Backyard Chefs Fired Up Over Infrared Grills

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."

Apocalypse

I like the taste of paint in the early morning

Re:Apocalypse

Tell me about it. I used to have a circa 1980 Soviet industrial paint drier operating on this principle (they did not give a flying f*** about American patents at the time). IR gas burner. No visible flame, no open flame in fact. The entire burner was neatly enclosed behind the IR radiating body. With this contraption it took 10-20 minutes to completely dry half a wall painted with emulsion or with fresh wallpaper in 3-5C temperatures (compared to 3-4 hours). The only problem was that it ate most of the oxygen in the room in no time at all so you could not use it to warm the room itself and you had to have all windows opened while using it. Quite a strange experience. The room was freezing cold and the humidity was at solid 100%, but the paint was drying in no time none the less. Me and my dad decorated most of our apartment that way at the time (1984).

I have not tried cooking sausages on it at the time (in a hindsight - I should have).

Paris, is that you?

That's hot!

YRO?

How, how, HOW(!?!?) is this related to my rights online?

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?

As I understood it, the article is about a patent expiration. I think the message here is that the mass marketing of a consumer item was delayed a few years because there was a patent holding it back.

So much for patents being an incentive to innovation...

This is perfect topic for slashdot

There is lots of hot air.
Everything gets grilled.
The idea is analagous to car technology.
And there was a patent involved.

Re:YRO?

On the contrary, I think this is a perfect example of patents being an incentive to innovation:

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).

Re:YRO?

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?

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.

Re:YRO?

if patents are only 20 years (i thought it was meant to be 17 years), and the "invention" was in the 1960s, why is the patent only expiring now?

They extended it by adding 1) a network card to the device 2) the words "with a computer" to the document.

Re:YRO?

As I understood it, the article is about a patent expiration. I think the message here is that the mass marketing of a consumer item was delayed a few years because there was a patent holding it back.

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.

Re:YRO?

wrong.

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.

Re:YRO?

They slow down technological progress.

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.

Ahhh

Is there anything propane CAN'T do?

Hey, I've got one of those

Just got a new grill a couple of weeks ago and it came with an "infrared burner" in it. There's nothing that says that a geek can't enjoy a nice grilled T-bone from time to time is there? Can't have pizza every night, you know.

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?

Yawn.

Wake me when they have the infrared charcoal grill. That I wanna see.

unlike charcoal

it will cook bland food with no flavour
charcoal (especially made from your favourite food, like oak chippings) is part of the equation a catalyst if you will

fuel+fire+food+fat&juices+charcoal+smoke=flavour

Re:unlike charcoal

Mesquite Charcoal and a charcoal chimney. No filler, no fuel needed, burns hotter and cleaner, leaving a much smaller mess behind.

Re:unlike charcoal

By the way, if you insist on cooking with wood or charcoal, get a Big Green Egg--you might not want to use anything else afterwards.

Gee

I'm so glad that a patent on a product intended to dry paint stopped some people from using the same technology to cook meat. Obviously this patent protected the original intended use and enhanced innovation.

Yay, a hotter grill!

Now more steaks and burgers can be burned on the outside, raw on the inside!

Re:Yay, a hotter grill!

Just the way it should be. Well perhaps not burned, but brown. The ability to get me a steak that is juicy enough and red enough that my plate looks like I've just slaughtered an animal on it by the time I'm done is the measure of someone who knows how to do a good steak. I want it warm all the way through, but still pink/red all the way through or the flavor will have been completely ruined.

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.

Where's the flavor?

I've been using propane grills for a number of years, now. Although simple to use and quicker at reaching their desired heat, I find they're quite a pain to clean and maintain. Yearly, I have to replace the burners, lava rocks, and scrape all the crud off the sides. I think the glass plate may or may not help in this department, however, it all depends on if you let the grease sit on it for too long. I recently switched back to charcoal for the time being and I have to mention, the taste you get from charcoal is unbeatable by any propane grill. With that in mind, what kind of taste are you going to get from a virtually flame-less grill? To me, it's no different than sticking a steak in the oven (assuming an oven could reach 700-900*).

Why?

One day someone will be able to explain to me the point in going outside to use a grill that cooks your food in practically the same manner as the broiler in your oven. I'll take a bag of mesquite charcoal and my New Braunfels smoker over something like this any day. You grill for the flavor. Propane, electric, and now infrared just miss the entire point AFAIC.

Waste of money

CharBroil is now selling consumer propane grills with technology licensed (or parts directly purchased?) from Thermal Engineer Corp, I understand. My restaurant used TEC commercial char broilers successfully for years, and they performed well. Recently, we tried switching to the infrared-style grills, and almost immediately purchased new grills made by another manufacturer. We were assured that the TEC infrared models would cook fast and evenly without flaring up. However, they caught fire in spectacular fashion on a regular basis. Utterly terrible.

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

OMGWTFBBQ

Bah!

If you can't master a simple task like making a charcoal fire, you don't deserve a steak.

-jcr

Damn dogs.

This'll teach the dog not to get all up in my grill.

Infrared emissions == HEAT

I would assume the patent application is for the way they *generate* the heat, not for the process of "using heat to cook." I'm pretty sure there's prior art on that one. ;^)

(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

This is a perfect example of one of the big problems of patents as currently implemented. They're supposed to be there to reward inventors and promote innovation -- but here the patent was doing the exact opposite, it's preventing new grill designs. The headline shouldn't be "patent expiration enables new grills," but rather "patent expiration makes grills cheaper." In theory, the market should make this happen through patent royalties. But obviously this patent holder would be making more in grill royalties if the patent were being licensed at a reasonable rate, and the grill makers and grill users would be better off too. So why do we all too often see patents *not* being licensed? The more I see this occur the more I think a compulsory licensing scheme for patents would be helpful. Remember, patents aren't just supposed to reward inventors -- they're supposed to encourage inventors to share their ideas *so that society can use them*. Patents should be benefiting both the inventor and the rest of us!

Re:What's wrong with patents

Well, the patent expired 7 years ago, so there goes that theory.

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.

Cooks by infrared?

...oh shit. Well, I guess as long as you're not in a jungle... with a team of commandos led by Arnold Schwarzenegger.... with a creature from another planet running around... ...wait. It's getting very hot this year...

Ummmm...

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.

I guess he's never used charcoal fluid--a LOT of charcoal fluid.

FWWWWEEEEFH

A good technology

I will admit, nothing beats a charcoal grill; however, an infrared grill is hands down the best way to grill red meat without the hour backyad ordeal. The high temperatures sear the meat and cook straight through for a 'hot' vs. luke warm medium rare steak. You have to learn how to grill again though, use a lot less dry rubs, etc. The grills also do a good job of keeping themselves clean and preventing flairup. Unfortunately a lot of BBQ companies have simply removed U shaped burners from their grills and replaced them with ceramic burners. If this burner is not positioned at an ideal level away from the food a dry outcome is the result. I have used many grills from TEC to Viking and have found that Solaire (Solaire Grills [solairegrills.com]) obtains a great result, I think they actually formed from pieces of TEC engineers; and they make a great portable grill for tailgating, camping, etc. The technology has actually found a lot of uses in the restraurant business in the form of salimander buners. Most steak houses use this technology. As an added benefit, I have found that the infrared burner is great at starting the lump charcoal I use in my Primo (Kamado style BBQ) as well.

Whats the point

Whats the point in patents if nobody will use them until the expire?

But...

What about the RADIATION? Think of the CHILDREN!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6677051.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Like the Microwave?

"Infrared has done to the grill business what the microwave did to the indoor kitchen," he said. "It's presenting consumers with a whole new way of cooking."

Microwave is not used for cooking. It is used to heat things up. Way different.

smoking meats

this could be great for smoking meats if the temperature can be finely controlled, as any meat smoker knows getting the wood too hot will make the meat taste like carbon & turpentine, and with several acres of wooded land (mostly oak & about 20% hickory) i would love to have an infrared meat smoker...

Still a Charcoal Griller, Thank You

I, too, vote for mesquite (or other high-quality "real wood") charcoal and no-fluid, chimney charcoal lighting.

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

Nearly perfect...

I bought a Trager. Runs on wood pellets made from furniture wood shavings/scraps with forced air to keep it buring.

It produces a heat from about 120 up to 500 degrees. No matter what you throw on there, it gets a nice red smoke ring on it. I routinely get asked "My god, what did you put on this steak? It tastes great!"

Just a little salt and pepper, the smoke does the rest.

Oh, and for an interesting taste on a steak, add a little dried mint to your herb shake. It gives it a very nice taste and people often say "Wow, that is good. But there is a flavor I can't quite figure out..."

Sounds like

Sounds like the kind of radiant gas fire common in British living rooms. A burner at the bottom heats an unglazed, vertical ceramic surface with an array of protruding pimples to red heat. This gives off IR. A heat exchanger cools the combustion products and releases this heat back into the room before they are drawn up the chimney (or, if you have no chimney or don't want to risk it with CO, out of the balanced flue).

Anyone within line of sight of the radiant elements feels warmth from absorbing infra-red radiation. The air in the room is also warmed. In a chimney-flue model, some of the air drawn in at the bottom ends up going up the chimbley while the rest is emitted from the top vents. in a Unigas model, the combustion chamber is isolated from the room. The flue vent exposes equal areas of intake and exhaust duct to the outside air (usually they are coaxial with the intake outside the exhaust), so the effect of outside air pressure cancels itself out whichever way the wind is blowing.

You can detect the IR by photographing the fire (with an IR-sensitive camera, but most are) after shutting off the gas. The radiant elements should continue glowing brightly (at a wavelength too long for the eye) for a few minutes.

Nice ad-piece

The entire article was written as if were an ad for Char-Broil. The whole thing was, "Char-Broil did this, Char-Broil has adopted this feature, etc." Oh, except for the one line:

"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.

Le Grill?

What the hell is that?!

This is just what we need!

A hotter propane burner. I see this not only great for barbeques, but also as a front-end to an absorption refrigeration system.

A hotter generator should increase the carnot efficiency substantially.

Napoleon Grill for me

I picked one up at the beginning of the season, cooks a nice steak, medium-rare in about 6 to 8 minutes. You change the way you cook with it, you seer everything for a couple minutes per side on the infrared and then move it down.

Re:I for one...

Each one bearing a copy of "To Serve Man" [wikipedia.org]. :P

Re:Nice tech...

My dad once made a 55 gallon drum barbecue pit, but not in the traditional "saw it in half lengthwise and mount it horizontally on legs with wheels" method, but rather he did it standing vertically by cutting around the top about 4" from the rim and then straight across the top about 2/3 of the way back, installed hinges, cut vent holes in the bottom, drilled holes and inserted steel rebar near the bottom, middle and top, and used expanded steel "diamond grill" for the grilling surface and a large perforated drain cover to hold the coals. It only took an hour or so to build and required no welding, he needed only a drill and jigsaw.

This barbecue pit got blast furnace hot, it was essentially a giant charcoal chimney. It made the best steaks ever. And cleaning it was easy, too: the next day after the fire was out, he simply removed the grills and rebar and emptied it like a trash can and hosed it out.

Re:Nice tech...

Now I think of it, there is a fine line between us cheap grill nerds and poor rednecks...

Ah, so is this your furnace?
http://www.oldhousestlouis.com/images/violations/v an_furnace.jpg [oldhousestlouis.com]

Re:Radiant heat cooking absolutely rules!!!!

If you're reading, AC, how did much did yours cost? Their website doesn't seem to have a good answer for that.