ericjacobsen

Hello eGullet, I'm a founder of Cinder. As mentioned above, we just reduced the preorder price to $249, I hope that makes it more accessible for people to try. We do control temperature with precision similar to sous vide, but all the way up to high sear. Like sous vide, precision cooking remains two steps for meats since Cinder takes a few minutes to warm to sear. Some foods are more forgiving and can be automatic, an example is butternut squash -- you can leave the food on while we heat from low temp to high temp. Another is hash browns. And the sear is pretty amazing, very even and deep. John Biggs said "the searing function alone is well worth the price of admission." And yes, the thought of automated iPhone cooking excites some, but as a food enthusiast I've found that precise temperature unleashes creativity. For example, we had a pastry chef make caramel by throwing on brown sugar and setting to a specific temperature -- the end. Apparently that is hard to teach and it gets burned all the time at the pastry shop. Another example is toasting nuts. Imagine sous vide control but all the way up with Maillard and caramelization. Oh, and that steak seared all the way around is simply done with tongs, which is how I do it in a pan as well. As to playing around with it, Kenji Lopez called it "a game changer" -- look for more reviews soon.

Hi, I'll try to keep this factual, as there are various opinions and doubts which you are entitled to. Re: The steak on our website (Post 22) That steak was cooked completely on the Palate Smart Grill prototype, and nothing else. I trimmed and cut the NY Strip myself, we cooked it low temp to medium rare, removed it while we heated the plates to sear, then seared. To get the sides we just put them on the grill surface with tongs, that is optional as it would be with any high heat cooking method. To get the thin band, we do remove the steak during heat up from the "sous vide" temp to the searing temp; estimate that will take about 2 minutes followed by a 1 minute sear, so it's 3 minutes right before eating and followed by no resting period which helps with timing. This is explained in the TechCrunch video. In the future we'll be shortening that time frame. At this point it's faster and easier than alternatives such as a cast iron skillet; because of the precise temperature control you just click "sear" and it gets there and waits for you; minimal overshoot means less black smoke or caking on to the cooking surface of grease. Re: Why not a steam oven (Post 24) Steam ovens are great! But we actually built one to test for our use case and found limitations: 1) can't go above 212F which means you need another cooking device for high temperature cooking 2) cooking time is limited by the water reservoir or you need a professional install to run a dedicated water line. Since we are enclosing the cooking area, we can get similar effects. Re: what can it cook (Post 19) -- It looks like to me the Palate Smart Grill can only cook mostly flat meat such as steaks. Is that true? Can it sear the sides of a thick steak? Can it cook a chicken? Can it cook a whole rack of lamb? The more surface contact the better, less means that it takes more time. An example of something amazing that you might not think of was duck breast, we got it crispy and orange-browned like Peking duck on the first try. Things that are excellent are: Steak- Premium Cuts, Chicken Breast, Salmon Fillet, Halibut/Whitefish, Burger, Pork Loin Cuts, Lamb Loin Cut, Duck Breast, Hash Brown/Country Style Potatoes, Spinach/Sautéed Greens, Asparagus, Eggplant, Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms (Portobello/Sautéed Mushrooms), Squash, Tofu steak. We have a possible method for cooking things like eggs that we are testing right now...more on that later...

Re: Wattage We have some novel ideas in testing for speeding this up with software and the specific layout of our cooking plates that I hope to be able to share in more detail soon. We've also been able to produce a nice sear at 1800W, partly by our ability to kick up to full power in a split second. If you are running 1800W full blast it's fairly strong; you can test this by setting an induction burner to full blast. Lots of appliances aren't set up in a way to detect the drop in temperature, nor react quickly, which may be why your experience makes you question countertop electrics.

Re: Ceramic plates Good point about longevity. If the grill plates don't last for three years of use we'll replace them for free. It's true we haven't completed our lifetime testing or harsh environment testing, but I believe we can make it work by choosing the right compound and detailed specs to the coatings supplier. I come from a background of product development at Toyota where we knew how to design specifications to work for the customer. But if we can't do that here it's our fault, not yours. Re: the market It doesn't do everything -- you're right. We hope to make it easy for people to use whatever recipe and shopping system works for them, and continue making it easier over time. Is there a market for low temp? Yes, but it may be a slow uptick -- that's why we chose an approachable form factor of the electric grill, etc. 2,000 facebook shares of our TechCrunch article supports our strong belief that there is a giant market for higher quality food that is easier to make. But that's the broad market; here on egullet we're probably more interested in the quality and control; we think advanced chefs will be able to improve their skills by adding sustained, precise temperature control along the full range to their toolkit -- that's the been the case for me personally anyway.

Hi everyone, keep the great questions coming and let me know if you disagree with anything I said. Tell us more about searing: TL;DR: We take it to an extremely high temperature and hold it there with little variance. That means great results with less black smoke, less waiting time, and less fiddling with the power/gas knob. What you want for searing is sustained high temperature. This is difficult to do, and where our control system really shines. As you may know Maillard happens at a range of temps and is strong from 350-400F, and I personally like a little char which is the pryolosis reaction at 400F +. That's the temperature you need the surface of the meat to reach on a sustained basis*, allowing for moisture loss (remember that drops to 212F). Remember you are dropping on a “cold” piece of meat onto your cooking surface (let’s say it’s a steak cooked to 135F). At no point do you want the cooking surface to drop below 350F into the “grey zone.” The cast iron skillet is the high-temp thermal equivalent of the water bath. It’s a large thermal mass that you can heat up to prevent against a temperature drop. You heat the pan to a very high temp like 650F, and keep the heat cranked. However, 650F is above the smoke point of all fats that I am aware of (even my high temp safflower says 445F). That means lot of black smoke, and oil splattering everywhere as you are closer to the flash point than the smoke point. High heat is also damaging to various components. Non-stick is nice, but teflon becomes soft around 450F and starts to smoke around 500F -- that's one reason we went to ceramic. Electronic circuit boards deteriorate, solder can melt, and plastics don't like it either. So you have to design the whole system for this and most electronics aren't. If memory serves the latest Cuisinart claims to hit 500F, but if you really want this performance get ready to drop over a grand for the Lynx. We took an infrared camera to existing grills and found that the whole plate will not reach a high enough temperature, and that this temperature will drop quickly once a cold (relative to the high searing temp) piece of meat is added. This leaves you in that gray zone between maillard and low temp cooking. It turns out that to create a responsive, clean system that can sear propoerly is non-trivial. So you need a responsive control system, availability of high power, a thermal transfer that quickly moves heat from the coils to the food, and cooking plates that support high temp while staying low maintenance (think of the care your iron skillet requires, and the time that takes). Plus you need to isolate the electronics to an onslaught of heat over years of cooking with no degredation. And that’s what we developed with the Palate Grill. We use multiple, high accuracy temperature sensors, the ability to send high power to the cold areas, a plate structure that both responds quickly and maintains enough heat, and placement of the control board to keep the electronics cool. It’s actually better than any restaurant-grade equipment we’re aware of; again they’ve been going to a high temp, running a strong fan to suck smoke away, and not concerned with non-stick. In the current process, you do remove the meat while you transition from the low temp to the sear. We expect to have that down to 2 minutes in the production version, and then it's a 45 second sear. So in total three minutes right before you sit down to eat, and as you know with precision cooking there's no resting period. And it's fun to throw the steak on to sear. We are working to shorten this time in the future. Oh I also wanted to point out that all the food you see on our website was cooked on the Palate Grill prototype, so that steak, with the thin sear band, is the result you would get. A little more on why you don’t actually need 650F the entire time, take an extreme example: think of the holy sous vide MAP torch at 3,700F. I’m looking at the Bernzomatic site which points out you can cut steel at 1,300F, so clearly that temperature would pulverize your food. Therefore so you hold it away from the food and modulate the distance and time to get the surface just to the temp you want (more like 500F range, allowing for moisture loss). Torches are fun to some, but for all take experience and attention, and can result in disaster or off taste. *Remember that any moisture must burn off at 212F which is why salting, patting the steaks dry before searing, and/or using dry aged Can I only use the Palate Grill with an iPad? Most of our customers already own an iOS device and use it in the kitchen, and it gives us the control to create the best experience. As we expand and add more resources we look forward to supporting more devices in the future. As it is there are too many screen sizes and OS versions of Android for an early start up to optimize the experience. I have many friends with android phones and understand that many people prefer it. Note that without a smart device you can set the temperature with one turn of the dial, which means you can do everything your existing electric grill, or even frying pan, can do only with more precision. What’s the seal like? We wanted to restrict the ability of colder ambient air to touch the food and pull away heat, without completely sealing the cooking area which could result in pressure changes. In the future we are working on ways to fully seal the cooking area to control humidity which might be useful to bake bread or allow the Smart Grill to function as a wok. What’s the size of the cooking area? The design requirement was to minimize countertop space and let you cook 2 NY strip steaks at once. That’s about 10” x 10”. We know that horizontal countertop space is important so we minimized that by creating a unique mechanical hinge mechanism that moves the bulk to the back. We plan to offer additional sizes in the future. A larger one for families or dinner parties, and a smaller one for dorm rooms or singles. EJN

Hi, I'm cofounder and CEO of Palate. Let me try to address some of your questions and concerns: Sous vide works just fine: Sous vide is a great technique that is making people aware of the benefits of precision temperature control. I have a few of them and if I want to make 72 hour pork shoulder for a Saturday dinner, that's what I use. However I've found I use it less than I like and that when we tested with normal people there were barriers to even trying it, mostly related to plastic bagging (waste or the fear of cooking in plastic). It is not the only way to cook low temp either. Chef's use combi ovens, and we succesfully cooked to sous vide quality in a steam oven that we developed. The large thermal mass of water makes it easy to hold a precise temperature, but then has these downsides. It can't get high enough to sear so you need another device. It can't change temperature quickly so you have to wait for warmup, or have multiple baths if you want to cook multiple things, or have a cooking profile that has step changes. And then you need bagging so you aren't poaching the food. It's like a 747 cargo plane; we developed an F16 jet which requires incredibly advanced control systems and mechanical architecture, but the advantages are profound. Normal people care that it's faster (don't have to warm up the water) but I'll give you guys the fun food related ones: by controlling the entire process we can give a better result. The sear affects the internal temperature, so we can adjust the low temp portion of cooking for that. As an example, we made crispy duck breast the first time we ever tried it that was restaurant quality. Another big advantage is that we know the thickness of your food automatically, and we can infer the internal temperature, so we know exactly when it's done. No more trying to measure raw chicken breast with that ruler app on your phone, or setting up closed-cell foam tape on the ziploc bag in advance of cooking. Next, what you can cook is limited: We designed the Palate Grill for daily gourmet. It can cook 80% of what you want, and everything your normal grill can. I welcome you to do a comparison vs. sous vide on steaks, chicken, salmon, and see what you think. Vegetables are great to, like asparagus. And we've found we can do new things. We can hold the maillard temperature exactly for what we call continuous browning. So you can caramelize onions unattended. I can get close with my induction burner, but I have to step it up slowly so it doesn't burn, and it takes about twice as long because the temp fluctuates so much. You can also control the searing to the point of choosing maillard or pyrolosis, if you want a little char. We have a more advanced hinge mechanism than any grill on the market which gives two degrees of freedom to the top plate and contains the cooking area in a temperature controlled environment. Palate is expensive: We set the price based on the value provided and then put the best components in to deliver a great experience. As I said before, it's very complex to achineve sous vide level results without using the large thermal mass of water which circulates. We're using space grade algorithms (PID is not appropriate here) and temperature sensors more accurate than thermocouples (so more accurate than ThermaPen). The only way to get this quality of sear is a torch or the Lynx grill which is over $1000. But take the $300 Breville Smart Grill if you like. Then add in sous vide, your bagging equipment, your bags. Then think about how much counterspace is worth to you. And on top of that, we made it beautiful and gave the ultimate user experience for the kitchen. You guys here that are into scientific cooking are going to be able to set every parameter, while at the same time we've kept the ability for quick and basic cooking for those days your are exhausted from work or if someone in your house with less culinary interest is in charge of the meal. The kitchen is full of expensive devices that people love if they add value. Vitamix and Kitchenaid, or just look at any coffee machine. Can't do long cooking times: We've focused on the 28 minutes a day the average American spends cooking. We've cooked for hours on the Palate Grill with great results. We have ideas for how to extend this (add moisture). At this point if you want a 48 hour pork belly sous vide is your best bet, and we'd be the last ones to tell you to get rid of your sous vide. Sansaire is a great product! Cleaning: We know cleanup is a pain and that's true for me as well. So it's been a requirement from day one to be easy. Removable, dishwasher-safe plates. Ceramic non-stick coating. Removable drip tray. A side effect of our mechanical design is less splatter on your kitchen. When I do steak in a cast iron pan, I find oil everywhere. And there's less smoke, because the sear is controlled we're not burning as much oil, so less soot. Requires iPad: A large screen with powerful software allows us to give you an experience tailored to each food. Because the settings for steak are completely different from onions, and we think you'll like that. Otherwise you wind up with a microwave: powerful programs that no one uses because they're six layers deep, or something that only works for advanced users: must have temp & time table & food-safe ruler. But it's also a design requirement to make it just as easy as a cast iron pan. That means turn on the gas and it cooks. So we designed that, the temperature nob heats the device with one-touch, and you're at temperature in 30 seconds. So to fry and egg, or do a panini, that's that. And if you know you want a 134F steak, that's all you have to do. We can notify you on your phone if you run to the store, so you don't have to carry the iPad everywhere. Hope that sheds some more light on things and welcome your further comments or criticisms. Eric