Embedded Heating Elements
Feature Focus: Embedded Heating Elements versus Conventional Coils
Last month, we explained how the patented slope worked to offer healthier cooking as you grill. This month, we’re focusing on the embedded heating elements and the advantages they provide over standard heating coils found on most electric grills.
An example of a standard coil heating element
Most people are familiar with coil heating elements, because these are the most common found on a number of your household appliances – rice cookers, deep fryers and even your oven. The heating element is made of an actual metal coil that’s bent to cover as much surface as possible. In most appliances, this works well because it provides effective heat for that type of cooking.
However, grilling is a bit different. Unlike cookers and deep fryers that have a large and deep cooking vessel or your oven that has a big open chamber to cook, an electric grill is cooking food placed on a plate directly above the element. Instead of cooking a large volume in a pot, you’re cooking less food on a flat plane. This is important, because this difference is where the coil heating element loses some of its effectiveness.
Consider it like this:
You have 4 steaks you’re cooking on your grill. You set them all on the plate and expect that they will cook evenly. However, some of the steaks (or parts of them) will be placed directly above part of the coil, while some may be placed on a part of the plate where there isn’t a coil beneath. While the plate distributes some of the heat, it still can’t distribute it completely even. As a result, your steaks are not cooked uniformly.
A fixed plate grill with embedded heating elements
On the other hand, the George Foreman embedded heating element is a flat plate that covers the entire surface under the plane of the grill plate. This flat surface heats evenly; then it distributes the heat evenly from the outset – instead of relying on the plate to distribute the heat. This helps avoid problems like cold spots on your grill where the food doesn’t cook as well. You don’t have to constantly check each piece to make sure it’s cooking the same as the others, because all of them are receiving the exact same amount of heat.
In addition to avoiding cold spots, it also allows you to place food closer to the edge of the plate on your grill. A coil heating element doesn’t usually extend to the edge of the plate because it needs to be covered by the plate for secure usage. However, the plate heating element can extend all the way to the sides of the plate and still be covered. This way, you can put more food on your grill – fill it to capacity – and still get even results.
The embedded heating element as seen with a removable plate grill
The final advantage of the embedded heating element comes with temperature recovery. Temperature recovery is the technical way of referring to the amount of time it takes for the appliance to reach its proper temperature once food has been placed inside. Basically, whenever you preheat your grill (or any appliance) and then put the food on, the temperature will drop slightly because the food is cold. The recovery is the amount of time it takes to get back up to full.
With an embedded heating element, temperature recovery is faster simply because it covers more of the cooking surface. A coil has to do more work because there’s less of it in contact with the plate to do the job. This is an advantage, because a fast temperature recovery ensures that you get the results you wanted in cooking in the amount of time you expected it would take. Slow temperature recovery leads to longer cooking times and less accurate results.
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