This application claims the benefit of Korean Application No. 2002-75784, filed Dec. 2, 2002, in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to an apparatus and a method for automatic cooking, and, more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for automatic cooking, which cook food using an automatic cooking algorithm.
2. Description of the Related Art
A basic method of cooking millet, which is a type of hulled grain, is to put millet and a proper amount of water in a vessel, and steam the millet by heating the vessel. If heat is directly applied to the vessel that contains the millet and the water, the heat is transmitted through the vessel, so the water contained in the vessel is boiled. While the water is boiling, the millet is cooked to become edible. However, if the millet is heated at an extremely high temperature for a long time during cooking, the surfaces of millet grains may be damaged. Accordingly, the cooking of the millet should be carried out while heating power is reduced in stages to obtain the satisfactory cooking result of the millet. Additionally, the cooking result depends on respective durations of the cooking stages.
When millet is cooked, a gas/electric equipment, such as a cooking top, is generally used to heat a vessel containing the millet. Notwithstanding that the cooking quality of the millet depends on the precise control of an applied heating power and a cooking time for which the millet is cooked, the cooking of the millet is carried out depending on the judgment of a cook, so it is difficult to obtain an optimal and uniform cooking quality of the millet. Additionally, a cook should control the heating power and ascertain the cooking state of the millet while maintaining vigilance over cooking equipment, so the cook may not do other things until cooking is terminated. That is, the cook may not effectively manage the cooking time of the millet.
Accordingly, it is an aspect of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method for automatic cooking, which automatically cook millet, thus conveniently providing the uniform and optimal cooking quality of millet to a user.
Additional aspects and/or advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
The foregoing and/or other aspects of the present invention are achieved by providing an apparatus for automatic cooking including a cooking cavity that contains food to be cooked and water therein, a heating unit that heats the food and the water, and a control unit operated to heat the food and the water at a preset initial output of the heating unit, first to reduce the output of the heating unit to a first reduced output and cook a surface of the food by allowing a heated high temperature water to be absorbed into the food after the water has boiled, and second, to reduce the output of the heating unit to a second reduced output and cook an inside of the food using the high temperature water absorbed into the food.
Additionally, the foregoing and/or other aspects of the present invention are achieved by providing an apparatus for automatic cooking including a cooking cavity that contains food to be cooked and water therein, a heating unit that heats the food and the water, a gas sensor that detects properties of air inside the cooking cavity, and a control unit operated to obtain an output of the gas sensor while the food and the water are heated at a preset initial output of the heating unit, first to reduce the output of the heating unit to a first reduced output and cook a surface of the food by allowing a heated high temperature water to be absorbed into the food if the output of the gas sensor reaches a preset value, and second, to reduce the output of the heating unit to a second reduced output and cook an inside of the food using the high temperature water absorbed into the food.
The foregoing and/or other aspects of the present invention are achieved by providing a method of automatic cooking using a cooking apparatus, the cooking apparatus having a cooking cavity that contains food to be cooked and water therein, and a heating unit that heats the food and the water, including heating the food and the water at a preset initial output of the heating unit, first reducing an output of the heating unit to a first reduced output and cooking a surface of the food by allowing a heated high temperature water to be absorbed into the food after the water has boiled, and second, reducing the output of the heating unit to a second reduced output and cooking an inside of the food using the high temperature water absorbed into the food.
Additionally, the foregoing and/or other aspects of the present invention are achieved by providing a method of automatic cooking using a cooking apparatus, the cooking apparatus having a cooking cavity that contains food to be cooked and water therein, a heating unit that heats the food and the water, and a gas sensor that detects properties of air inside the cooking cavity, including obtaining an output of the gas sensor while the food and the water are heated at a preset initial output of the heating unit, first, reducing the output of the heating unit to a first reduced output and cooking a surface of the food by allowing a heated high temperature water to be absorbed into the food if the output of the gas sensor reaches a preset value, and second, reducing the output of the heating unit to a second reduced output and cooking an inside of the food using the high temperature water absorbed into the food.
These and/or other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the preferred embodiment, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
Reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elements throughout. The embodiments are described below in order to explain the present invention by referring to the figures.
An apparatus and a method are used for automatic cooking in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, with reference to
A cooking tray 104a is disposed to be rotatable in a lower part of the cooking cavity 104, and food to be cooked is put on the cooking tray 104a. A space 118 separated from the cooking cavity 104 by a partition wall 116 is positioned to be opposite to the machine room 106. In the space 118, a gas sensor 112 is disposed to detect specific properties of air inside the cooking cavity 104. The gas sensor 112 is used to detect an amount of moisture contained in the air inside the cooking cavity 104 and output a voltage signal S that is inversely proportional to the amount of the moisture contained in the air.
The machine room 106 includes a magnetron 106a, a cooling fan 106b and an air duct 106c. The magnetron 106a generates microwaves. The cooling fan 106b cools the magnetron 106a by sucking external air. The air sucked through the cooling fan 106b is supplied to the cooking cavity 104 through the air duct 106c of the machine room 106. The air passed through the cooking cavity 104 is discharged from the body 102 while passing the gas sensor 112.
The control unit 202 is connected at output terminals to a magnetron drive unit 204, a fan drive unit 206, a motor drive unit 208 and a display drive unit 210 that drive the magnetron 106a, the cooling fan 106b, a tray motor 212 and a display unit 110b, respectively. The tray motor 212 rotates the tray 104a disposed in the cooking cavity 104. The display unit 110b is positioned on the control panel 110 shown in
In order to implement the apparatus and the method for automatic cooking using the present invention, it is desirable to obtain the cooking data of the millet required to obtain an optimal and uniform cooking quality of the millet by ascertaining the properties of the millet and executing cooking tests under various conditions. If the millet is heated at a high temperature for a short time, the insides of millet grains are not sufficiently cooked and the surfaces of the millet grains are damaged. Accordingly, water should be heated enough to be boiled at the start of the cooking of the millet. Then, when the water is boiled, the millet should be cooked for a sufficient time so that the heated water is absorbed into the millet grains while heating power is being reduced. To obtain the optimal cooking quality of the millet, appropriate heating power and cooking time, as described below, should be controlled in each of the cooking stages.
The cooking stages of the millet are divided into a boiling stage, a simmering stage, a steaming stage for thoroughly cooking boiled millet, and appropriate heating power and cooking times are set in each of the cooking stages. To cook the millet, the boiling stage in which water is boiled, is carried out by heating a vessel that contains the water and the millet. After the water is boiled, the simmering stage, in which the heating power is reduced to prevent the boiled water from overflowing outside the vessel while the reduced heating power is maintained for a predetermined time to sufficiently simmer the water, is carried out so that high temperature water is sufficiently absorbed into the insides of the millet grains. When the simmering stage is completed, the steaming stage is carried out, in which the heating power is further reduced and the millet is cooked for a sufficient time so that the insides of the millet grains are completely cooked by the high temperature water absorbed into the insides of the millet grains. That is, the surfaces of the millet grains are heated and cooked in the simmering stage, and the insides of the millet grains are heated and cooked in the steaming stage.
Cooking characteristics of the millet described above are shown in
In the boiling stage, the output Pf of the magnetron 106a is 800 W. The cooking time of the boiling stage ranges from an initial time point to a time point at which the ratio of the current output S of the gas sensor 112 to the initial output S0 of the gas sensor 112 is greater than a preset coefficient ρ, that is, S/S0>ρ. The coefficient ρ is 0.6 when the automatic cooking of the millet is carried out. That is, if the current output S of the gas sensor 112 is equal to or less than 60% of the initial output S0 of the gas sensor 112, the boiling stage is terminated. Further, if the current output S of the gas sensor 112 is reduced to be equal to or less than a preset value φ, the boiling stage may be set to be terminated. The preset value φ may be changed according to the characteristics and type of the gas sensor 112, and is set to a value by which the cooking time of the boiling stage may be limited to an optimal time obtained by cooking tests regardless of what kind of the gas sensor is being used. However, when equipment malfunctions, such as the wrong operation of the gas sensor 112 occurs, the cooking time Tf of the boiling stage is limited to a maximum of 5 to 8 minutes in order to prevent the cooking time from being overextended.
When the boiling stage is completed, after the output of the magnetron 106a is reduced to 50˜60% of its initial output, the millet is cooked for 3˜5 minutes according to the predetermined quantity of the millet to carry out the simmering stage. For example, the simmering stage is carried out at the output of 400 W for 3 or 4 minutes if the predetermined quantity of the millet corresponds to the quantity for one or two persons, respectively. In contrast, the simmering stage is carried out at the output of 500 W for 5 minutes if the predetermined quantity of the millet corresponds to the quantity for three or four persons.
In the steaming stage, the output of the magnetron 106a is reduced to 45˜55% of the output of the simmering stage, that is, 22.5˜33% of the output of the boiling stage, regardless of the quantity of the millet to be cooked. The millet is heated until a total cooking time reaches 16 to 24 minutes, depending on the quantity of the millet. In the steaming stage, the insides of the millet grains are completely cooked. However, since a heat transfer rate is gradually decreased in the insides of the millet grains, the insides of the millet grains are allowed to be sufficiently cooked by reducing the output of the magnetron 106a of the steaming stage and increasing the cooking time of the steaming stage in order to prevent the surfaces of the millet grains from being damaged. As shown in
As is apparent from the above description, the present invention provides an apparatus and a method for automatic cooking, which cook millet according to an automatic cooking algorithm, thus providing the uniform and optimal cooking quality of the millet in every cooking of millet.
Although a few preferred embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.
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