Foods and beverages: apparatus – Cooking – Automatic control
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-30
2003-07-01
Simone, Timothy F. (Department: 1761)
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Cooking
Automatic control
C099S3290RT, C099S3290RT, C099S331000, C099S385000, C099S389000, C099S391000, C219S386000, C219S400000, C219S521000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06584889
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
Parent U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,044 describes a toaster which contains heating elements optimally designed and positioned for toasting and provides the means to preheat the toasting elements to optimal thermal conditions for toasting before introducing the bread or other material to be toasted into the toasting environment. The novel toaster design disclosed in that patent includes also added means to create the optimal conditions for baking, warming, defrosting or a combination thereof. The design geometry, size and thermal environment of the relatively ubiquitous conventional toasters have not proven satisfactory for quality baking, defrosting or warming. By contrast this toaster will perform these functions faster and better than conventional baking ovens common to virtually all kitchens.
Conventional baking ovens that have been used for centuries are designed with horizontal shelves to cook food in horizontal containers that are slowly raised to elevated temperatures by heated air. Food in those containers is heated primarily by contact with the hot horizontal container or by contact with adjacent food in turn heated by contact with the container.
In more recent times motor driven fans have been introduced in ovens to circulate the air around the containers and over the top of foods in horizontal containers or horizontal shelves. Large electrical heaters have been added on the ceiling, floors and side walls of ovens to heat the air more rapidly. Horizontal shelves are provided universally as the means to hold food containers and in some cases to position bread or other foods horizontally in close proximity to a horizontal mounted heater that will toast or broil one side at a time. The efficiency of the toasting operations is very poor taking many minutes to toast—leaving a dry relatively unappetizing product. Large ovens of that sort take 10 or more minutes just to reach baking temperatures and substantial time to complete the baking because of inefficient heat transfer to the food. No provision is made in such ovens to insure intimate and direct contact with all surfaces of the food when that food is particulate or simultaneously with both sides of the food if the food is planer such as steaks, patties, and waffles. An exception to that is the rotisserie that secures larger foods on skewers and rotates them before the heated air, flames, or heated elements.
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
The present invention is directed to techniques for optimal baking cycles in the unique toaster of parent U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,044.
This invention describes the means and mechanism to hold particulate food within a toaster so that there is direct and intimate contact between heated air and virtually all the foods surface area to insure rapid and uniform heating of the food by naturally convective transfer from hot air at baking temperatures in combination with programmed temperature radiant energy from toasting elements and at least one auxiliary heater operating at optimum temperatures which are different from those that must be employed in an optimal toasting cycle. This programmed combination of heating by the hot air and radiation provides optimum baking rates without overheating the exposed surfaces of the food in such a manner as to create excessive or burning of the food surface. By this new methodology and by the close proximity of the heating system and the toasting elements it is possible to optimize the baking conditions for the effective baking of hundreds of uncooked or “precooked but not browned” foods available for quick bake-and-serve dishes. Unlike conventional ovens and toasters which cook slowly and unevenly, the means disclosed here bakes rapidly and uniformly simultaneously on virtually all surfaces of particulate foods creating tasty uniform temperature foods as a result.
Many ovens and so called toaster-ovens can be used for toasting but the toasted food lies flat and must be turned over to complete the toasting or to achieve relatively uniform toasting on each side. Those heater elements are not optimized for toasting. In the baking mode in conventional ovens there is little motion of the air over or through the food, rather the air is relatively quiescent. Convection ovens with fans generate a general air flow within the oven but these are not designed to circulate air through a bed of particulate food—such as frozen french fries. Conventional toasters are used today in an attempt to “cook” many of the frozen “precooked but not browned” foods by simply repeating the toasting cycle several times. The results are very disappointing creating overcooked and undercooked areas—sometimes burnt before getting sufficiently warm on the interior. Good baking requires less intense heat in order that the interior can be warmed sufficiently before the surface is overheated or burnt.
No provision is made in such ovens for vertical open baskets to hold the food and to allow air to pass through a bed of particulate food—such as frozen french fries.
There have been attempts to offer toasters that combine the toasting and baking functions such as U.S. Pat. No. 2,862,441 by W. A. Schmall (Dec. 2, 1958) assigned to General Electric. This describes a combination unit which uses movable mirrors to redirect radiant energy upward for toasting or downward to a separate baking compartment. That baking function can not be particularly effective since the heat was applied only by the mirrors to one side of the food.
In contrast to prior art the subject baking appliance is designed first as an optimal toaster Baking is accomplished in the same space with the use of an auxiliary air heater mounted below the baking space and with the use of sophisticated electrical and electronic control of the toasting elements to equalize air temperatures and to generate natural convection currents of the heated air through and around vertically configured open mesh basket that contains the particulate food. The relative amounts of heat provided by the toasting elements and by the auxiliary air heater are electronically controlled to optimize the baking rate while avoiding excessively localized heating of the food surface by either the localized air temperature or the radiation from toasting elements. The toasting elements are segmented so that they can be heated individually or together and thus temperature is controlled so as to optimize the air temperature along the vertical face of the vertical open mesh basket which holds the food to be baked.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,044, the details of which are incorporated herein by reference thereto, describes many of the novel aspects of this new batch toaster in particular means for retaining the food to be toasted remote from the toasting zone until the thermal conditions in the toasting zone are optimal for toasting. By that means the bread or other food to be toasted is when entered into the toasting zone, toasted rapidly avoiding unnecessary drying of the food that would otherwise take place before the ambient thermal conditions are optimal for toasting of the food surface. Consequently the toasted foods loses less internal water and can be crisp on its exterior surface while retaining more of its internal moisture. The food to be toasted is placed on a carrier of some sort and transported either manually or automatically into the toasting zone when that zone is thermally optimal for toasting.
For toasting to occur rapidly, and thus reduce the loss of moisture from the food, it is best that heat transfer be largely by radiation and less by a combination of hot air conduction and convection where heat transfer is inherently slower limited by the thin layer of air in the boundary layer adjacent the food surface. Heat transfer through such boundary layers is inherently slower while radiation can pass literally at the speed of light uninhibited from the radiant source onto the food surface. When toasting this speed is advantageous. When baking one has to monitor and control carefully the amount of radiant energy so as to avoid burning the surface of the food be
Connelly Bove Lodge & Hutz LLP
Edgecraft Corporation
Simone Timothy F.
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