JP3150421B2 - Rice cooker with heat retention function - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a rice cooker having a heat retaining function.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a rice cooker having a heat insulating function of this kind has a maximum heat insulating time of about 12 hours. In practice, however, most people feel the unique yellowing, off-flavor, and reduced taste of the heat in about 5 to 6 hours. For this reason, the method of storing the remaining rice in a refrigerator or a freezer until the subsequent meal is becoming popular, with keeping the heat as short as possible, and at present, the original function of the rice cooker is not utilized.

[0003] In other words, the temperature of the rice cooker of this type is preferably 70 ° C or less to avoid high temperature deterioration of rice, but is set to 72 to 74 ° C to avoid the propagation of various bacteria. Therefore, the high temperature promotes yellowing and deterioration of starch due to evaporation of water content of rice.

[0004]

In order to improve the above-mentioned drawbacks, there has been a case in which water is accumulated in the lower portion of the inner lid covering the rice cooker and humidified during the heat retention, but the structure is complicated and the maintenance is difficult. In addition, when the heat retention is stopped halfway, moisture remains and there is a drawback that it causes unpleasant smell such as generation of mold and is not hygienic.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is a first object of the present invention to provide a rice cooker with a heat-retaining function that can be kept warm for a long time without deteriorating the taste of cooked rice. A second object is to simplify the configuration of a rice cooker with a rice washing function, which enables long-term heat retention.

[0006]

Means for Solving the Problems A bottomed tubular rice cooker, heating means for heating the rice cooker, water sprinkler for spraying water substantially evenly in the rice cooker, and a weight in the rice cooker. Measure
Weight measuring means, and the weight measuring means in a warm state.
In the rice cooker measured by the method has decreased by more than a predetermined amount
Sometimes it is provided with control means for operating the water sprinkling means .

[0007]

[0008] Further, the watering means includes a watering hole radially arranged in an inner lid for closing an upper opening of the rice cooker, a water supply means opened above the inner lid, and a rotating means for the rice cooker. It is composed.

[0009] In order to achieve the second object, the water supply means of the watering means and the rotating means of the rice cooker may include:
The rice cooker also serves as a rice washing means in the rice cooker.

[0010]

According to the present invention, with the above-described structure, water can be supplied to the surface of rice in a rice cooker by operating water sprinkling means as needed to keep the water lost.

[0011]

FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional view of a rice cooker with a heat retaining function according to one embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. ing. The rice cooker 2 has a rice cooker 3 having a flange at its upper end, a rice cooker 4 for removably storing the rice cooker 3, and a heating coil 5 for induction heating at the bottom of the rice cooker 4. Further, a drainage groove 6 having a substantially U-shaped cross section facing the flange of the rice cooker 3 is provided on the outer periphery of the rice cooker 4.

Further, an outer lid 7 is provided so as to be pivotally attached to an upper frame 8 integrally formed with the drainage groove 6 so as to cover the upper end openings of the rice cooking chamber 4 and the drainage groove 6.

The outer lid 7 has a steam hole 9 on its outer periphery.
At the approximate center thereof, a rice transport cylinder 11 having a valve 10 is provided. An inner lid spring 12 is movable up and down around the outer periphery of the rice transport cylinder 11.
And an inner lid ring 13 biased downwardly by the inner cover ring 13. The inner lid ring 13 is provided with an inner lid 14 for removably closing an upper end opening of the rice cooker 3.

The inner lid 14 has an interior portion 14a which is loosely fitted into the rice cooker 3 as shown in FIG.
And a peripheral portion 14b extending along the periphery of the rice cooker 3 with a gap provided therebetween. In addition, the inner part 14a has an inner diameter of 1 to 2 m that does not drip by its own weight of water.
A plurality of water injection holes 15a having m openings arranged radially and a plurality of water injection holes 15b provided on the outer periphery thereof.

A cover packing 16 is provided on the outer periphery of the lower surface of the outer cover 7 to seal the outer periphery of the drain groove 6 in a watertight manner.

The rice cooker 2 has a lower connector 18 which is detachably engaged with an upper connector 17 provided substantially at the center of the bottom and back of the rice cooker 3 at the upper end, and a co-rotating plate 19 at the lower end.
The rotor 20 is provided with a large-diameter linear bearing 21 so as to be movable up and down. On the outer periphery of the co-rotating plate 19, there are provided a sliding pin 22 erected in parallel with the rotor 20 and a linear bearing 23 slidably engaged with the sliding pin 22. A large pulley 24 that engages with the sliding pin 22 and rotates together with the rotor 20 concentrically. The large pulley 24, together with the rice washing motor 25 and the belt 27 that transmits the rotation from the small pulley 26 provided to the rice washing motor 25 to the large pulley 24, constitutes a rotating means for driving the rice cooker 3 to rotate.

A support plate 29 extending from one side of the load cell 28 is engaged with the rotor 20 at a step portion having a different diameter at the upper portion thereof.
The weight in the rice cooker 3 is transmitted to a load cell 28, and a pot weight sensor 30 for measuring the amount of distortion of the load cell 28 is configured. Note that a rice cooking sensor 31 is provided inside the rotor 20.

Further, the rice stored in a rice bin (not shown) is weighed at the upper rear of the cabinet body 1 and the rice is transferred into the rice cooker 3 via the rice transfer tube 11 of the rice cooker 2. A transport motor 32 is provided.

In addition, above the rice cooker 2 in front of it,
A water supply hole 34 of a water supply valve 33 is provided so as to face the steam hole 9 of the rice cooking section 2, the other side being directly connected to the water supply.

Further, at the front of the rice transport motor 32, there is provided a control circuit 35 for controlling the energization of the respective actuators based on data from the respective sensors.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be described. A desired amount of cooked rice or the like is keyed in by an operation unit (not shown), and a start switch is turned on to start. Then, first, a rice metering unit (not shown) measures rice having a desired rice cooking amount, and at the same time, starts the rice transport motor 32 to transport rice into the rice cooking pot 3 via the rice transport tube 11.

In the rice cooker 2, the weight of the rice conveyed to the rice cooker 3 is processed and measured and stored in the pot weight sensor 30 and data from the pan weight sensor 30 by the control circuit 35.

Next, the water supply valve 33 is opened, and the rice cooker 3 is opened from the water supply hole 34 through the steam hole 9 and the plurality of water injection holes 15b of the inner lid 14.
First, supply water for washing rice. Next, the rice washing motor 25 which is a rotating means of the rice cooker 3 is rotated forward and reverse to rotate the rice cooker 3 to wash rice. After that, the rotation of the rice cooker 3 is accelerated, and the rice washing water is discharged to the drain groove 6 from the gap between the flange of the rice cooker 3 and the outer peripheral portion 14b of the inner lid 14. After a rice washing process in which the rice washing water is supplied in the rice cooking pot 3, and the rice cooker is rotated several times in forward and reverse directions and drained, the water supply valve 33 is opened again, and the rice cooking water is supplied in the same manner as the rice washing water. Here, the rice cooking water is supplied by measuring the amount of water supplied into the rice cooking pot 3 by the pot weight sensor 30 sequentially until the water amount reaches a predetermined amount according to the weight of the transported rice.

When the supply of the cooking water is completed, the power supply to the heating coil 5 is started, the data from the rice cooking sensor 31 is processed by the control circuit 35, and the amount of power supply to the heating coil 5 is controlled so that the rice is cooked. When the rice cooking sensor 31 detects the completion of the rice cooking, the rice cooking sensor 31 enters a warm state. In this warmed state, the pot weight sensor 30 measures the weight in the rice cooker 3 and transmits the data to the control circuit 35 for storage, and starts counting the start time. When the heat retention state has passed to some extent and the weight loss in the rice cooker 3 reaches a predetermined amount,
The water supply valve 33 is opened to supply a predetermined amount of water to the inner lid 14. The water supplied here accumulates in the inner lid 14 without dripping from the watering hole 15a as it is, but the rotation of the rice-washing pot 3 starts by the operation of the rice-washing motor 25 which is the rotating means of the rice-cooking pan 3 thereafter. Then, water is sprinkled almost uniformly little by little from the radially arranged watering holes 15a of the rotating inner lid 14 to the surface of the rice in the rice cooker 3 by centrifugal force due to rotation, and lost water is supplied.

If the rice cooker 2 is pulled out during the operation of the water sprinkling means due to the serving of rice or the like, the operation is stopped by detecting means (not shown) for detecting the storage state of the rice cooker 2. In addition, it does not start anew while the rice cooking unit 2 is being pulled out.

In addition, when the weight in the rice cooker is reduced due to the serving of rice, if the weight is equal to or more than a predetermined amount as compared with the weight at the start of heat retention, the weight in the rice cooker at the start of new heat retention is expressed as:
The subsequent warming is continued as before.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the amount of water lost during heat retention is accurately measured by measuring the weight in the rice cooker 3, and the reduced amount is substantially uniform on the surface of the rice in the rice cooker 3. Water as a result of which the rice can be kept warm for a long time without deteriorating the taste of the cooked rice.

The water supply valve 33 and the rotating means of the rice cooker 3 (rotor 20, rice washing motor 25, belt 27, etc.), which are watering means, also serve as the rice washing means in the rice cooker 3. This can be simplified.

In this embodiment, the rice washing means in the automatic rice washing rice cooker which automatically prepares rice for transporting, washing, and adding water is also described as the water sprinkling means. Any configuration may be used as long as the amount of lost water is substantially uniformly sprinkled on the rice in the rice cooker, and the design can be changed as appropriate.

In the present embodiment, rice transport, rice washing, water addition, rice cooking, and heat preservation have been automatically and continuously described, but naturally, rice preparation in manual rice preparation (rice transportation, rice washing, water addition) is described. It is needless to say that the same effect can be obtained even when the heat retention is started or the heat retention is started manually.

[0031]

As described above, the rice cooker with a heat retaining function of the present invention comprises a bottomed tubular rice cooker , a heating means for heating the rice cooker, and a substantially uniform water spray in the rice cooker. Watering means and weight measuring means for measuring the weight in the rice cooker
Is measured by the weight measuring means in a warm state.
When the weight in the rice cooker drops by a predetermined amount or more,
By including the control means for operating the means, it is possible to keep the temperature for a long time without reducing the taste of the cooked rice.

[0032]

Further, the present invention provides a watering means comprising: a watering hole radially arranged in an inner lid for closing an upper opening of a rice cooker; a water supply means opened above the inner lid; and a rotating means for the rice cooker. In addition, the constitution can be simplified by also constituting the rice washing means in the rice cooker.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional view of a rice cooker with a heat retaining function in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a main part of the inner lid of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... cab body, 2 ... rice cooker, 3 ... rice cooker,
5: heating coil, 6: drain groove, 8: upper frame, 9: steam hole, 14: inner lid, 15a: water spray hole, 15b: water injection hole,
17… Upper connector, 18… Lower connector, 19… Co-rotating plate, 20… Rotator, 21… Large diameter linear bearing, 22… Sliding pin, 23… Linear bearing, 24… Large pulley, 25… Rice washing motor, 26 ... Small pulley, 27 ... Belt, 28 ... Load cell, 30 ... Pot weight sensor, 31 ... Rice cooker sensor, 32 ... Rice transport motor, 33 ... Water supply valve, 34 ... Water supply hole,
35 ... Control circuit.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-4-54919 (JP, A) JP-A-4-272720 (JP, A) JP-A-5-56844 (JP, A) 190923 (JP, U) (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A47J 27/00

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A bottomed tubular rice cooker, heating means for heating the rice cooker, watering means for spraying water uniformly in the rice cooker, and weight measurement for measuring the weight in the rice cooker. means
Is measured by the weight measuring means in a warm state.
When the weight in the rice cooker drops by a predetermined amount or more,
A rice cooker with a heat retaining function, comprising a control means for operating the means . 2. The watering means includes an upper opening of the rice cooker.
Watering holes arranged radially on the inner lid for closing the
From the water supply means opening upward and the rotating means of the rice cooker
Cooker with insulation features according to claim 1, characterized by comprising. 3. The water supply means of the watering means and the rice cooking.
Rotating means pot, rice cooker with insulation features of claim 2, wherein the this <br/> also serving as a rice washing means within the cooking pot.