JPS5924815B2 - rice cooker - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention aims to realize a rice cooker that allows a rice cooker user to cook delicious rice without a core without soaking the rice in water for several hours or more before starting rice cooking. be.

In conventional rice cookers that cook rice at a constant heat, the gelatinization temperature (approximately 65°C) is reached in a relatively short time after the rice starts cooking, and water does not penetrate deep into the rice, resulting in rice with a core. Therefore, in order to cook rice without a core, it is necessary to soak the rice in room temperature water for several hours or more before starting cooking.

Therefore, the higher the water temperature, the more the water immersion effect on rice is promoted.

However, once the gelatinization temperature of rice (approximately 65°C) is reached, the water immersion effect disappears. Taking advantage of this, a method can be considered in which rice is submerged in water by heating at low heat until the gelatinization temperature of the rice is reached, and then the rice is cooked at a separately determined high heat. If you don't increase the heat, the rice will turn out to be porridge-like. A conventional example in which this method is applied to an electric rice cooker is shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b. In addition, in FIG. 1b, the amount of cooked rice shown by the curve A is smaller than the amount of cooked rice shown by the curve B. At this point, when the user closes the center thermometer 1, the heater 3
Electricity is applied to the container, the temperature inside the container rises, and the rice is heated and soaked in water. If the temperature is set so that the normally open rice cooking thermo 2 is closed at point C, when the inside of the container reaches the gelatinization temperature of rice, the heater 4 will also be energized, and the amount of electricity will be reduced. To increase. Thereafter, by energizing the heaters 3 and 4, the inside of the container boils, and when the water runs out, the center thermo 1 opens.
2. The rice cooking is completed at point 1. Now, if heaters 3 and 4 are set to the heat power that optimizes the heating soaking time between A and B and the rice cooking time between A and C, the time between A and C will be too long, and for example, the amount of rice to be cooked will be increased by 10 times. If so, it would take about 10 times as long, making it unsuitable for practical use.

Also, the cooking time between ``ha'' and ``ho'' is too long and the heat is insufficient, resulting in rice that looks like porridge. So, conversely,
If you use a heater with a firepower that optimizes the time between C, C, and E, the heating and soaking effect between B and mouth will not be sufficiently achieved, resulting in rice that has a core. Also, if the cooking time between the two ends is too short, the rice will become crispy with no moisture, or it will burn.

Therefore, this method can only be applied to rice cookers in which the amount of rice cooked is always constant. The present invention aims to eliminate the drawbacks of the conventional rice cooker described above and to cook delicious rice without a core, no matter how much rice is cooked. First, an outline of one embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG.

In FIG. 2, 5 is a rice cooking container that stores rice and water, and 6 is a temperature control means for controlling the temperature inside the container 5 to a predetermined temperature. The temperature control means 6 and the timer 7 control the temperature at a temperature lower than the gelatinization temperature of rice and as high as possible, for example about 55° C., for a predetermined period of time, for example about 10 minutes. Reference numeral 8 denotes a cooked rice amount detection means for detecting the amount of cooked rice inside the container 5.

Reference numeral 9 denotes a heating amount control means for controlling the heating amount by the heating means according to the amount of cooked rice based on the output of the rice cooking amount detecting means.
heat up.

After controlling the temperature for a predetermined period of time, the rice is cooked with the amount of heating that corresponds to the amount of rice to be cooked. ．． Next, a specific example of this embodiment will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4. In FIG. 3, 5 is a container, 6 is a temperature control means 7 is a timer, 8 is a rice cooking amount detection means,
9 is a heating amount control means, and 10 is a heating means.

This will be explained in detail below. , the temperature control means 6 detects the temperature inside the container by means of a thermistor 11;
A comparator 15 compares the output of the bridge circuit composed of the resistors 12, 13, and 14. Assuming that the temperature of the thermistor 11 is now low, the output of the comparator 15 is at Hlgh level because the resistance value is large, and the transistor 17 is turned on through the resistor 16, and the relay 18 is operated, so the contact 19 is closed and this When the center thermostat 1 is closed, the heater 20 is energized. Therefore, when the temperature inside the container 5 rises and the resistance value of the thermistor 11 becomes smaller, the output of the comparator 15 is inverted and the transistor 17 is turned off.
Power supply to the heater 20 is stopped. When the temperature drops as a result, the heater 20 is energized again. Similar operations are repeated, and the inside of the container 5 is maintained at a constant temperature. Since the temperature at that time can be freely set by the value of the resistance of the bridge circuit, it is possible to control the temperature to about 55°C.
Next, in the timer 7, when the switch 21 is closed, the capacitor 22 is not charged through the resistor 23, so the anode of the PUT 24 is grounded, and the gate is connected to the resistors 25, 26 and the transistor 27.
Since the voltage is determined by the base-emitter voltage of , PUT 24 is OFF and transistor 27 is OFF. When the transistor 27 is 0N, the connection point between the resistors 28 and 29 is grounded, so
Transistor 30 is turned off, relay 31 is inactive, and contacts 32 are open. For this reason, triax 33
Since no power is supplied to the gate of
is OFF, and the heater 34 of the heating means 10 is not energized. Further, when the transistor 30 is OFF, its collector terminal becomes high potential, but since the connected diode 35 is in the opposite direction, there is no effect on the temperature control means 6, and the temperature control inside the container 5 described above is performed. It will continue to be carried out. Next, switch 21 opens, and capacitor 22 starts charging through resistor 23.

As a result of charging the capacitor 22, when the anode voltage becomes higher than the gate voltage of the PUT 24, the PUT 24 turns ON and latches as it is. As a result, transistor 27 is turned off and transistor 30 continues to be turned on. When the transistor 30 turns ON, the relay 31 operates and the contact 32
When the center thermostat 1 is closed at that time, power is started to be supplied to the gate of the triax 33, the triax 33 starts phase control, and the heater 34 is energized. At the same time, since the base of the transistor 17 is grounded through the diode 35 and the transistor 30, the temperature control means 6 becomes inoperative. Therefore, resistor 23 capacitor 22
Since the time from when the switch 21 is opened to when the transistor 30 turns ON can be arbitrarily set using the time constant, it is also possible to set the heating immersion time to about 10 minutes. Next, the rice cooking amount detection means 8 consists of a spring 35 and a member 36 that moves together with the container 5. When the amount of cooked rice inside the container is large, the member 36 moves downward, and when it is small, it moves upward. The heating amount control means is a known phase control circuit, which supplies power to the gate of the triac 33 through a variable resistor 37, a capacitor 38, and a diagonal 39. Now, if the intermediate terminal of the member 36 and the variable resistor 37 is connected as shown in Fig. 3, when the amount of rice to be cooked is large, the member 36 moves downward, the resistance value of the variable resistor 37 decreases, and the variable resistor 37 and the capacitor 38, the charging time constant becomes smaller, so the ignition becomes faster and the power supplied to the heater 34 becomes larger. Conversely, if the amount of cooked rice is small, the amount of electricity applied to the heater 34 will be small. Next, the overall operation will be explained according to FIGS. 3 and 4.

In addition, in FIG. 4, the amount of cooked rice in A is smaller than the amount of cooked rice in B.

At this point, the user closes the center thermometer 1 and switches the switch 21.
When opened, only the temperature control means 6 operates, and the heater 20
As a result, the temperature at which the container 5 is heated increases. When the temperature inside the container reaches approximately 55° C. at point C, the amount of electricity supplied to the heater 20 is controlled to maintain the temperature inside the container at approximately 55° C., thereby promoting the water immersion effect on the rice. Thereafter, when the PUT 24 of the timer 7 is turned ON, the transistor 30 is turned ON (to turn on), and the heater 34 heats the rice in the triax 33 with an amount of heat corresponding to the amount of rice to be cooked. By setting the spring 35 of the rice cooking amount detection means 8 and the variable resistor 37, capacitor 38, and dial 39 of the heating amount control means 9, it is possible to keep the temperature change between the oven and the oven almost constant regardless of the amount of rice cooked. It is possible. For example, if the amount of cooked rice is large, the amount of electricity applied will increase, and conversely, if the amount of rice cooked is small, the amount of electricity applied will be reduced. After that, when the inside of the container boils and the water runs out, Center Thermo 1
The rice cooker will open and the cooking will be completed at the top point. In this way, the heating and soaking time between A and B is determined by the timer 7 regardless of the amount of cooked rice, so it is always constant and a constant soaking effect can be obtained. For example, the same holds true even if the amount of cooked rice increases tenfold. In addition, the heat power during the subsequent cooking time is also varied depending on the amount of rice being cooked, so the rice will not turn out to be porridge-like or crispy. FIG. 5 shows another embodiment of the present invention, in which the heater 20 of the temperature control means 6 is used also as the heater 34 of the heating means 10, and the operation description is exactly the same as that of the previous embodiment. Therefore, I will omit it. Furthermore, it is easy to consider that other means can also be used.
In each of the above embodiments, if the switch 21 is opened not at point A, but at point C, when temperature control begins, the heating and flooding effect becomes more constant.

As is clear from the description of the above embodiments, according to the present invention, by controlling the temperature at a temperature higher than room temperature for a predetermined period of time, water is sufficiently soaked into the inside of the rice, and the user can soak the rice in water for several hours or more before starting rice cooking. Even if you start cooking without removing the rice, you can still get delicious rice without a core, regardless of the amount of rice cooked.
Moreover, since the rice is cooked with an amount of heat corresponding to the amount of rice to be cooked, it is possible to realize a rice cooker that can cook delicious rice that does not become porridge-like or crispy, so it is very useful for the user.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1a is a peep circuit diagram of a conventional rice cooker, b is a temperature characteristic diagram of the same rice cooker, Fig. 2 is a system block diagram of a rice cooker showing an embodiment of the present invention, and Fig. 3 is an electric circuit diagram of the rice cooker, FIG. 4 is a temperature characteristic diagram of the rice cooker, and FIG. 5 is an electric circuit diagram of the rice cooker showing another embodiment of the present invention. 5... Rice cooking container, 6... Temperature control means, 7... Timer, 8... Rice cooking amount detection means, 9... Heating Amount control means, 10...
・Heated hand glue.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A heating means for heating the rice cooking container, a temperature control means for keeping the inside of the rice cooking container at a constant temperature, a heating amount control means for controlling the amount of heating by the heating means, and rice and water stored in the rice cooking container. and a timer; the timer and the temperature control means control the temperature of the inside of the rice cooking container to a predetermined temperature lower than the gelatinization temperature of rice for a predetermined time; After a period of time, the rice cooker drives the heating amount control means to cook rice by adjusting the heating amount by the heating means to the heating amount set by the rice cooking amount detection means.