There are some misconceptions as to how infrared grills work and we will explain these in this article. When people think of an infrared grill they may think of invisible rays instantly cooking food, or even more off base would be that lasers are somehow involved in the cooking process when actually infrared is not a laser at all. An infrared grill still uses some of the traditional methods for creating heat but then takes that to the next level by increasing the temperature through other means. But how exactly is this done?
First it’s important to understand how traditional grills work and the different heating methods available. Basically you can heat up your food, or any object in three different ways which we’ll describe here:
Heating through Conduction:
Conduction takes place by direct contact between to objects. The atoms on one object touch the other and transfer some of their energy to whatever it comes in contact with. If the original object is hot then the atoms are moving very quickly, which will in turn begin to make the atoms on the other object to move quickly as well. As these atoms start to move faster, heat is also built up. This is why when you touch something hot you can feel it; because the atoms on your skin have sped up so quickly because of the transfer of energy from the heated object you touched. This is how a conventional oven works; by directly transferring the quickly moving atoms energy to your food which in turn heats it. The main idea behind heating through conduction is that it takes place through direct contact.
Heating through Convection:
Heating through convection is similar to conduction except for the transfer of the energy takes place when matter carries the heat to the object. This is done through a liquid or through a gas. A good example of this would be holding a marshmallow over an open fire. The fire is heating the air around the area of the marshmallow which is then heating your treat. However, if were to touch the marshmallow directly to the log at the bottom which is the source of the heat, then you would then be heating through conduction. The main idea of heating through convection is that you are not heating the object through direct contact but rather indirectly.
Heating through radiation (radiant heating)
Radiant heating (as used with an infrared grill) makes use of a direct transfer of energy to the object being heated. Unlike the previously mentioned heating methods, there is no loss of energy or heat in the process. When you use convectional heating, you have to heat up air, or water that is surrounding the food. This takes longer because first you have to heat up that area, then that area has to heat up the food. When you use an infrared grill you are taking a direct stream of particles and focusing them precisely onto the food you are cooking so no time is wasted having to heat other areas. This also makes way for other benefits that we will discuss later.
Now that you understand the three ways to which objects can be heated, let’s talk about how specifically an infrared grill works. When you first turn on an infrared grill you will still create the initial power/heat by igniting either propane or some natural gas. So in this way convectional heating is used but it will be used in combination with radiant heating through infrared. Once this flame is ignited, it then heats a ceramic tile at the base of the infrared grill (through convectional methods).
As you can see convectional heating is still used to some degree even in infrared grills simply because there must be an original source of heat which starts the entire process. But this is only the first portion of the cycle, and is not the main source of heating the food. Once this ceramic tile on the infrared grill is heated it then emits an enormous amount of heat which is created by infrared and is then transferred directly into the food you’re cooking. This is where some of the confusion comes in; people will purchase an infrared grill and expect there to be absolutely no propoane or “fire” involved in the process whatsoever. The term infrared only describes how you are cooking the food, not how the entire process works. They may expect for the heating to be instant, that is to say you turn on the grill and immediately the infrared begins to cook the food as if fire had already taken time to heat it up but this is a misunderstanding. To summarize the initial process of heating the tile will take time, but the time for the ceramic tile to actually cook the food is much less than convectional, or conventional heating methods as well as the overall time taken.
How Much Stronger is an Infrared Grill Compared to a Tradiational?
The short answer to this question is “a lot”. But let’s talk about why an infrared grill is so much more powerful than tradition heating methods. First it’s important to understand how different types of fires and heat can create more powerful energy.
When you light a fire or see flames in a traditional grill, you may have noticed that the flames have different shads of colors. While most people would refer to them simply as different colors, technically what you are experiencing when you see this are different colors from the electromagnetic spectrum. The elctromagnetic spectrum is the entire collection of different wavelengths of visible and invisible rays that give off different wavelengths. This is difficult to understand without getting too technical, but basically the spectrum is all the different colors that you see all around you, each one giving off different wavelengths. You may already be aware that how hot certain parts of the flame are determined by the specific color that it’s giving off. That means that although all of a fire is hot, there are certain parts of it that are not as hot as other simply because the wavelenght of that color is not as high or low as another.
Take a look at the magnetic spectrum below and you’ll see the different colors a fire can give off. The further to the left of the spectrum the color is, the hotter it will be. You may notice that blue is to the far right of the color spectrum; you may have also noticed that on traditional grills you will see a bluish outline around the flame. This is because the outside of the flame is the coolest (although still hot to the touch) porition of the flame since it is making the most contact with the surrounding air and is being cooled off by the air which changes its wavelength and in-turn changes the color. At one point that ray may have been red but it changes as its properties are manipulated. So the fire is heating the air around it convectionally and thus some of its energy is lost and that is why we see a blue color. However, towards the base of the flames you will notice that colors more along the left of the spectrum begin to show up indicating that they are much hotter. This is because they are constantly having their energy replenished by the source of the flame at the base and therefore will maintain their hotter properties.
Now look further to the left of the spectrum and you will notice that we fall into the infrared category. What this tells us is that infrared energy that falls on the electromagnetic spectrum is much hotter than the flames that a traditional grill gives off. Because an infrared grill uses this end of the spectrum to heat the food you can reach temperatures much higher, much more quickly and directly than you can with a traditional grill. With an infraed grill you won’t see blue colors becuase infrared is strictly one porition of the electromagnetic spectrum, so the heat intensity stays the same. Nobody cooks a steak with a traditional grill by holding it on the lowest part of the flame (the red part). It takes too much effort and can be dangerous, but with infrared and the ability to directly transfer this red end of the spectrum you bring the heat to the food instead of the food to the heat so you are able to cook it much faster but without the dangers and effort that you would if you were using a traditional grill. That’s the beauty of infrared grills.
Are Infrared Grills Similar to a Microwave? Not Even Close!
If you went to a fancy restaurant and were told that your entire meal was cooked inside a microwave you would probalby ask to speak to the manager or just get right up and leave. It’s no secret that cooking with a microwave isn’t exactly the best way to bring out the taste in your food but is more of a way to cook food quicker at the sacrifice of the overall taste. So just like a microwave cooks faster and takes away the taste, should we epxect to see the same thing happen when cooking food on an infrared grill? Will it take away the taste along with the time that it removes from the cooking?
This is a reasonable question but first we need to understand why food doesn’t taste as good in a microwave. When you cook with microwaves you’re not able to get the heat evenly distributed. This is why you will often find rotating trays inside of microwaves, they help to keept he food cooked evenly. Often with microwaves you need to heat up your food, then poke around on it, find the cold spot and heat it up some more. The microwaves simply can’t be targeted evenly. Also, because you’re not cooking with a flame you won’t get that the crisp edged that you would normally get if cooking in an oven or an open flame.
With infrared grilling the heat is evenly distributed all over the steak and the food that you’re grilling, every time. So when you cook a steak and poke around on it, you will find that it is done all the way through instead of biting into one part that will scald your mouth and another part that will freeze your brain. Cooking with infrared is faster than grilling so the food has less time to lose its flavor when it drips out. If you’ve ever seen the bottom of traditional grills you know that quite a bit of the steak juice will flow out of the food which means less taste. If you cook food in half the time then you can expect to lose only half of the taste.
You will however, find that an infrared grill will cost more than a traditional barbecue grill and these prices fluctuate over time. The cost of the infrared barbecue grills went down considerably once TEC lost the patent on it and will also change with the scrap metal prices as well as with the economic demand. You may find that you get better purchase rates during winter seasons where as prices will be higher during the summer.
Overall you really can’t compare an infrared grill to a microwave oven because they’re entirely different. Infrared grills actually improve the overall taste of the food you’re eating along with saving you time.
