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Comment by lathiat | Hacker News Reader

Using a thermal camera in the kitchen is under-rated. I sometimes do the same.

Was inspired by this old linux.conf.au talk (that I attended in person) about a microwave with a thermal camera in the top. I would love the same above my kitchen stove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3DADx5z-XY

I'm a die-hard iPhone user so sadly a built-in won't work for me. I currently have a first generation Lightning FLIR One.

It's pretty limited, only a single temperature measurement, no min/max scale you can see (it just auto calibrates), has a terrible rechargable battery and doesn't work with an iPhone case.. but I got it for the bargain basement price of $100 AUD ($67 USD) on Marketplace.

My interest is more related to home effeciency (looking at gaps in insulation etc) but has been fun in the kitchen too.

I'd love one of the newer ones but haven't wanted to justify the cost and happy with my bargain aquisiton :)

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You can buy a stove that uses probes to monitor the temps and hold/stick to a preset program https://www.breville.com/us/en/products/commercial/cmc850.ht...

I can't wait for these to become more mainstream so recipes start listing "Set stove to 150c" rather than "to medium" which is widely different depending on what stove you use. An amusing story one youtuber shared was the followed some advice that said to set your stove to high and leave it for 10 mins first, advice meant for a gas stove. When they tried it on an electric stove, the oil ignited on contact with the pan.

> advice meant for a gas stove

Can't imagine it would be any different result. 10 minutes preheat on any range is a lot. My cast iron pan started turning silvery blue well before the 10 minute mark with my gas range on high.

Some induction tops have similar functionality - measuring the temperature of the pan and keeping at that temperature. It's not as precise as a probe, of course, but it's extremely convenient and useful.

Particularly useful for "fast heat-up" combined with "don't fry the pan"

Do you have experience with such a hob? I'd like to get one, but have found little info except marketing from manufacturers.

I would assume those would be mostly useful for frying/searing meat, vegetables, and eggs with little oil. As soon as you have more liquid in the pot you won't be able to control the temperature by measuring the temp at the bottom.

Do they work well with different pans?

> As soon as you have more liquid in the pot you won't be able to control the temperature by measuring the temp at the bottom.

That sounds like an interesting engineering challenge! Assuming we have a stove with a fast-acting heat source (e.g. induction) and high-frequency thermometer (> 1 Hz), what can we learn about the contents of the pot/pan?

I'm thinking: dump a set amount of energy into the pan (say, 0.5 seconds at "power boost" level), then watch the thermometer. Do it several times, with varying pulse lengths (say, 0.1 to 1 second - you don't want to burn anything on the pan, nor wait too long for it to cool down). This should give you a good idea of the pan's step and impulse response, and - I think - you could guesstimate what its contents are - particularly, if there are any liquids in it, and what they are. Then, continue with normal cooking, but keep a continuous record of power output vs. temperature measurement, and possibly occasionally pause and do a round of such pulse tests again.

I see no obvious reason this wouldn't give a stove quite good control authority even in the presence of liquids, including those that are added or naturally seep out during cooking. I also don't expect any of the appliance companies to ever include this level of sophistication in their products.

Actually, I have a portable induction stove that I can set the temperature and it kind of works exactly the way you described it.

Yes, I'm wondering how well these temperature measurements work with metallic surfaces that are almost fully reflective.

I do. I've got a Panasonic hob that's got two types of sensor: one which covers ranges of 140-220 C, and one which covers 60-120.

I find it very convenient. It's not perfect, because of course a sensor looking at the bottom of a pan can't be, but in practice we've found it very handy for the boil function (bring water to a boil @ 100 deg, drop back to 95 and hold there; making candy/fudge that requires holding around 80 degrees, making proper custard for things like creme caramel. The higher temperatures are good for things like dealing with meats, since I can dial in a temp and not fuss over what's going on.

The thing that has surprised me is how relaxing it is to use - as I say, I feel as though I'm fussing over what I'm cooking less.

That said, they're accurate to only 5 degree increments at best, and I wouldn't try using them for something like a sous-vide replacement.

I have used a control freak (mentioned above).

All the induction cooktops I've used (both builtin and plug-in) have been REALLY useless at temperature control. Even the heat settings leave a lot to be desired, they are very coarse.

The control freak is orders of magnitude better at temperature control. I suspect it is not only the design and quality of the sensors, but the algorithms used to maintain the temperature (probably good PID).

There are two sensors:

a small glass covered sensor built into the center of the heating element that is spring-loaded and gets the heat off the bottom of the pan.

a second plug-in sensor with a cable, that can be attached to the side of a pot using an insulator gadget and suspended in the middle of whatever you're cooking.

Another pretty critical part is the "programs" you can write.

For example, you could make a "hamburger" program to bring the pan up to temperature, then beep to add the burger, then flip it later, then remove it and do another.

Serious cooking books always focus on reproducibility and actual processes happening at certain temperatures in your food.

Any recommendations? Can't think of any such book owned by anyone I know.

I often jest that cooking is just process chemistry, but done without proper tools and without caring about quality of the outcome.

Modernist Cuisine is one I highly recommend.

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