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
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.
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