I can conceptually understand how ovens use a different heat to cook, and hence takes a long time to warm up. But why would a propane grill, with direct heat, still take up to 10 mins to fully spread its heat out into the cooking area?
Context: I’m grilling, and realized it’s taking longer than expected (~3-5mins?) to get to 400°F. Understand that I was having wrong expectations, and want to know why thing is this way instead of that.
Edit: punctuation
In: 3
When starting with a cold grill, much of the heat will go to heating the surrounding metal instead of your food.
So throwing food on a “cold” grill can work, but you risk overcooking the bottom and undercooking the top and sides of your food
Everything radiates heat. If you heat something up hot enough it starts to glow in the visible spectrum of light, but at lower temperatures it is pumping out light in wavelengths we cannot see. This can be seen with special cameras (thermal imaging) and even felt in the case of heating radiators!
Heating an oven up is getting every part of the oven into thermal equilibrium. The flame itself is basically instantly at the right temperature, but the heat it puts out is being absorbed by the cooler walls of the oven which radiate out less heat towards the food as they absorb some to increase in temperature. Only when the walls of the oven have absorbed enough heat that they stop warming up do they radiate as much heat as they absorb, and that is what is wanted for when you start cooking.
It has to do with heat disapation you are not just heating the inside of the grill you are in a sense warming up the immediate surandings. So it needs time to find the equilibrium for introducing heat and loosing heat to the space around it. This is why when you open the lid the temperature drops fast as more heat is being lost to the atmosphere with out a barrier containing the heat.
Thermal Mass.
The amount of heat required to warm just the air in the grill/oven is pretty minimal… but that air is in constant contact with the metal walls/lid/etc. which will wick away that heat very effectively while they are still cold.
Preheating an oven/grill is basically waiting for the interior grates/walls/lid/etc. to get “up to temp” enough that the air isn’t losing soooo much heat to the walls.
Latest Answers