EP1798479B1 - Commercial cooking device and method for its operation - Google Patents

Abstract

The operating process involves selecting a product and program, loading the selected product, starting the appropriate program, displaying the program name and remaining cooking time, installing automatic programming for other products, displaying product and program selections, selecting another product, loading the cooker with it, starting the program, displaying program name and remaining cooking time, repeating the process and removing the product after elapse of full cooking time.

Description

The invention relates to a method for operating a commercial cooking appliance, in particular a combi steamer or convection oven according to claim 1.

From the DE 203 20 945 U1 a cooking appliance for regenerating food to be cooked is known in which, inter alia, in order to achieve a better utilization of the cooking appliance, an operating element with an input unit for manually initiating clocks of each cooking stage fed regeneration level and a display unit is provided for displaying a characteristic of an initiated clock period.

From the GB 2 380 923 A a cooking appliance is known which has a cooking chamber with a housing, a cooking chamber door and a control device having a housing attached to the display and control panel with a touch panel and an on / off switch.

Despite these additional features, the known cooking appliance has the disadvantage that operators select the right clock for the selected shelf level and manually enter the correct cooking time, which can lead to problems especially in the field of fast food restaurants, since such restaurants mostly unskilled Use staff for restaurant operation. However, such staff is often due to lack of prior knowledge and only very short training times hardly suitable to make settings, as in the case of a cooking time setting, on devices depending on cooking programs and cooking products of various kinds.

Because of these circumstances, the known cooking appliance according to the above-mentioned utility model is particularly suitable for the field of fast food or quick service restaurants little.

Other known cooking appliances, in which after the insertion of cooking products, the device can only be re-fed after the expiry of each set cooking program, are therefore unsuitable for the field of fast food restaurants, because in such restaurants, the devices are rarely fully loaded, as in a short time smaller quantities of product must be produced and since the storage capacity in such restaurants are very limited.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method for operating a commercial cooking appliance, in particular a combi steamer or convection oven, in which small quantities of different products can be produced quickly and with effective utilization of the available cooking appliance capacity.

The solution of this object is achieved by the features of claim 1.

The present invention is based on the basic idea of putting together groups of products having the same or nearly the same cooking parameters, in particular the cooking time, in order to be able to do so quickly and safely after the start of a cooking process of a product , already in the cooking appliance product to add other products that have the same or the same cooking parameters, in particular the same or almost the same cooking temperature, which is the basis for optimally exploiting the capacity of the cooking appliance, even if of individual products only relatively small quantities have to be prepared, which in themselves would not fully utilize a cooking appliance.

The dependent claims 2 to 8 have advantageous developments of the method according to the invention content.

Fig. 1

eine schematisch vereinfachte Darstellung eines Gargeräts,

Fig. 2-4

schematisch vereinfachte Darstellungen eines Anzeige- und Bedienfeldes des Gargeräts gemäß Fig. 1,

Fig. 5-7

Ausschnitte aus einem Anzeige- und Bedienfeld zur Erläuterung einzelner Verfahrensschritte des erfindungsgemäßen Verfahrens.

Further details, advantages and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings. It shows:

Fig. 1

a schematically simplified representation of a cooking appliance,

Fig. 2-4

schematically simplified representations of a display and control panel of the cooking appliance according to Fig. 1 .

Fig. 5-7

Excerpts from a display and control panel for explaining individual process steps of the method according to the invention.

In Fig. 1 is shown in a schematically slightly simplified perspective view of a commercial cooking appliance 1, in particular in the form of a combi steamer or convection oven. The cooking appliance 1 has a housing 2, in which a cooking chamber 3 is arranged. The cooking chamber 3 can be closed and opened by means of a cooking chamber door 4.

In the cooking chamber 3 products can be cooked by circulating air or superheated steam with the help of suitable heating and ventilating devices, which can be formed as in conventional cooking appliances, so that they are not described in more detail here in the cooking appliance 1 components.

On a front side of the housing 2, a display and control panel 5 is arranged, which has a touch panel 6 and an on / off switch 7. Further operating components, the cooking appliance 1 as an outlet device deliberately not because it should be excluded according to the principles of the inventive method that the operator manipulates the cooking appliance 1 (with the exception of possible through the display and control panel 5 operations).

In the Fig. 2 to 4 an enlarged view of the touch panel 6 and the on / off switch 7 is shown.

Fig. 2 illustrates here that the display unit 7 can display ordered by product groups products, which are referred to here in the example case as "baked goods 1, bakery products 2, meat dishes 1, meat dishes 2, and vegetables".

These generic terms are representative of individual products, which are assigned to the generic terms in terms of programming, and automatically count towards the products to be selected if one of the generic terms is selected according to the previously explained examples.

Fig. 3 has the same touch panel 6, in which case individual products "chicken wings, chicken nuggets, shashlik, meatloaf, schnitzel, sausage" are shown, which is an alternative to the display of commodity terms.

Fig. 4 Fig. 10 shows a situation where the touch panel 6 makes the goods "chicken wings 0:12" and "meatloaf 0:15" appear in the top two display fields above a double decker representing a department, which means that these two products are already are located in the cooking appliance 1, wherein the information "0:12" and "0:15" indicate the respective remaining cooking time and the products are displayed from top to bottom with ascending Restgarzeiten ordered.

The remaining products "chicken nuggets, shish kebab, schnitzel, bratwurst" belong to the appropriate product selection, but have not yet been introduced in the illustrated situation in the cooking appliance 1, but are, so to speak, in reserve for a later transfer to the cooking appliance 1 to choose from. To signal this visually, the top two are Products "chicken wings, meatloaf" separated by the double line from the remaining four products.

The so-called "delete button", which is finally shown in the figures, is used to delete the current display after an incorrect entry or abort.

In a conceivable embodiment of the method according to the invention, the commercial cooking appliance 1 can be operated as follows:

First of all, for example, due to expected orders, the selection of the product to be cooked that corresponds to the order is made, to which a cooking program (eg chicken wings in 12 minutes, see FIG Fig. 5 ) assigned.

The device is charged with the selected product and the cooking program is started, which can be done for example only by simply pressing the program name or a start button 8. After the start the program name (eg chicken wings in 12 minutes, see Fig. 5 ) is displayed. At the same time, an assignment of further products matching the cooking program of the first product is carried out in an automated manner as a function of the cooking temperature (optionally also the cooking humidity and / or the fan speed, etc.) (for example, matching chicken wings: meatloaf; Fig. 3 ). The automated assignment leads to an indication of the product selection on the device, which can optionally be permanent or on request, for example by pressing a product selection button. From the large number of cooking programs available in the device, only those that match the current cooking program will be displayed (see eg Fig. 3 ).

If after ordering the cooking appliance with the first product received another order (eg meatloaf) is the previously displayed product selection appropriate to the first product (chicken wings) checked by the operator. If this determines that the further order (meatloaf) is a product of the displayed product selection, the corresponding associated cooking program (meatloaf) can be activated, the cooking device with the second product (meatloaf) loaded and turn the cooking program started, which can also be displayed , By starting the second product, the first cooking program (chicken wings) is not affected, but it is automatically started a second cooking time or a second timer, which monitors the second cooking time (here for the meatloaf) and displays the end of the cooking time, for example optically and / or acoustically (see eg Fig. 7 for chicken wings).

Fig. 6 shows a state in which three products are prepared in the oven, but are not ready, which is indicated by the remaining cooking times.

As an alternative to the previously discussed method, instead of selecting a product to cook, it is possible to display a selection of available cooking parameters (e.g., cooking temperature, cooking humidity, fan speed) on which to make the appropriate product selection.

As already explained, it is possible to carry out the display of the product selection permanently or on request.

It is possible, the product pre-selection not in the form of individual products, but in the form of generic terms for certain products (eg baked goods 1, baked goods 2, meat dishes 1, meat dishes 2, vegetables; Fig. 2 ; instead of listing all conceivable products).

Furthermore, it is possible that the display of the individual products is automatically sorted by the device according to cooking times so that, for example, the product with the shortest remaining cooking time is displayed at the top.

In order to be able to carry out the method according to the invention even more simply, it is possible for the products to be displayed instead of or in addition to the literal name by means of symbols and / or photos of the respective product, so that the operation can be carried out independently of the language capabilities of the operating personnel, for example.

To further eliminate misfeeds, it is possible to provide the products with a code (e.g., a bar code) and to check this code prior to loading by a corresponding reader attached to the cooking device. If the coding matches the scope of the product selection, the selected product type is determined to be correct and can be transferred by the operator to the cooking appliance.

If the coding is incorrect, a warning may be issued to signal that the product selected by the operator does not match the product selection.

Furthermore, with this type of embodiment of the method according to the invention it is possible that in the course of reading the coding and ascertaining the correctness of the selected product, the respective associated cooking program is started at the same time without this being repeated by the operator of the appliance, e.g. by pressing a start button, must be done.

In addition to the application of barcodes on the product and barcode readers on the device or in general of coding and reading devices, it is also possible to perform the monitoring by a camera.

To implement the method according to the invention, it is possible that the recipes or individual cooking programs assembled and programmed centrally on a master device in a test kitchen, and the respective on-site cooking appliances, ie the appliances operated in the restaurants, are only loaded with the centrally developed programs, so that any manipulation of these appliances, which are referred to as outlet Devices "can be prevented, which further increases the error safety.

Of course, it is also possible that the compilation of product groups by a competent person, such as a chef, is made on the master device. Of course, it is also possible to provide tolerances in addition to exact cooking parameters, such as certain temperature tolerances of, for example, 5 to 10 °, which are then compensated for locally on the outlet device by an automated increase or decrease of the cooking time, which is the flexibility of the method further increased. In this case, then the outlet device is a query to nearby cooking programs that are not identical to the selected, possible.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

1

Cooking appliance

2

casing

3

oven

4

oven door

5

Display and control panel

6

touch panel

7

On / off switch

8th

start button

Claims (8)

1. Method of operating a commercial cooking device (1), in particular a hot air steamer or a convection oven, including the following method steps:

   a) selecting a product to be cooked with an associated cooking program or selecting at least one cooking parameter with associated products to be selected;

   b) feeding the cooking device (1) with a selected product;

   c) starting the associated cooking program;

   d) displaying the program name and at least the remaining cooking time;

   e) automated assigning of further products or cooking programs suitable for the cooking program of the first selected product in accordance with cooking parameters, in particular the cooking temperature and/or the cooking humidity and/or the ventilator speed;

   f) displaying the selected product or cooking program;

   g) upon request, selecting a further product suitable for the first product according to the assignment;

   h) feeding the cooking device (1) with the further product;

   i) starting the associated cooking program;

   j) displaying the program name and at least the remaining cooking time for the further product;

   k) if required, repeating steps g) to j); and

   l) taking the products from the cooking device (1) after expiry of the respective cooking time.
2. The method of claim 1, characterized in that the selected product and the selected cooking program are displayed permanently.
3. The method of claim 1, characterized in that the selected product and the selected cooking program are displayed on request.
4. The method of one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the display occurs according to the cooking times.
5. The method of one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the display of the products or the product groups occurs by means of product symbols or product photos.
6. The method of one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the product selection is checked before feeding the cooking device.
7. The method of claim 6, characterized in that the product selection is checked by detecting a product code.
8. The method of claim 6, characterized in that the product selection is checked by video surveillance.

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