Char-Broil - Oil-less turkey "fryer"

[SoulAssassin]

http://www.amazon.com/Char-Bro...ey-Fryer/dp/B000W74HI2

First things first, I'm a turkey frying maniac. Been doing it for probably 5 or 6 years now at least, got a good technique down and haven't caused any major fires. Bought an electric fryer a couple years ago and it rocks, much safer and other than having to wait forever for the oil to heat up and that you can't do more than a 10 or 11lb turkey I love it.

Went to Home Depot today and behold they have a oil less infrared turkey fryer. What magic can this be? Anyways, read the reviews on Amazon and they seem generally positive but most of them are from turkey frying amateurs and they don't really seem like they are offering comparisons to traditional turkey fryers.

Anybody got one or ever eaten a turkey that was cooked in one?

 

[Howard]

Isn't that just a portable oven?

 

[spidey07]

It uses infrared. Really high heat, it's been used on grills for a while now for searing. Frying doesn't have to mean deep frying.

 

[SoulAssassin]

Here's a link from Char-Broil's site that attempts to explain it, click on virtual tour in the bottom left.

http://www.charbroil.com/Consu...spx?ProductSeriesID=95

 

[musicman64]

Interesting... might order - gonna look around a bit more

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Looks basically like a propane-fired oven made for cooking turkeys since ovens also cook with infared heat. Seems that calling it a "fryer" is a bit of a stretch, and a marketing tool.

 

[MichaelD]

How is this an infrared cooker/oven/whatever?

It's a GAS GRILL, that happens to be a double-walled, cylindrical gas grill. Two cylinders about 1" apart have the propane outlet/grill element sandwiched between them. HOW does the meat get cooked via infrared waves?

I'd say it's getting cooked by convection/heat absorption. What a ripoff. This thing won't cook better than a normal turkey frier would.

Bigass propane bottle + bigass metal pot with basket/spit inside + hot oil + turkey = Mmm-mm yum-yum turkey goodness.

This POS on Amazon is just a marketing gimmick with a $160+shipping pricetag. :thumbsdown:

 

[biggestmuff]

That's an oven.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
How is this an infrared cooker/oven/whatever?

It's a GAS GRILL, that happens to be a double-walled, cylindrical gas grill. Two cylinders about 1" apart have the propane outlet/grill element sandwiched between them. HOW does the meat get cooked via infrared waves?

Infrared can certainly cook. Radiation does transfer heat energy.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: MichaelD
How is this an infrared cooker/oven/whatever?

It's a GAS GRILL, that happens to be a double-walled, cylindrical gas grill. Two cylinders about 1" apart have the propane outlet/grill element sandwiched between them. HOW does the meat get cooked via infrared waves?

Infrared can certainly cook. Radiation does transfer heat energy.

I agree with you 100%. And how is that thing an infrared cooking device? The fire b/t the two metal pieces heats up the metal pieces and heat radiates inwards. Convection, or some sort of convention? Not infrared.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: MichaelD
How is this an infrared cooker/oven/whatever?

It's a GAS GRILL, that happens to be a double-walled, cylindrical gas grill. Two cylinders about 1" apart have the propane outlet/grill element sandwiched between them. HOW does the meat get cooked via infrared waves?

Infrared can certainly cook. Radiation does transfer heat energy.

I agree with you 100%. And how is that thing an infrared cooking device? The fire b/t the two metal pieces heats up the metal pieces and heat radiates inwards. Convection, or some sort of convention? Not infrared.

I just took a look at the cut-away. You're right; the inner chamber is too shiny to be able to emit significant amounts of heat. It looks like it's just convection - i.e. an oven.

 

[spidey07]

Yeah, that's a little weird. I thought it actually had infrared burners around the inner walls. Looking at the stuff from char-broil it looks like like nothing more than a convection oven.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: MichaelD
How is this an infrared cooker/oven/whatever?

It's a GAS GRILL, that happens to be a double-walled, cylindrical gas grill. Two cylinders about 1" apart have the propane outlet/grill element sandwiched between them. HOW does the meat get cooked via infrared waves?

Infrared can certainly cook. Radiation does transfer heat energy.

I agree with you 100%. And how is that thing an infrared cooking device? The fire b/t the two metal pieces heats up the metal pieces and heat radiates inwards. Convection, or some sort of convention? Not infrared.

The heat eminating from the metal core radiates in the infrared spectrum. Even much of the heat eminating from the flames is infrared. People tend to think that the flames are just heating the air but that's not really true.

It's kind of misleading because nearly all types of direct heat cooking methods like that primarily involve infrared heating. Some of it is convective to a greater or lesser degree, but infrared is still the primary source.

My complaint is calling it a "fryer." Other than the natural fats in the turkey, mostly in the skin, there is no frying going on.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: MichaelD
How is this an infrared cooker/oven/whatever?

It's a GAS GRILL, that happens to be a double-walled, cylindrical gas grill. Two cylinders about 1" apart have the propane outlet/grill element sandwiched between them. HOW does the meat get cooked via infrared waves?

Infrared can certainly cook. Radiation does transfer heat energy.

I agree with you 100%. And how is that thing an infrared cooking device? The fire b/t the two metal pieces heats up the metal pieces and heat radiates inwards. Convection, or some sort of convention? Not infrared.

The heat eminating from the metal core radiates in the infrared spectrum. Even much of the heat eminating from the flames is infrared. People tend to think that the flames are just heating the air but that's not really true.

It's kind of misleading because nearly all types of direct heat cooking methods like that primarily involve infrared heating. Some of it is convective to a greater or lesser degree, but infrared is still the primary source.

My complaint is calling it a "fryer." Other than the natural fats in the turkey, mostly in the skin, there is no frying going on.

The propane is burned behind a stainless wall, which has a low emissivity judging from the picture. Therefore most of the heating will be from convection.

 

[SoulAssassin]

Alright, I should have expected this asking a bunch of tech geeks. I agree with everyone that it's not really a fryer (Charbroil claims it fries it using the natural oils inside the turkey) but my brief understanding is that infrared is different from convection. What is this cooker doing? I dunno, with just a flash video to go by it's hard to really tell.

Here's a little info on convection vs infrared:

http://www.rasmussen.biz/grills/whatsIR.html

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: SoulAssassin
Alright, I should have expected this asking a bunch of tech geeks. I agree with everyone that it's not really a fryer (Charbroil claims it fries it using the natural oils inside the turkey) but my brief understanding is that infrared is different from convection. What is this cooker doing? I dunno, with just a flash video to go by it's hard to really tell.

Here's a little info on convection vs infrared:

http://www.rasmussen.biz/grills/whatsIR.html

Yes, it is. But in this case there are no infrared burners. Even looking at the pictures of the char-broil site it is nothing more than a convection oven.

Infrared cooking is the "new thing" in outdoor grilling/cooking. I believe it is very disingenuous to market this product as such. Buyer beware.

Char-Broil is like the bottom of the barrel in terms of outdoor cooking and I'm not surprised that they are marketing this thing as they are given this term is the "next big thing!". It looks, sounds like a product you buy on an infomercial - just set it and forget it!

This thing cannot compare to your deep frying of turkeys. It's completely and totally different. Especially if you've got it down deep frying one I wouldn't bother with it.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: SoulAssassin
Alright, I should have expected this asking a bunch of tech geeks. I agree with everyone that it's not really a fryer (Charbroil claims it fries it using the natural oils inside the turkey) but my brief understanding is that infrared is different from convection. What is this cooker doing?

The combustion of the fuel inside the walls of the cooker will heat up the inside stainless steel chamber. At this point, there are two types of heat transfer from the hot stainless steel shell. One is convection and the other is radiation. Conduction does not directly come into play because the hot material does not contact the food. The transfer by convection happens as the steel heats up the air by conduction (I think, but in any case the air receives heat from the steel) which then transfers its heat to the colder food.

Some small amounts of radiation occur, but because the emissivity of the stainless shell is low, the amount will likely be insignificant.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Howard

The propane is burned behind a stainless wall, which has a low emissivity judging from the picture. Therefore most of the heating will be from convection.

Nope. Most of the heating is via the infrared emmitted by heating the stainless core. Convenction does play a part in this but the design would dictate that it's unidirectional, flowing from top to bottom, and the convection would depends on a few things like the size of the turkey and the ambient air temps.

The only true, nearly pure convection method is smoking (it's only "nearly" pure because smoking involves a curing process too), and smoking takes a long time because the heat transfer relies on the heat conduction properties of the meat itself. If you smoke at too high of a temp you'll burn the outide to a crisp before the inside even begins to cook. That's why smoking is generally done "low and slow."

Even "convection" ovens primarily cook via infrared. Air circulation promotes the infrared even more, and the convection process transfers more heat to the outside of whatever you're cooking. That's why convection ovens brown the outside better and faster.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Howard

The propane is burned behind a stainless wall, which has a low emissivity judging from the picture. Therefore most of the heating will be from convection.

Nope. Most of the heating is via the infrared emmitted by heating the stainless core.

Why?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken

Originally posted by: Howard

The propane is burned behind a stainless wall, which has a low emissivity judging from the picture. Therefore most of the heating will be from convection.

Nope. Most of the heating is via the infrared emmitted by heating the stainless core.

Why?

Because infrared heating is a reactive process, which is much more efficient for heat transfer, at least when it comes to cooking meat, whereas convection is conductive process. There may be more convection energywise but infrared has a much greater effect on the actual cooking. Not to mention that meat actually radiates away its own heat from conduction, radiation, and even phase changes like evaporation and sublimation.

Stainless may not have great emmissivity compared to some alternatives but when non-reactivity is thrown into the mix, stainless wins (and I'm talking chemically reactive versus the heat reactive that I spoke about in the first paragraph). Copper is better at both conduction and emmissivity but it's not entirely non-reactive. Same thing with aluminum, which is why both are usualy alloyed, composited, coated, or a combination of those. There's a reason stainless steel is used as the metal of choice in better cookware.

Besides that, the convective process tends to draw away moisture. If this "fryer" was primarily convective the turkey would end up dry and nasty when it was done.

Edit: Changed conductive to convective in the last paragraph so it made sense.

 

[SoulAssassin]

So would someone just buy one already and let me know if it tastes good.

At a minimum it would be good for tailgating. Oil fryers + hours of drinking = bad and I don't have an inverter big enough for the electric fryer.