Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Measuring – testing – or controlling by inanimate means – Preparing solid product in final form by heating
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-11
2001-10-09
Yeung, George C. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Measuring, testing, or controlling by inanimate means
Preparing solid product in final form by heating
C099S326000, C099S332000, C099S335000, C426S523000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06299921
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method for cooking in a cooking device with a cooking space and a measuring device for registering values of at least one doneness quantity relating to a characteristic of the cooking product, the value of which changes on the basis of the cooking process, whereby the instant of the end of the cooking process is extrapolated at various instants during the cooking process upon consulting the respective measurement value last registered and a predetermined end value at the end of the cooking process. It also relates to a cooking device in which such a method is implemented.
There are known devices in which a core temperature sensor can be inserted into a piece of meat, and the cooking process is ended when the core temperature reaches a predetermined value. It can be provided there that different phases of the preparation process are initiated when the core temperature reaches additional predetermined values during the cooking process.
However, these cooking devices enable an optimal cooking process only under very specific conditions with respect to the type, amount and size of the cooking product.
Given a controlling of the cooking process with the aid of the core temperature, an optimal initiating of the browning and crusting phase for pieces of meat of different thicknesses or sizes is not possible, since the value of the core temperature at which the crusting phase must be initiated is different for pieces of meat of different thicknesses.
The time at which a browning or crusting phase must be initiated likewise varies with the thickness and size of a piece of meat, so that, given a pure time control of the cooking process, in which the browning or crusting phase is initiated at a fixed time after the start of the cooking process, when the meat thickness varies, these phases begin too soon or too late, and the piece of meat is browned too little or too much accordingly. The time at which a browning or crusting phase must be initiated also depends on the amount of the cooking product in the cooking space.
There are also known cooking devices in which the user can input the type and amount of a cooking product that is to be prepared and which then specify the required cooking time and the time characteristic of actuating or regulating variables of the cooking device, such as the temperature or the moisture in the cooking space or the microwave power.
With the aid of additional input parameters which are relevant to the time of initiation of various preparation phases, such as the thickness or size of a piece of meat, it would be possible in these devices to achieve a guidance of the cooking process that is more sharply tailored to the specific characteristics of the individual cooking product. But this would require additional measuring and/or weighing processes by the user before starting the cooking device and would lead to an appreciable increasing of the volume of data which the computer unit of the cooking device must store and manage in order to be able to make available the optimal cooking process for the respective conditions.
The reference GB 2 203 320 A teaches a species-related method by which a core temperature is measured and then compared to a control point, in order to predict the instant at which the coking product is done.
EP 0 701 387 A2 discloses a cooking method according to which the doneness of a cooking product is evaluated without identifying it, via moisture measurements, particularly for purposes of determining the end time of the cooking process.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,281,022 teaches a method for cooking thin meat in a microwave oven in which the core temperature is determined via the moisture and the temperature in the cooking space, in order to then be able to compute the doneness.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to propose a method for guiding a cooking process which intrinsically takes into account changes of the volume or the size of the cooking or food product. It is also intended to make available an appertaining cooking device.
The object relating to the method is inventively achieved by a method of registering values of at least one doneness quantity relating to a characteristic of the cooking product which values change on the basis of the cooking process and extrapolating the time of the end of the cooking process at varying times during the process by applying the respective last registered measurement value and a prescribed first value of doneness quantity at the end of the cooking process. The improvement comprises guiding the course of the cooking process on the one or more values of a time derivative of the doneness quantity from the measured values of the doneness quantity and defining during the cooking process at least one value of a setting point of the cooking device which influences the cooking process so as to depend on the time derivative of the doneness quantity during the cooking process.
The course of the cooking process, which depends on at least one measured value of the doneness quantity, is guided depending on one or more values of a time derivative of a doneness quantity, particularly of the core temperature, during the cooking process. The steps in the guiding of the process are defined clearly with the aid of prescribed criteria, which it is possible to implement by the software of the device and corresponding input parameters. To guide the cooking process, it is also provided that at least one value of a manipulated variable of the cooking device is defined during the cooking process depending on a time derivative of a doneness variable during the cooking process. Such manipulated variables can be control or regulating quantities such as the temperature or the moisture in the cooking space. What is essential to the invention is the determining of the time of the end of the cooking process based on values of at least one doneness variable that were computed during the cooking process at different times and of a predetermined final value of the doneness variable. Here, the time period is extrapolated until the attaining of a final condition, as defined by said final value, which can be predicted based on the previous cooking process. Actions in the guiding of the cooking process can be chronologically related to the end of the cooking process, unlike in the traditional time control, which refers to the beginning of the cooking process. In particular, individual preparation phases can be so tuned to the end of the cooking process that a “spot landing” is achieved, in which all the desired characteristics of the finished cooking product, such as browning, doneness in the core of a piece of meat, and so on, are achieved at the same time.
The time and scope of a specific action during the cooking process, for instance the act of switching over to another mode of operation or of setting an actuating variable to a specific value, inventively depend at least not exclusively on the respective instantaneous value of a doneness variable, but in particular on the preceding time behavior of this doneness variable, which can be characterized mathematically by stating the value of one or more time derivatives. According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, it is provided that the first time derivative of a doneness variable is applied for purposes of guiding the cooking process, or respectively, according to another development, the first and second derivatives of this variable time are applied. These derivatives can be calculated by computation on the basis of measurement values which are registered at various times, whereby an explicit computation of one of these derivatives is not necessarily required, as long as the result of the processing process is functionally dependent on the actual given value of the derivative of a doneness quantity. The term “derivative” should not be understood in the strictly mathematical sense, but as also encompassing approximations of derivatives, potentially by means of the appertaining differential quotients.
In p
Kohlstrung Peter
Loffler Erhard
Schweinfest-Feile Thomas
Rational AG
Schiff & Hardin & Waite
Yeung George C.
LandOfFree
Cooking device and a method for individually guiding a... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Cooking device and a method for individually guiding a..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Cooking device and a method for individually guiding a... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2603308