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.
