Electric heating – Microwave heating – With diverse-type heating
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-17
2001-07-17
Leung, Philip H. (Department: 3742)
Electric heating
Microwave heating
With diverse-type heating
C219S702000, C219S720000, C099S325000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06262406
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an oven for cooking a food product in a residential oven, and more particularly to a residential oven which effects quick cooking of said food product.
McKee U.S. Pat. No. 5,254,823, U.S. Pat. No. 5,434,390, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,793, commonly owned by TurboChef, the assignee of the present invention and hereinafter referred to collectively as the “TurboChef Patents,” are directed to quick-cooking ovens. The ovens described therein are primarily commercial ovens, partially because of the necessary size thereof, and partially because they lack features necessary in a residential consumer-operated oven (as opposed to an oven operated by a commercial employee). The TurboChef Patents are incorporated herein by reference.
As will be set forth below, for a wide variety of reasons adaptation of a commercial embodiment to a residential embodiment introduces many new problems which must be solved. For example, whereas a commercial establishment (such as a restaurant or a fast-food store) utilizes portion-control techniques to ensure that each portion of a particular food product is of generally the same size, weight, consistency, configuration and dimensions, in a residential setting, the oven will be subjected to large variations in the size, weight, consistency, configuration and dimensions of the food product. A successful oven must be capable of adapting to these varying factors. For example, a hamburger to be cooked in a commercial oven would typically be of the same size, weight and shape as the hamburger before and the hamburger to follow. On the other hand, in a residential oven the size, weight and shape of successive hamburgers may vary substantially such as a small, circular, thin hamburger of 0.3 pounds to a large, square, thick hamburger of 0.7 pounds. Therefore, “custom finishing” of the food product may be required.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an oven for quick cooking of a food product wherein the oven is suitable for residential use.
Another object is to provide such an oven which, in one embodiment, includes user-operable custom finishing means.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide such an oven which, in one embodiment, is sufficiently compact for residential use.
It is another object to provide such an oven which is easy and inexpensive to manufacture, use and maintain.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It has now been found that the above and related objects of the present invention are obtained in an oven for cooking a food product at least partially by hot gas flow. The housing defines a cooking chamber having a top, a bottom and a support means therebetween for receiving a food product for cooking, and conduit means for providing gaseous communication outside of the cooking chamber between the chamber bottom and the chamber top. The conduit means also serves as a hot gas plenum preferably enclosing a total free volume of space for air less than the total free volume of space for air of the cooking chamber. Associated with the cooking chamber are directing means adjacent to the chamber top for directing gas from the conduit means onto the food product in the cooking chamber, and return means adjacent to the chamber bottom for directing the return of the gas from the cooking chamber into the conduit means. Associated with the conduit means is a thermal energy source for heating gas disposed in the conduit means. The over further includes flow means for causing a flow of gas from the return means to the directing means via the conduit means, and control means for varying the effective volumetric flow rate of the gas flow into said cooking chamber and/or the temperature of the gas flow into the cooking chamber. The over further preferably comprises user-operable custom finishing means for causing custom finishing of an already cooked food product to further heat the food product, to further brown the food product, or a combination thereof and/or user-operable custom cooking means for causing custom cooking of a partially cooked food product by reducing further heating of the food product during the remainder of the cooking cycle, by reducing further browning of the food product during the remainder of the cooking cycle, or a combination thereof.
The oven additionally comprises microwave means for at least partially cooking the food product in the cooking chamber by microwave energy, user-operable input means for generically identifying to the control means the food product placed in the cooking chamber to be cooked, and means (e.g., a processor) for translating the user-operable means of identification into a generic cooking formula. The generic cooking formula specified the cooking parameters for all stages in the cooking cycle including the cook time for each event, the percentage of the cook time hot gas energy is used, and the percentage of the cook time microwave energy is used.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4337384 (1982-06-01), Tanaka et al.
patent: 5352874 (1994-10-01), Gong
patent: 5434390 (1995-07-01), McKee et al.
patent: 5525782 (1996-06-01), Yoneno et al.
patent: 5676044 (1997-10-01), Lara, Jr.
patent: 6060701 (2000-05-01), McKee et al.
McKee Philip R.
Pool, III James K.
Winkelmann Earl R.
Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein
Leung Philip H.
TurboChef Technologies, Inc.
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