-grill manufacturers, including market leader Char-Broil, have scrambled to bring infrared cooking to the masses with models in the $500 to $1,000 range. Previously, such grills cost as much as $5,000.
So Bill Best invented the grill, patented it and used his temporary monopoly to sell the grill for a high price and (presumably) made lots of money from his invention. Why shouldn't he be allowed to do this? It's not like an infra-red grill is a basic human necessity.
Now the patent has expired, other companies are free to improve it and sell it for cheaper. Fine. That's why patents have a limited term of 20 years (and it's exactly why copyright should have a much shorter term too).
Parent
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is not why he should be "allowed" to do this, but why other people's freedoms should be restricted to facilitate this. Remember, a patent doesn't give the inventor rights, it takes away rights from everyone but the inventor.
And in this case, it might not have been a bad call. However, the fact still remains that, instead of spurring on the invention of consumer-level infra-red grills, this patent held back development until such a time that the patent was no longer an issue.
Parent
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He didn't invent the grill he invented a method for drying car paint faster. The article gives no indication at all if he's actually made any money off the patent in fact. It implies his company worked with the grill industry AFTER his patent
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Re:YRO? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is worded badly. The original patent was created in the 1960s and expired in 2000. Then after it expired they started trying to figure out how to use it in a grill and it still took them 7 years to make it cheap enough for home owners.
The article doesn't seem to really go into WHY they waited for it to expire though. It could be that they couldn't use it anyways for all we know.
Parent
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The article didn't say for sure if the original company was willing to license the technology out at rates low enough to allow affordable grills, nor did it say how much they wanted for the licenses.
I would suspect that it's very possible that it was the actual construction cost and not the patent cost that was prohibitive, but
Re:YRO? (Score:5, Informative)
i used to work for an outdoor furniture, grill, wood stove store that sold higher end grills (TEC, ducane, PGS, and some vermont castings). the TEC grill [tecinfrared.com] i mentioned was not made by char-broil, it was made by the same company that invented the infrared paint dryer thingy. they were the most expensive grills we sold and had the problem the article describes with the ceramic parts.
i was never a fan of these grills, (1) because they were expensive (cheapest being like $900), (2) because they cooked so damn fast (these didn't have the regular gas burner on one side, it was all infrared), and (3) because they go so damn hot that if you left it on long enough and closed, the top could weld itself shut (we've seen this). this was 7-11 years ago that i worked for this place (summer job in high school and college). so no, they did not wait for it to expire. if you re-read the article, you will see that the other grill manufacturers waited for it to expire, but there was one company who was making these grills... the same TEC (Thermal Electric of Columbia) that made the paint drying stuff (and it's described in the about section of the website i linked above).
while with the expiration of the patent, the price might come down a bit, i don't think it'll come down a whole lot. the grills are generally made with stainless steel to deal with the high heat. so all the nuts and bolts and screws and everything are stainless, driving the price up a bit.
Parent
Re:YRO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Pretty much everybody seems to agree that the current situation with patents has gotten out of hand. But if patents are always such a hindrance to technological development, why did the United States produce so much new technology throughout the 20th century? The light bulb, the telephone, the phonograph, the AC motor, the transistor, helicopter, the PC, new drugs to combat AIDS, DNA amplication by PCR, just to name a few... arguably this is one of the most impressive runs of innovation in human history, and it happened with robust patent law in place.
I'd argue that here the system, while imperfect, was doing more or less what it was supposed to. Inventors knew they could make a buck because their rights would be respected. Venture capitalists were willing to fund inventors because of the same thing. And people like Alexander Graham Bell, Igor Sikorsky, and Nikolai Tesla chose to be inventors here, rather than in their respective home countries, despite our system of patents, and probably in part because of it. There must be any number of countries that don't respect patent law, but I can't think of any that have become centers of technological development and innovation, where inventors flock to them. Maybe the system is broken now, but the answer is to fix it, not to throw it out.
Parent
Ahhh (Score:3, Interesting)
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Yes, there IS something propane can't do (Score:2)
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Hey, I've got one of those (Score:5, Informative)
OK, so this fancy burner looks different but doesn't seem to make a significant difference in performance. YMMV and all that, but I wouldn't pay extra for one of these. It's basically a ceramic grid that the gas blows through, so it's more fragile than the typical rolled steel or cast iron burner - probably cheaper to manufacture, too.
Actually, it's about as close to a non-significant change in gas grill technology as you can get. Who greenlighted this story?
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Yay, a hotter grill! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yay, a hotter grill! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard enough to find a steak house capable of delivering a truly rare steak that isn't lukewarm, and without warmer grills there's no way I'll bother eating a grilled steak.
Parent
Where's the flavor? (Score:5, Interesting)
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BTW, this is best done after you finished cooking your steak, since it takes a long time to cool down to a usable temperature. Don't let the barby stand dirty.
Waste of money (Score:5, Informative)
To make matters worse, the glass plate that does the work precludes misting or dousing with water to extinguish small fires. Food particles, marinade, etc. fall on the glass and collect there, and are almost immediately ignited. I can't wait to see the complaints CharBroil gets after Joe Barbecue Wizard every shatters his glass plate trying to clean it or sets his house ablaze.
If you think this shouldn't be posted here, you are a loser. BBQing and grilling out = stuff that definitely matters!
Only One Statement (Score:5, Funny)
Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
-jcr
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--
Toro
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Damn dogs. (Score:2)
Infrared emissions == HEAT (Score:2)
(and why anyone would want to cook meat at TWICE the normal temperature of a common grill is beyond me. It sounds like a "Home Improvement" MORE POWER moment. 6 hours at 350F is not the same as 3 hours at 700F. Just ask Alton Brown.)
--
Toro
What's wrong with patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong with patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents do encourage inventors to share their ideas, but they were never meant to go into society's hands concurrent with issuing. Without a limited patent duration, you have two possible realities: either the company gets a perpetual stranglehold on that technology because government has no business limiting it (the Libertarian approach) or you have companies terrified of introducing their discovery because if cost them millions of dollars to figure it out, and cheap knockoffs for a fraction of the price would appear on the market nearly instantaneously (the "information wants to be free" approach).
Neither one is particularly beneficial for society or companies. This sounds exactly like evidence for why patents work and are an important part of the innovation cycle. It also demonstrates that companies like to hide behind patents keeping their "great products" from the market when in fact they haven't really figured out all the details (i.e. a smoke screen for their vaporware products). If it was the patent holding back innovation, this article would have been written in 2000. There have certainly been infrared products offered for sale for several years now, legally, but beyond the reach of most customers. If you think that's because of the patent and not because of the newness and narrowness of the market, though, you're kidding yourself.
Adapting a technology to a new market and new packaging costs a lot of money and involves a lot of trial and error. Any patent licensing on the method is just one small part of that.
Yeah, at first glance it sounds like a great idea for "the rest of us" to get things 15-20 years faster. But the flip side is, "what's in it for the creator/investors?" Investors deserve to get something out of the deal, too. If that's a decade or two of exclusive use to generate profits, which are in turn invested in new products (and corporate accounting blunders), so be it.
Yes, we could force companies to have profit limits, spending requirements, and compulsory licensing of their creations. We could also eliminate hunger entirely by dictating food production and distribution. It's only a matter of what you want to give up to do that. Part of living in a "free" society is understanding that there's a good and a bad side to that freedom, and you can't just pick and choose the good parts without accepting the less-than-ideal consequences.
Parent
Still a Charcoal Griller, Thank You (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an easy-to-clean Son of Hibachi [sonofhibachionline.com] for everyday grilling and a big, oval Patio Classic [patioclassic.com] BBQ with adjustable airflow for slow cooking -- that also functions as a party-scale grill when we host cookouts for large groups.
Some people seem to think lighting charcoal is a big deal. Not so. Crumple 3 sheets of newspaper, put them in the chimney (the Son of Hibachi functions as a chimney in its "closed" position), pour the desired amount of charcoal (15 briquets or so for our small grill, full to the brim for the big one) into the chimney on top of the paper, light paper through the air holes at the bottom of the chimney, then do something else for 15 minutes.
Now pour the charcoal into your grill or BBQ and.... cook. Or, in the case of my Son of Hibachi, open it out flat, spread the briquets, and... cook.
For slow-cooked BBQ (super-tasty ribs and briskets), be prepared to add more charcoal after two - three hours. Lift the grill, pour in about as many unlit briquets as lit ones already cooking, and use your charcoal tool (in my case a giant cast iron spoon) to make sure the unlit briquets are nestled well among the lit ones, put the grill and food back, and close the lid. Come back in a couple of hours and... eat.
Both of these units are super-easy to clean. I have BBQ heretic (propane-using) friends who are amazed when they see that cleaning my charcoal cookers is *easier* than cleaning their flavor-destroying, gaseous monstrosities.
Infrared heat is great for drying paint on cars and metal surfaces in general. But for cooking? (shudder) Not on *my* Florida patio. When it comes to BBQ, we like the real thing around here.
- Robin
Nice ad-piece (Score:3, Informative)
"Most leading grill makers, including Solaire, Weber and Whirlpool's Jenn-Air, also offer grills that use infrared."
No shit, sherlock. Most of them came out with it before Char-Broil, and quite possibly have done it better. Napoleon Grills [napoleongrills.com] has had this feature for a few years now, and makes a far better barbeque than Char-Broil.
I hate articles like this. Just enough information to make people believe they're reading news, rather than advertising.
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It's a Cook Book! (Score:2)
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The handy thing about charcoal is that it's handy. It is better than wood in terms of heat-to-weight and heat-to-volume ratios. Also it's fairly easy to light. But it tastes terrible, especially if you use lighter fluid to get it going.
Re:unlike charcoal (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:unlike charcoal (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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What I don't like is whenever people try to cook TOO MANY burgers at once on the coals, for instance, at a company picnic. All the grease dripping from the burgers leads to a raging grease fire, which lends a sooty taste reminiscent of burnt plastic to the burgers. Attempts at putting out the grease fire with a squirt bottle usually cause
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One day someone will invent a grill that cooks food in some manner resembling an oven broiler - and your question will have meaning. Until then, grilling cooks food significantly differently that a broiler. Among other things, a broiler does not produce smoke from the food dripping. A broiler also tends to operate in a 'damp' enviroment (