24 ms·

British rocket scientist says he's designed a better saucepan

95 points by rk0567 12y ago

personZ 12y ago
Much greater surface area, so that part makes sense at least for flame-based cooking. I doubt it offers any benefit for non-flame-based cooking (elements, ceramic, etc. It might actually be a detriment because it would dissipate more energy. It goes both ways). It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins, which makes sense otherwise they'd have uneven thicknesses. That would be a serious cleaning issue.
- ZoF 12y ago
  >It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins, which makes sense otherwise they'd have uneven thicknesses. That would be a serious cleaning issue. Doesn't look like that at all to me; in fact I think if the inside was finned it would be an immediate no-go for most, for the very reason you've stated.
  - personZ 12y ago
    Given that the company goes to enormous lengths to never show or talk about the inside of the pan, I have to assume this is the Achilles heal. If the fins aren't replicated on the inside, then some areas will be mm from the flame, other areas cms (which, as an aside, means an enormous amount of material per pan) -- aluminum is a decent heat conductor, but that would still be a very bad recipe for cookware.
    - slang800 12y ago
      In addition they would be ridiculously expensive to manufacture if the fins were only on the outside. Normally cookware is made on a lathe (http://youtu.be/8uuFWzkRcAg?t=1m12s http://youtu.be/8uuFWzkRcAg?t=1m12s) or a press from sheet metal. So, if you have areas that are thicker than others you'd need to use an entirely different method of manufacturing them... like casting or welding on the "fins" after the rest of the pot/pan was shaped.
      - Crito 12y ago
        What's up with that guy wearing thick gloves while using that lathe? Isn't not wearing gloves while working with a lathe like rule number one?
        ertdfgcb 12y ago
        I thought rule number one when working with a lathe is "absolutely no strings or loose clothing at all ever".
        WalterBright 12y ago
        And remember to take the key out of the chuck before turning it on. A kid in my high school metal shop forgot once, and the key punched a nice hole in the wall.
        ertdfgcb 12y ago
        That reminds me of the guy who tried to protect his fingers from the pedestal grinder by using the sleeve of his hoodie instead of walking 20 feet to the tool room to get some gloves. His sleeve got caught at torn completely off. Fortunately he wasn't hurt and banned from the metal shop.
        WalterBright 12y ago
        The drill press in the school shop had a large picture taped next to it of a guy with long hair that had half of it pulled out by a drill press. It was pretty motivating :-)
        SoftwareMaven 12y ago
        I would imagine the heat of working the metal like that would be enough to be uncomfortable at best. Worse, the edges could be sharp.
      - WatchDog 12y ago
        The article states that the pan is cast aluminium.
    - prawn 12y ago
      Might be wrong, but I suspect they don't show the inside because it looks like a normal saucepan and it's the futuristic exterior that likely gets them sales. Just can't see how a saucepan with those fins inside would be at all useful, whether they're far more efficient or not. Couldn't stir a sauce or easily cook pasta, etc?
      - colanderman 12y ago
        They could show the pan at a slight angle. Someone has to have told them their doubt about the inside.
- Crito 12y ago
  > "It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins, which makes sense otherwise they'd have uneven thicknesses. That would be a serious cleaning issue." It would also make it nearly impossible to cook anything that needed to be stirred to prevent burning. Stirring a regular pot with a rubber spatula is pretty easy, but getting into all of those nooks? That looks like a royal pain. It's probably alright for things that won't burn though, like soups.
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    ...things that won't burn though, like soups. If you can't burn soup you're not trying hard enough! b^)
- beemoe 12y ago
  >"non-flame-based-cooking" So, methods that don't rely on the convection of air to the pan. I would guess an induction cook top would be a better example than a ceramic element. At a quick glance, if these efficiency percentages being thrown around are actually comparable(maybe not), than induction still beats fancy convection pots even with heatsink bottoms like these: http://www.appliancemagazine.com/editorial.php?article=2257&zone=114&first=1 http://www.appliancemagazine.com/editorial.php?article=2257&... > It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins I couldn't find out if it does. I found others, like the pots in the link above that have a flat inside. My guess is that using a pressure cooker with an induction cooktop fed by on-site solar would be the most efficiency possible, but I have not done the math and would love to be corrected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_cooking#Efficiency_and_environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_cooking#Efficiency_a...
  - jonah 12y ago
    solar panel > induction cooktop > pressure cooker or just skip the intermediary steps and conversion losses and use a Solar Cooker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker
- NLips 12y ago
  It does mean they're covering maybe 60-70% of the UK's market (where this pan is sold) - gas use is very prevalent in the UK due to historically having being cheaper than electricity. I don't see where it looks like there are fins on the inside, and I disagree with your insistence below that it must for heat-transfer reasons - the fins are (relatively) thin, so I'd estimate no point on the inside of the circumference would be several centimetres from the [hot air]. Besides, part of the point of the fins is that they capture heat from the air. Without any math required, if the fin is a reasonable conductor, this means the air is hotter than the fin, which is hotter than the inside of the pan. Where fins join the pan there's a large surface area capturing heat from the air going to a smaller area of pan, compared to gaps between fins where the area in contact with the air is approximately equal to the area of inside pan. edit: [Disclosure] Dr Povey was one of my tutors, and the bearded fellow with glasses in the video was a peer at college (six engineers in my year).
rquantz 12y ago
The article doesn't mention how the saucepan performs at low heat, which is a pretty important part of cooking. Especially if you don't have a great stove, the low end of the heat range will often be too hot, and so you rely on having a good, heavy, low conductivity pan that will keep its contents from getting too hot. Boiling water quickly is nice, but ruining your custard because it boils is very not nice.
- Retric 12y ago
  If you want steady low heat they make metal plates with holes in them for this purpose. I think there called diffusers?
  - rquantz 12y ago
    I'm pretty happy with the steady low heat I can get with a good conventional pan. But claims that this is the pan of the future will only hold up if it not only heats up very efficiently at high temperatures, but also doesn't heat up too efficiently at low temperatures.
    - zo1 12y ago
      It also only works for open-flame gas stoves.
  - colanderman 12y ago
    Yes, "flame tamer" and "heat diffuser" are two terms I've heard for such a thing.
dsirijus 12y ago
Am I mistaken or, at [1], it can be noticed that a lot of heat goes into handle? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lKvbVJasGXc#t=95 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lKvb...
- KamiCrit 12y ago
  Comfort is the trade off for efficient cooking.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Indeed, at t=98 it's really clear. I wonder if they tried the pan with no fins under the handle, or with a protrusion to prevent the rising gas heating the handle? Heating the handle to extremes, it seems as hot as the hottest parts, seems like a pretty serious deficiency for a design for domestic use. I wonder what the beta testing (ie end-user testing) was like. These look like they'd burn your sauce?
- pizza 12y ago
  Great point. I wonder if a hot handle is at all avoidable when using a more efficient pan.
  - jonah 12y ago
    Or a non-thermally-conductive handle.
carlob 12y ago
According to the video in the product pages [1] the creator of this pan came up with the idea on a mountaineering trip because "it takes forever to boil water at high altitude". What?! Isn't it the other way around? Lower atmospheric pressure means that water boils at significantly lower temperature [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lKvbVJasGXc#t=29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lK... [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=boiling%20temperature%20of%20water%20at%202000%20m http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=boiling%20temperature%2...
- kazinator 12y ago
  Hi carlob; my thoughts exactly! The boiling point is lower. It takes longer to boil foods because of the lower temperature, but that's a different problem from time-to-boil, which should be shorter, if anything.
  - carlob 12y ago
    It does take longer to cook food by boiling it, but having a more efficient pan won't help for that. As a matter of fact it becomes almost impossible to make risotto at altitudes over 3000 m.
    - sampo 12y ago
      But a more efficient heat transfer would mean smaller fuel consumption. Maybe important if you carry the fuel yourself.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I guess a lot of stoves don't work as well in the thinner, usually colder air. (with all sorts of other things feeding into it, the fuel, the particular design of the stove, etc.)
- Avshalom 12y ago
  Not that strapping a heat exchanger to a pot is a new idea among the sort of people that would be on mountaineering trips http://www.esbit.de/en/products/72/2-35l-pot-with-heat-exchanger-phe2350wn http://www.esbit.de/en/products/72/2-35l-pot-with-heat-excha... http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/cookware/cookware-accessories/heat-exchanger/product http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/cookware/cookware-accessor... http://www.jetboil.com/ http://www.jetboil.com/ http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/stove-systems/category http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/stove-systems/categ...
geon 12y ago
...But only for gas stoves. It would be interesting to see a map of the preferred stove technologies.
- blahedo 12y ago
  And by "preferred" you presumably mean "most used". I live in a town that, inexplicably, does not have access to natural gas lines. A lot of people here would "prefer" gas stoves but we're stuck with electric. :( But yes, I'd love to see a map like that. Before I moved here I assumed that pretty much everywhere in the developed world had natural gas piping, but evidently not.
  - geon 12y ago
    Here in Sweden, I have never seen gas infrastructure. Possibly some o the really old, large cities have it in the "old town". Some enthusiasts have gas stoves, but they would use propane flasks.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  Are you looking for... (puts on thick-rimmed eye-glasses) a heat map?
- analog31 12y ago
  When I lived in a suburb in Texas, there was no natural gas available in the neighborhood. Now I live in a Northern city, and could probably generalize to a reasonable extent: Cities are plumbed for gas, and newer houses will have gas appliances. Many older houses -- even in neighborhoods with gas service -- were heated with oil, and most but not all have been upgraded. Quite a lot of people I know buy a house and discover that there's a gas furnace but everything else is electric. For instance while living in one house, I extended the plumbing so I could install a gas clothes dryer. Folks tend to prefer gas stove. In my house, running gas to the kitchen would require quite a lot of drywall trauma, and I learned to cook on a gas stove, so it's not a big deal for me. In rural areas, it's mostly propane. The house I lived in during grad school had a coal chute.
showthrow 12y ago
"the super pan was developed by astronauts who quit the space program to devote their LIVES to developing PANS!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQAFv1sI6TU&feature=kp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQAFv1sI6TU&feature=kp
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
Is channelling the hot combustion gases up the side more efficient than having a recessed or concave bottom (e.g. a flange that fits down around the circumference with insets to fit the grid on which the pan rests)?
gjvc 12y ago
"Already the new design has won the 2014 Hawley Award from the Worshipful Company of Engineers, a British professional group." These people don't seem to care that nobody in their right mind buys aluminium cookware.
- DanBC 12y ago
  The links between aluminium cookware and Alzheimer's are weak at best. Aluminium cookware has some advantages - especially for very large pans. And if you're worried about aluminium using different pans is only removing a small amount from your lifestyle - it's used everywhere. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9119528/Is-aluminium-really-a-silent-killer.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9119528/Is-aluminium-reall...
  - blauwbilgorgel 12y ago
    The links between aluminium cookware and Alzheimer's are inconclusive. From your article: It can migrate to food from cookware and packaging materials such as foil and cartons. One study found that around 20 per cent of aluminium in the diet came from the use of aluminium cookware and foil, according to the Food Standards Agency. Tomatoes, rhubarb, cabbage and many soft fruits should not be cooked in aluminium pans, it says. Older studies into the relation between aluminium and Alzheimer's have shown that aluminium has neurotoxic effects. A direct link between aluminium exposure and contracting Alzheimer's was only found recently: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/272573.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/272573.php Overall, these results suggest very strongly that occupational exposure to aluminium contributed significantly to the untimely death of this individual with Alzheimer's disease. Now inhaling aluminium dust through a dust mask is a lot different from cooking in aluminium pans, but I won't say the link is weak at best. This remains very difficult to study, due to the long-term effects, and unfortunately also due to little funding and pushbacks from the aluminium industry itself.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- zorpner 12y ago
awjr 12y ago
I'd like to see the benefit of each pan type analysed. If the fins are on the sides of the pan, then I can see there being little benefit on a frying pan. I'm sort of disappointed this is patented and only available on a saucepan costing £60+. It's the type of invention that would specifically benefit poorer house holds. As an 'evolution' of this, what would the impact of a cpu heat sink 'vortex' base have on the efficiency of a pan. Go crazy and have a double skinned pan (attached by many internal fins), then vent the hot air up through the gap between the pans via the 'vortex'. Now I know cleaning this could be an issue...but I'm assuming you would capture quite a high amount of the heat from the burning gas.
beloch 12y ago
This kind of pot should cool down its contents significantly faster than a normal pot too. Whether that's an advantage or disadvantage probably depends on the application though.
marcosscriven 12y ago
Looking at this immediately made me think of my induction hob back home in London. I think they're popular in Asia, but not at all in UK. I think in the UK people get them mixed up with other forms of electric hobs. I take great delight in placing a piece of paper on one of the rings, placing a pan of water on top, and turning it on full blast. Visitors are amazed when the water boils extremely quickly, and the paper is just slightly warmed. So IMO induction is far more controllable, efficient, and faster than gas, not to mention so much easier to clean, and even a better pan for gas isn't going to change that.
- nightcracker 12y ago
  Induction is terrible for the environment though, as you're turning high efficiency energy (electricity) into low efficiency energy (heat).
  - CapitalistCartr 12y ago
    I don't understand what high and low efficiency means in this context and how it applies to the environment. All electric stoves convert electricity to heat; do you mean to say that natural gas is the better environmental choice? Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding you.
    - wl 12y ago
      Electricity is usually generated by turning heat into motion, which is then turned into electricity. You lose energy at each stage, but the heat to motion stage is limited by Carnot's Theorem, which puts an upper bound on the efficiency of heat engines. Efficiency varies based on implementation, but it almost never rises above 50%. If you need heat, it's much more fuel efficient to just burn fuel and not bother turning it into electricity in an intermediate step.
      - quantumstate 12y ago
        "If you need heat, it's much more fuel efficient to just burn fuel and not bother turning it into electricity in an intermediate step." This isn't always true. Carnot's Theorem works in reverse as well, so you can use a heat pump (like an air con unit) so get more heat out of your electricity than just dumping it into a coil. This is actually practical and is being done today for heating houses, you can easily beat the other inefficiencies because the temperature difference that you are trying to create for your house is much smaller than the one between the gas furnace and the ambient temperature around the power station. For heating a pan though I think this is unlikely to be practical any time soon.
vanderZwan 12y ago
I'm a bit disappointed it solves one problem in isolation (heat transfer from gas to pan) and not much else. Having said that, I wonder how it would combine with pot skirts and fireless cookers? http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/07/cooking-pot-insulation-key-to-sustainable-cooking.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/07/cooking-pot-insulatio...
sirgawain33 12y ago
This article is a great example of NIH syndrome. You can get the same improvement with "About $5 of materials and an hour of time." [1] That's by Dale Andreatta, a mechanical engineer that's been tinkering with improved stoves for decades. But he's not the only one, there are plenty of pot tweaks that achieve comparable or better the the improvements cites in the article. Like many commenters below bring up, there are other design constraints to cooking technology than raw throughput -- performance at low temperature, manufacturing complexity, ease of cleaning, evenness of heating, performance under varying ambient conditions (humidity, wind, temp). I encountered many such rocket scientists (literally) while designing improved stoves over the last few years. The engineering of stoves only superficially resembles the engineering of jet engines: the quantities are all different (low flow rate, low pressures, lower temperatures) and, as a result, the overall drivers of performance are very different (for example, stove to pot efficiency is largely governed by excess air control, NOT surface area) A good example is that I got many recommendations to add "swirlers" [2] to stoves to improve mixing and reduce output CO. This works great in a jet, but it's useless in a stove: there's not enough pressure generated by natural draft to make the device effective. [1] pg. 14 http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/ethos/files/ethos2008/Sat%20AM%20Classroom%201/Andreatta%20A%20Study%20of%20Heat%20Transfer%20in%20Finned%20Pots.pdf http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/ethos/files/ethos2008/Sat%20AM%2... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=swirlers+jet+engine&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=DgnDU6v9CozqoATUxYHgAw&ved=0CDcQsAQ&biw=1460&bih=1148 https://www.google.com/search?q=swirlers+jet+engine&espv=2&t...
- ertdfgcb 12y ago
  Personally, I'd much rather buy his version than make my own. The newer design has the fins going all the way up the pot, which seems like it would make it more efficient at heating the sides, although it might be inconsequential (I'm not a rocket scientist). The newer design is also much much nicer looking that the cobbled together one, and the single piece body seems more durable. I don't think this is an example of NIH syndrome, I think this an example of a commercial implementation of a good hack.
  - sirgawain33 12y ago
WalterBright 12y ago
Jet engines are not rocket engines, and scientists are not engineers. Source: JP121 at Caltech
Tloewald 12y ago
I'm not convinced that even heat up the sides is actually what cooks want from a pot, certainly not always. I can't say I've ever thought, as I was cooking, what this pot needs is heat distributed up the sides. It also presimably makes the pots heavier, harder to clean, and hotter to handle.
- colanderman 12y ago
  When cooking with a wok, you want MOST of the heat on the sides, to maximize the surface area you can cook with. I'm not sure about other pots, but even heating around the contents of the pan is probably always better than the alternative.
venomsnake 12y ago
Good luck stirring in that.
- prawn 12y ago
  I doubt there are fins inside. It would be almost useless for any application if there were. Surely not? Can't find any reviews online - just repeats of the announcements. Surely someone's bought one?

95 points by rk0567 12y ago

Much greater surface area, so that part makes sense at least for flame-based cooking. I doubt it offers any benefit for non-flame-based cooking (elements, ceramic, etc. It might actually be a detriment because it would dissipate more energy. It goes both ways). It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins, which makes sense otherwise they'd have uneven thicknesses. That would be a serious cleaning issue.

ZoF 12y ago
>It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins, which makes sense otherwise they'd have uneven thicknesses. That would be a serious cleaning issue. Doesn't look like that at all to me; in fact I think if the inside was finned it would be an immediate no-go for most, for the very reason you've stated.
- personZ 12y ago
  Given that the company goes to enormous lengths to never show or talk about the inside of the pan, I have to assume this is the Achilles heal. If the fins aren't replicated on the inside, then some areas will be mm from the flame, other areas cms (which, as an aside, means an enormous amount of material per pan) -- aluminum is a decent heat conductor, but that would still be a very bad recipe for cookware.
  - slang800 12y ago
    In addition they would be ridiculously expensive to manufacture if the fins were only on the outside. Normally cookware is made on a lathe (http://youtu.be/8uuFWzkRcAg?t=1m12s http://youtu.be/8uuFWzkRcAg?t=1m12s) or a press from sheet metal. So, if you have areas that are thicker than others you'd need to use an entirely different method of manufacturing them... like casting or welding on the "fins" after the rest of the pot/pan was shaped.
    - Crito 12y ago
      What's up with that guy wearing thick gloves while using that lathe? Isn't not wearing gloves while working with a lathe like rule number one?
      - ertdfgcb 12y ago
        I thought rule number one when working with a lathe is "absolutely no strings or loose clothing at all ever".
        WalterBright 12y ago
        And remember to take the key out of the chuck before turning it on. A kid in my high school metal shop forgot once, and the key punched a nice hole in the wall.
        ertdfgcb 12y ago
        That reminds me of the guy who tried to protect his fingers from the pedestal grinder by using the sleeve of his hoodie instead of walking 20 feet to the tool room to get some gloves. His sleeve got caught at torn completely off. Fortunately he wasn't hurt and banned from the metal shop.
        WalterBright 12y ago
        The drill press in the school shop had a large picture taped next to it of a guy with long hair that had half of it pulled out by a drill press. It was pretty motivating :-)
      - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
        I would imagine the heat of working the metal like that would be enough to be uncomfortable at best. Worse, the edges could be sharp.
    - WatchDog 12y ago
      The article states that the pan is cast aluminium.
  - prawn 12y ago
    Might be wrong, but I suspect they don't show the inside because it looks like a normal saucepan and it's the futuristic exterior that likely gets them sales. Just can't see how a saucepan with those fins inside would be at all useful, whether they're far more efficient or not. Couldn't stir a sauce or easily cook pasta, etc?
    - colanderman 12y ago
      They could show the pan at a slight angle. Someone has to have told them their doubt about the inside.
Crito 12y ago
> "It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins, which makes sense otherwise they'd have uneven thicknesses. That would be a serious cleaning issue." It would also make it nearly impossible to cook anything that needed to be stirred to prevent burning. Stirring a regular pot with a rubber spatula is pretty easy, but getting into all of those nooks? That looks like a royal pain. It's probably alright for things that won't burn though, like soups.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  ...things that won't burn though, like soups. If you can't burn soup you're not trying hard enough! b^)
beemoe 12y ago
>"non-flame-based-cooking" So, methods that don't rely on the convection of air to the pan. I would guess an induction cook top would be a better example than a ceramic element. At a quick glance, if these efficiency percentages being thrown around are actually comparable(maybe not), than induction still beats fancy convection pots even with heatsink bottoms like these: http://www.appliancemagazine.com/editorial.php?article=2257&zone=114&first=1 http://www.appliancemagazine.com/editorial.php?article=2257&... > It looks like the inside of the pan has the same fins I couldn't find out if it does. I found others, like the pots in the link above that have a flat inside. My guess is that using a pressure cooker with an induction cooktop fed by on-site solar would be the most efficiency possible, but I have not done the math and would love to be corrected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_cooking#Efficiency_and_environmental_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_cooking#Efficiency_a...
- jonah 12y ago
  solar panel > induction cooktop > pressure cooker or just skip the intermediary steps and conversion losses and use a Solar Cooker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker
NLips 12y ago
It does mean they're covering maybe 60-70% of the UK's market (where this pan is sold) - gas use is very prevalent in the UK due to historically having being cheaper than electricity. I don't see where it looks like there are fins on the inside, and I disagree with your insistence below that it must for heat-transfer reasons - the fins are (relatively) thin, so I'd estimate no point on the inside of the circumference would be several centimetres from the [hot air]. Besides, part of the point of the fins is that they capture heat from the air. Without any math required, if the fin is a reasonable conductor, this means the air is hotter than the fin, which is hotter than the inside of the pan. Where fins join the pan there's a large surface area capturing heat from the air going to a smaller area of pan, compared to gaps between fins where the area in contact with the air is approximately equal to the area of inside pan. edit: [Disclosure] Dr Povey was one of my tutors, and the bearded fellow with glasses in the video was a peer at college (six engineers in my year).

rquantz 12y ago

The article doesn't mention how the saucepan performs at low heat, which is a pretty important part of cooking. Especially if you don't have a great stove, the low end of the heat range will often be too hot, and so you rely on having a good, heavy, low conductivity pan that will keep its contents from getting too hot. Boiling water quickly is nice, but ruining your custard because it boils is very not nice.

Retric 12y ago
If you want steady low heat they make metal plates with holes in them for this purpose. I think there called diffusers?
- rquantz 12y ago
  I'm pretty happy with the steady low heat I can get with a good conventional pan. But claims that this is the pan of the future will only hold up if it not only heats up very efficiently at high temperatures, but also doesn't heat up too efficiently at low temperatures.
  - zo1 12y ago
    It also only works for open-flame gas stoves.
- colanderman 12y ago
  Yes, "flame tamer" and "heat diffuser" are two terms I've heard for such a thing.

dsirijus 12y ago

Am I mistaken or, at [1], it can be noticed that a lot of heat goes into handle? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lKvbVJasGXc#t=95 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lKvb...

KamiCrit 12y ago
Comfort is the trade off for efficient cooking.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
Indeed, at t=98 it's really clear. I wonder if they tried the pan with no fins under the handle, or with a protrusion to prevent the rising gas heating the handle? Heating the handle to extremes, it seems as hot as the hottest parts, seems like a pretty serious deficiency for a design for domestic use. I wonder what the beta testing (ie end-user testing) was like. These look like they'd burn your sauce?
pizza 12y ago
Great point. I wonder if a hot handle is at all avoidable when using a more efficient pan.
- jonah 12y ago
  Or a non-thermally-conductive handle.

carlob 12y ago

According to the video in the product pages [1] the creator of this pan came up with the idea on a mountaineering trip because "it takes forever to boil water at high altitude". What?! Isn't it the other way around? Lower atmospheric pressure means that water boils at significantly lower temperature [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lKvbVJasGXc#t=29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lK... [2] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=boiling%20temperature%20of%20water%20at%202000%20m http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=boiling%20temperature%2...

kazinator 12y ago
Hi carlob; my thoughts exactly! The boiling point is lower. It takes longer to boil foods because of the lower temperature, but that's a different problem from time-to-boil, which should be shorter, if anything.
- carlob 12y ago
  It does take longer to cook food by boiling it, but having a more efficient pan won't help for that. As a matter of fact it becomes almost impossible to make risotto at altitudes over 3000 m.
  - sampo 12y ago
    But a more efficient heat transfer would mean smaller fuel consumption. Maybe important if you carry the fuel yourself.
maxerickson 12y ago
I guess a lot of stoves don't work as well in the thinner, usually colder air. (with all sorts of other things feeding into it, the fuel, the particular design of the stove, etc.)
Avshalom 12y ago
Not that strapping a heat exchanger to a pot is a new idea among the sort of people that would be on mountaineering trips http://www.esbit.de/en/products/72/2-35l-pot-with-heat-exchanger-phe2350wn http://www.esbit.de/en/products/72/2-35l-pot-with-heat-excha... http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/cookware/cookware-accessories/heat-exchanger/product http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/cookware/cookware-accessor... http://www.jetboil.com/ http://www.jetboil.com/ http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/stove-systems/category http://www.cascadedesigns.com/msr/stoves/stove-systems/categ...

geon 12y ago

...But only for gas stoves. It would be interesting to see a map of the preferred stove technologies.

blahedo 12y ago
And by "preferred" you presumably mean "most used". I live in a town that, inexplicably, does not have access to natural gas lines. A lot of people here would "prefer" gas stoves but we're stuck with electric. :( But yes, I'd love to see a map like that. Before I moved here I assumed that pretty much everywhere in the developed world had natural gas piping, but evidently not.
- geon 12y ago
  Here in Sweden, I have never seen gas infrastructure. Possibly some o the really old, large cities have it in the "old town". Some enthusiasts have gas stoves, but they would use propane flasks.
wavefunction 12y ago
Are you looking for... (puts on thick-rimmed eye-glasses) a heat map?
analog31 12y ago
When I lived in a suburb in Texas, there was no natural gas available in the neighborhood. Now I live in a Northern city, and could probably generalize to a reasonable extent: Cities are plumbed for gas, and newer houses will have gas appliances. Many older houses -- even in neighborhoods with gas service -- were heated with oil, and most but not all have been upgraded. Quite a lot of people I know buy a house and discover that there's a gas furnace but everything else is electric. For instance while living in one house, I extended the plumbing so I could install a gas clothes dryer. Folks tend to prefer gas stove. In my house, running gas to the kitchen would require quite a lot of drywall trauma, and I learned to cook on a gas stove, so it's not a big deal for me. In rural areas, it's mostly propane. The house I lived in during grad school had a coal chute.

showthrow 12y ago

"the super pan was developed by astronauts who quit the space program to devote their LIVES to developing PANS!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQAFv1sI6TU&feature=kp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQAFv1sI6TU&feature=kp

pbhjpbhj 12y ago

Is channelling the hot combustion gases up the side more efficient than having a recessed or concave bottom (e.g. a flange that fits down around the circumference with insets to fit the grid on which the pan rests)?

gjvc 12y ago

"Already the new design has won the 2014 Hawley Award from the Worshipful Company of Engineers, a British professional group." These people don't seem to care that nobody in their right mind buys aluminium cookware.

DanBC 12y ago
The links between aluminium cookware and Alzheimer's are weak at best. Aluminium cookware has some advantages - especially for very large pans. And if you're worried about aluminium using different pans is only removing a small amount from your lifestyle - it's used everywhere. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9119528/Is-aluminium-really-a-silent-killer.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9119528/Is-aluminium-reall...
- blauwbilgorgel 12y ago
  The links between aluminium cookware and Alzheimer's are inconclusive. From your article: It can migrate to food from cookware and packaging materials such as foil and cartons. One study found that around 20 per cent of aluminium in the diet came from the use of aluminium cookware and foil, according to the Food Standards Agency. Tomatoes, rhubarb, cabbage and many soft fruits should not be cooked in aluminium pans, it says. Older studies into the relation between aluminium and Alzheimer's have shown that aluminium has neurotoxic effects. A direct link between aluminium exposure and contracting Alzheimer's was only found recently: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/272573.php http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/272573.php Overall, these results suggest very strongly that occupational exposure to aluminium contributed significantly to the untimely death of this individual with Alzheimer's disease. Now inhaling aluminium dust through a dust mask is a lot different from cooking in aluminium pans, but I won't say the link is weak at best. This remains very difficult to study, due to the long-term effects, and unfortunately also due to little funding and pushbacks from the aluminium industry itself.
deleted 12y ago
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zorpner 12y ago

awjr 12y ago

I'd like to see the benefit of each pan type analysed. If the fins are on the sides of the pan, then I can see there being little benefit on a frying pan. I'm sort of disappointed this is patented and only available on a saucepan costing £60+. It's the type of invention that would specifically benefit poorer house holds. As an 'evolution' of this, what would the impact of a cpu heat sink 'vortex' base have on the efficiency of a pan. Go crazy and have a double skinned pan (attached by many internal fins), then vent the hot air up through the gap between the pans via the 'vortex'. Now I know cleaning this could be an issue...but I'm assuming you would capture quite a high amount of the heat from the burning gas.

beloch 12y ago

This kind of pot should cool down its contents significantly faster than a normal pot too. Whether that's an advantage or disadvantage probably depends on the application though.

marcosscriven 12y ago

Looking at this immediately made me think of my induction hob back home in London. I think they're popular in Asia, but not at all in UK. I think in the UK people get them mixed up with other forms of electric hobs. I take great delight in placing a piece of paper on one of the rings, placing a pan of water on top, and turning it on full blast. Visitors are amazed when the water boils extremely quickly, and the paper is just slightly warmed. So IMO induction is far more controllable, efficient, and faster than gas, not to mention so much easier to clean, and even a better pan for gas isn't going to change that.

nightcracker 12y ago
Induction is terrible for the environment though, as you're turning high efficiency energy (electricity) into low efficiency energy (heat).
- CapitalistCartr 12y ago
  I don't understand what high and low efficiency means in this context and how it applies to the environment. All electric stoves convert electricity to heat; do you mean to say that natural gas is the better environmental choice? Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding you.
  - wl 12y ago
    Electricity is usually generated by turning heat into motion, which is then turned into electricity. You lose energy at each stage, but the heat to motion stage is limited by Carnot's Theorem, which puts an upper bound on the efficiency of heat engines. Efficiency varies based on implementation, but it almost never rises above 50%. If you need heat, it's much more fuel efficient to just burn fuel and not bother turning it into electricity in an intermediate step.
    - quantumstate 12y ago
      "If you need heat, it's much more fuel efficient to just burn fuel and not bother turning it into electricity in an intermediate step." This isn't always true. Carnot's Theorem works in reverse as well, so you can use a heat pump (like an air con unit) so get more heat out of your electricity than just dumping it into a coil. This is actually practical and is being done today for heating houses, you can easily beat the other inefficiencies because the temperature difference that you are trying to create for your house is much smaller than the one between the gas furnace and the ambient temperature around the power station. For heating a pan though I think this is unlikely to be practical any time soon.

vanderZwan 12y ago

I'm a bit disappointed it solves one problem in isolation (heat transfer from gas to pan) and not much else. Having said that, I wonder how it would combine with pot skirts and fireless cookers? http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/07/cooking-pot-insulation-key-to-sustainable-cooking.html http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/07/cooking-pot-insulatio...

sirgawain33 12y ago

This article is a great example of NIH syndrome. You can get the same improvement with "About $5 of materials and an hour of time." [1] That's by Dale Andreatta, a mechanical engineer that's been tinkering with improved stoves for decades. But he's not the only one, there are plenty of pot tweaks that achieve comparable or better the the improvements cites in the article. Like many commenters below bring up, there are other design constraints to cooking technology than raw throughput -- performance at low temperature, manufacturing complexity, ease of cleaning, evenness of heating, performance under varying ambient conditions (humidity, wind, temp). I encountered many such rocket scientists (literally) while designing improved stoves over the last few years. The engineering of stoves only superficially resembles the engineering of jet engines: the quantities are all different (low flow rate, low pressures, lower temperatures) and, as a result, the overall drivers of performance are very different (for example, stove to pot efficiency is largely governed by excess air control, NOT surface area) A good example is that I got many recommendations to add "swirlers" [2] to stoves to improve mixing and reduce output CO. This works great in a jet, but it's useless in a stove: there's not enough pressure generated by natural draft to make the device effective. [1] pg. 14 http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/ethos/files/ethos2008/Sat%20AM%20Classroom%201/Andreatta%20A%20Study%20of%20Heat%20Transfer%20in%20Finned%20Pots.pdf http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/ethos/files/ethos2008/Sat%20AM%2... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=swirlers+jet+engine&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=DgnDU6v9CozqoATUxYHgAw&ved=0CDcQsAQ&biw=1460&bih=1148 https://www.google.com/search?q=swirlers+jet+engine&espv=2&t...

ertdfgcb 12y ago
Personally, I'd much rather buy his version than make my own. The newer design has the fins going all the way up the pot, which seems like it would make it more efficient at heating the sides, although it might be inconsequential (I'm not a rocket scientist). The newer design is also much much nicer looking that the cobbled together one, and the single piece body seems more durable. I don't think this is an example of NIH syndrome, I think this an example of a commercial implementation of a good hack.
- sirgawain33 12y ago

WalterBright 12y ago

Jet engines are not rocket engines, and scientists are not engineers. Source: JP121 at Caltech

Tloewald 12y ago

I'm not convinced that even heat up the sides is actually what cooks want from a pot, certainly not always. I can't say I've ever thought, as I was cooking, what this pot needs is heat distributed up the sides. It also presimably makes the pots heavier, harder to clean, and hotter to handle.

colanderman 12y ago
When cooking with a wok, you want MOST of the heat on the sides, to maximize the surface area you can cook with. I'm not sure about other pots, but even heating around the contents of the pan is probably always better than the alternative.

venomsnake 12y ago

Good luck stirring in that.

prawn 12y ago
I doubt there are fins inside. It would be almost useless for any application if there were. Surely not? Can't find any reviews online - just repeats of the announcements. Surely someone's bought one?