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Do they use magic ranges on the cooking shows?

post #1 of 4
1/25/07 at 7:54pm
Thread Starter 
Pick any cooking show on tv and when they put a cast iron grill/griddle across two stovetop burners to cook, I never see the smoke. Same recipe tried at home, and my kitchen fills with smoke, then the living room, then all the other rooms in my small apartment. 10 minutes later, with every ceiling fan on and every window and door open, the smoke clears and I am ready to start scrubbing smoky residue of the top of my cabinets.

I know they are really cooking in a tv studio and all, but is it realistic to never have smoke when you grill on a stovetop indoors?

I suppose my range is not that great. Is it worthwhile to invest in a better one?
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post #2 of 4
1/25/07 at 7:59pm
No, it's not magic. Sounds to me like your kitchen could use a much larger exhaust ventilation system.
My failures in life are few. The most blatant of these is my attempts at retirement. I've studied the process carefully but cannot begin to understand how it is done.
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post #3 of 4
1/26/07 at 9:11am
If you ever watch Emeril's show, he periodically shows the two big vent fans located above his cooking area. I suspect all the cooking shows have similar units.

Stove top grills and smokers units smoke - - it's just a fact of life. A strong vent fan is important, commercial units are nice but $$$$$ and may not be a practical solution for the home cook.

Even with the ceiling fan on, windows open and the vent fan working my smoke detector has gone off while cleaing the oven. :eek:
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post #4 of 4
1/26/07 at 9:43am
You're a victim of physics.

You can't have lots of smoke or more than about 42,000 BTUs worth of burners because you would need a high-capacity vent hood.

This doesn't sound bad initially until you realize that a 1,000 CFM hood (a small one) requires that you make up 1000 cubic feet of air into your house each minute.

A 2000 square foot house only contains about 16,000 cubic feet of air, which means that you'll be ventilating the entire house every 16 minutes and also means you won't be able to run it without opening a door or window, and that you won't be able to heat or cool your house while it's running, since your heating and cooling equipment isn't sized to heat or cool 1000 CFM of outside air.

This doesn't mean you can't make smoke or heat, it just means you can't make tons of it (no high capcity WOK burners or smokingwith wood in the kitchen). A good residential vent hood can handle 300 or 400CFM without worrying too much about makeup air, and is generally enough to handle a residential cooktop.

Tery


Terry
My favorite recipes
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