WEBVTT - Oven 2.0 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:15.800 Forward Thinking either and welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.760 that looks at the future and says, oh, Toaster, don't 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.880 you put the burn on me? I'm Jonathan Strickland and 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.759 I'm Joe McCormick, and our other regular host, Laurens Vogelbamba 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.080 is not with us today, but she will be back soon. 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:30.840 So today, you know, a lot of times Jonathan and 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.120 we talk about some kind of world changing proposition, like 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:40.200 planetary defense exactly, artificial intelligence, radical life extensions, space elevators, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.159 colonizing the moon right right right right, the the you know, 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.600 the whole idea of the singularity, where we transform into 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.320 the post human species, where we're part man, part machine. 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.200 All awesome, But sometimes we focus on the little things too. 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.400 And so one question we often like to ask is, 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:00.880 in this age of innovation, are are some of our 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:05.000 simplest and most reliable devices and machines actually things that 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.720 still can be improved? Or have we already reached peak toaster? 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:14.320 Have we already reached peak vacuum cleaner? And today the 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.320 one we wanted to look at was the oven. Yeah, 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.640 the work horse in your kitchen, standard, basic, pretty simple machine. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:24.880 Is there any way that ovens could be better than 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.600 they are today? And if there is a way they 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:29.600 could be better than they are today, is it worth it? 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.000 Should we try to improve this device? Right? And and 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:35.480 just as a peak behind the curtain, guys, what happens 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.039 sometimes that Joe and I will meet up with some 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:40.480 of the other folks behind forward thinking and we have 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.320 these big pitch meetings, like one every few months, maybe 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.280 like every once a quarter or something like that. Well, 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.120 we'll get together and we just start throwing out ideas 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.400 about various topics that we can cover. And once in 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.640 a while someone throws out something that on the surfaces. 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:57.920 You know, you're like, wow, why would we even cover that? 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.800 And then you think, well, know, this is a valid question. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:06.919 Can can we take something as established as the oven 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:11.040 and and make measurable improvements not just tiny improvements? And 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.000 efficiency which is important, don't don't get me wrong. Energy 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.240 efficiency is very important. You want, you know, you want 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:19.000 to have good efficiency, You want to have a good 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.960 ability to cook food thoroughly and properly. But but how 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.880 much better can we get? And it turned out that 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:28.800 this was kind of an interesting question to sort of 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.679 rattle around. Yeah, totally. So let's let's take a look 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.800 at the oven. Let's get the old oven out and 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.800 pry the door open and poke it and prod it 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.639 and see if there's anything that can be done with 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.480 this old honky beast. Okay, and now the first question 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.480 we have to ask is how does an oven do 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.440 what it does? How does an oven actually cook food? 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.920 And we're talking specifically about the oven compartment, not the 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:58.880 not the stovetop or anything, but really the oven itself. Well, 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.600 you may remember from elementary school science class that there 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.959 are three main ways you're gonna get heat transferred from 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.080 one place to another via physics. So one is going 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.520 to be radiation radiant heat, and this does occur in ovens. 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.320 This is heating via electromagnetic radiation, the infrared part of 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.040 the spectrum. It's the same way the Sun heats the Earth. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:21.600 There's nothing in between the Earth and the Sun but 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.839 a bunch of space, and yet these electromagnetic rays can 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.720 reach us and and make our planet nice and warm. 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:30.800 And in the same sense, the heating elements and the 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.720 walls of your oven can radiate heat throughout sending these 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.800 infrared rays towards your frozen lasagna and and bringing it 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.840 to a nice bubbly finish. All right, so that's that's 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.600 one of three. But you said they're two more, right, 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:47.440 so right, Well, of course there's also conduction. Oh short conduction. 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.800 This is a pretty simple idea. It's where you've got 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.920 the transfer of heat between stuff that's in direct contact 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.960 with one another. Right, So, conducting heat. If you were 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.880 to put some sort of conductive material onto a hot surface, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:04.480 that heat would then pass into the the conductive material 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.960 you've pushed put down there. And some stuff conducts heat 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.720 really well, like most metals. Yeah, they're great conductors for heat. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.240 Some stuff does not conduct heat very well. That's what 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.960 we use as insulators, things like you know, like the 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.080 rubber you might use for a potholder type thing, or 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.960 or maybe air. Actually, just one of the funny things 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.240 that most of the cooking by touching that happens in 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.760 your oven happens because your food is touching air that 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.680 is hot because the oven gets the air hot. But 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.839 air is not a good conductor of heat. One way 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.200 to make it a better conductor of heat is to 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.840 uh is, to augment that through convection. Convection is the 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.960 third form of transfer of heat energy, and this happens 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.760 when you transfer heat energy through a moving fluid like 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.839 air or water, So you have currents of circulation that 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.000 move hot fluid from one place to another. Convection of 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.000 an than most cases, uses fans to circulate hot air 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.960 coming off of the heating elements, and by doing this 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.479 the food usually cooks faster and more evenly. Yeah, you 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.039 get that distribution of heat as opposed to you know, 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.800 if you if you have one source of heat, then 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.800 obviously whatever part of the food is closest to that 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:24.200 one sort one source is more likely to cook faster 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.880 than the part that's furthest away. Yeah. So by using 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.440 convection and distributing that heat a little more evenly, you 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:33.840 create something where you're not going to end up with 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.559 alasagna that is bubbling hot on one side but still 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.120 frozen on the other. Right, which, you know, you might 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.159 still get that because ovens are stupid. The ovens are stupid, 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.479 and sometimes even when you do everything correctly, the oven 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.120 itself doesn't. Yeah, and we mentioned the idea of convection ovens. 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.920 These are ovens that are designed specifically to blow that 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.440 hot air around and get it circulating. But even in 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.040 a standard non convection of an there is some natural 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.600 convection that happens just because of uneven heating. Yes, so 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.640 there's there's a little bit of limited airflow right right, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.800 There's there's no such thing as as an oven where 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.600 the air is completely stationary and isn't moving at all. 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.000 I mean, that's physics would tell us that that's not 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.480 going to happen. Right, But then we have one other 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.279 that we can mention very very briefly, and we're not 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.600 really going to focus on it too much in this episode. 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.440 But of course there are microwave ovens. Microwave ovens don't 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.240 use any of these methods to heat up food. What 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.520 they use is well, they use the radiant method, but 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.760 in this case it's radiating microwaves, not infrared. Yeah, it's 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.440 a different kind. So instead of transferring heat directly to 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.040 the food, it transfers energy to the food. Right, different 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:46.520 kind of energy, electromagnetic energy in the form of microwave radiation, which, 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.800 because water is a polar molecule, has it makes water 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.240 molecules in your food start to vibrate furiously, and this 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.440 turns into heat. Yeah, exactly, that motion is essentially heat, right, 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.480 Molecular movement is heat. If you were to talk about 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.240 the absolent complete absence of molecular movement, that's when you 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:07.080 get absolute zero. So making molecules move more means they're 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.440 heating up. So using your microwave, it ends up that 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.800 energy ends up getting absorbed by water, by fats, by sugars. 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:19.240 That's what ends up really heating up food. Um. Theoretically 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.400 it's cooking all the way, like all all the parts 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.080 are cooking at the same time, although that doesn't necessarily 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.200 happen in practice because of lots of different stuff, including 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.680 things like uh, microwave interference. Um. Sometimes it depends upon 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.280 the thickness of the food. But because obviously it's if 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.840 it's thick enough, then the the middle never gets penetrated 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.320 by those microwaves and doesn't cook through whether you put 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.640 an old computer in the microwave with your food, Yeah, 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:51.000 that also would definitely factor in. I mean, I don't 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:55.040 typically do that, but I'm learning more about you, Joe. UM. 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.400 But yeah, that's that's one of those ovens that we're 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.760 probably not going to concentrate on too much in this episode, 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.120 but figured we might as well, you know, get all 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.360 the way. We're really focusing on the traditional uh oven, 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.520 especially in the Western hemisphere. You know, in the course 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.800 of reading up for this episode, I did read about 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:17.040 at least one oven that combines traditional oven heating with microwaves. 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.720 I've heard of such things, and I fear them. It 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.600 sounds pretty weird. Sounds like a Frankenstein's Monster of ovens. Okay, Well, 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.120 So one question that I think one reason actually I 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.040 would say that the question of have we reached peak 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.800 oven is kind of interesting is that ovens have been 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.200 around for a long time. I mean, it's obvious that 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.640 we have not yet reached peak cell phone people are 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.040 going to keep redesigning cell phones and obviously making them better. Uh, 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.400 it just hasn't been around all that. That's been around 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.120 since like the nineteen seventies, right, But we've had ovens 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:53.520 for I mean, at least in basic concept versions of 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.800 ovens for a really long time. Right, We've had We've 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.760 had ovens as we understand them for centuries. We've had 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:05.920 ovens as in a general concept for millennia. So depending 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.160 on your definition of ovens, they date way back to 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.760 prehistoric times. Now in this case, you have to be 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.079 pretty liberal with your description of what an oven is. Uh. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.760 In in prehistoric times, it might include a pit and 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.880 you would fill that pit with hot coals, which would 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.080 have ash on them that helps insulate some of the heat. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.680 And then you would wrap your food in some sort 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.640 of protective covering, most often something like leaves, and you 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:32.480 would put those on top of the coals, and then 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.480 you would bury it for a while and let it cook, 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.880 traps the heat in, drops the heat in, and uh 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.240 then you dig it up and you've got your nice 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:45.080 tasty food wrapped in charred leaves. And this is in 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.720 at least some interpretations the type of oven, although clearly 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.680 not something you would go to your local hardware store 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.400 and say, hey, can I see your pits filled with charcoal? 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.480 Like it's not gonna happen. Well, no, I mean this 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.280 sounds like an nice way you get to kind of 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.800 smolder going on. It's different than cooking over an open flame. 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.800 This might be your your earliest ways to do something 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.319 more kin to barbecuing or smoking, or you get a 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.880 kind of low and slow heat. Yeah, ancient civilizations used 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.760 stone or brick ovens fired with wood to bake bread. 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.280 So the Greeks, the Romans, uh, you know, uh, these 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.839 civilizations that were really kind of the forefront of that technology. 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.360 They made those sort of ovens, the same sort of 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.199 stuff you would find in a pizzeria that has the 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.840 wood fired oven in the back. It's really meant for 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.880 like a pretty high temperature oven. And then you had 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.360 variations on brick ovens that continued all the way through 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.880 the medieval times and early Renaissance. By the seventeen hundreds, 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.680 people had started to adopt cast iron stoves and those 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.080 became quite popular. By the eighteen hundreds, people were starting 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.280 to rely on coal as fuel as opposed to would 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.280 and then the first guest stoves appeared in the early 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.280 nineteenth centuries. Around the the mid eighteen twenties, that's when 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.480 you first started seeing them. Uh. And in the late 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.400 inventors began to experiment with electric ovens, although at the 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.840 time during that experimentation they were not terribly efficient. It 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.600 required a lot of energy to to generate the electricity 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.920 necessary to heat up a heating element in cine electrical oven. 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.599 It was not really practical for the first like a 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.720 decade or so of experimentation. Um, it took all it 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:31.800 took some time for that to find traction, but then 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.199 once it did, it became quite popular. I just had 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.680 a question. I didn't come across this, but I wonder 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:43.959 if if early oven technology had any dangerous exploding periods. Oh, 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.240 I'm sure. I mean, we're gonna talk a little bit 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.839 about an article we both read where one of the 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.280 things that they mentioned about how ovens can be inefficient 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.680 is that the air expands on the inside, right, so 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.040 it needs to have a place for it to vent 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.080 out of r l that expansion, you know, the oven 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.640 has to contain it, and so you essentially have a 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.920 pressure bomb. You don't have any kind of way. And 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:13.840 I'm sure there were instances of ovens going boom, and 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.200 we probably don't know much about them because people weren't 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:20.320 around to tell what happened afterwards, just at whatever place 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.680 they were in. Burned down recipe ever, right, uh man 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:30.200 talk about a pop tart whackedish mackay d so. Um. 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.600 The microwave came about in the mid nineteen hundreds, like 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.280 six forty seven was pretty much win. An engineer discovered 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.920 the principle behind microwave ovens This was an engineer who 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.320 noticed that whenever he was working near a microwave antenna, 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.920 the candy bar that he had would melt, and so 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.480 he said, huh, there seems to be something going on here, 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.760 and eventually that became the basis of the microwave oven, which, 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.079 by the way, it took some time for people to 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.880 adopt because there were some fears about the nature of 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:07.280 the radiation um which still happens today. You'll hear people say, 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:09.880 don't stand in front of that microwave. It really it 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.080 really got a lot better when they started putting doors 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.040 on them. Yeah, exactly when it when you know, the 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.040 early microwave ovens where you had to stand in front 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.480 with a ping pong paddle and just bat them back 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.400 as hard as you could. Those days are over. Also, 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:24.439 the ones where you had to stick your head inside 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.720 to check on the food. Those weren't very good. The 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.120 old Hansel and Gretel models, Yeah, man, those were the day. 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.880 So over time we've seen lots of different variations on ovens, 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.560 some of which were clearly kind of gimmicky. You know, 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.400 they weren't necessarily a real advance in the technology, but 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.200 it was something to set it apart from competing ovens 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:46.560 so that you could sell more of them. Well, and 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.480 that's something to keep in mind today because I think 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.120 that same question will apply to a lot of the 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.520 advances that we bring up. Yeah, so let's talk about 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.040 some of the stuff. Like, you know, clearly the older ovens, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:03.240 the ones that the precursors to today's ovens, didn't have 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.120 certain things that we rely on today. Uh. And one 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.600 of those is just the thermostat inside the oven, which 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:13.000 tells you that it's what allows you to preheat en 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.640 oven to a specific temperature, as opposed to just well, 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.280 throw some more wood on and then hopefully we can 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:21.440 get this hot enough, or if it's too hot, then 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.400 maybe we put some ash on there to cool down 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.800 the fire. Like it's that was a very inexact way 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.240 of going about it. These days, you get a new oven, 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.800 you've got a little digital counter, you program in what 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.120 temperature you want the oven to preheat, and it does 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.720 it all for you. Right. Yeah, it's actually pretty simple machine, 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.200 you know. It's it's like a switch, Yeah, exactly, this 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.520 switch as if it gets up to the temperature you've set, 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:44.840 then it's time to turn it off, right, And so 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.080 it stops the cycle, the heating cycle at that point, 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.320 and then if the temperature or when not if when 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:54.800 the temperature drops down to a certain threshold, then the 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.120 thermostatic switches the whole system back on again, so it 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.400 heats back up. So it's a con stint heating and 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:05.680 cooling process. It's not necessarily doing it very fast. These 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.040 cycles can last a good long while, but it's all 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.680 meant to try and keep the food at the general 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:16.920 temperature that you chose, general being somewhat of a of 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.440 a generous term depending upon your oven thermostats, right, well, 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.600 depending on your oven, And really this will apply to 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:26.400 all I mean, no, no oven is going to have 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.760 perfect precision on the temperature inside. There's gonna be some variation. 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:32.640 Some parts of the oven are going to be hotter 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.840 than other parts, and even in general, the average across 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.040 the oven is not going to be exactly what you 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.600 said it to. And then you've got other factors, right, 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:43.920 like your altitude, like there are other things that come 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.480 into how much how long you need to cook things 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.200 at what temperature, But just speaking from a general sense, 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.960 like let's say you're at sea level, all things being equal, yes, 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.760 your oven could end up having a thermostat that is 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.520 not terribly accurate or has lost acuracy over time, And 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:03.680 it could mean that when you try and cook stuff, 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.720 even though you're following all the directions and you're absolutely 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:11.360 certain you're doing so, maybe you're undercooking stuff or overcooking stuff. 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:15.360 If a thermostat fails, it could potentially lead to something 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.600 really awful, like a fire. Yeah, because if they never 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.600 if it never detects that it's gotten too hot, it 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.000 just keeps getting hotter. You have never thought of that. 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.600 I would just have to assume that modern events have 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:29.920 some kind of safety measure in place to prevent that. 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.520 But yeah, don't. I mean, it's it's one of those 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:37.560 things where it's it's a possibility. It's not necessarily a 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.360 likelihood because there usually are fail safes involved, But it 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.080 is one of those things, especially the earlier ovens with thermostats, 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.680 that you had to worry about. Now, granted, most of 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.360 the time thermostats aren't like going super haywire, right, But 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.680 if you suspect that yours is inaccurate or becoming less 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.600 accurate over time, then you can do some various tests 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.160 to make sure like they're there tester or units you 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.400 can have which essentially are thermometers with timers where you 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.960 can put them in for like half an hour to 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.680 see how much variation in the temperature there is over 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.800 at least three cycles of your oven heating up and 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.440 cooling down. And then what you do is you take 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.959 the average amount of temperature there and that'll tell you 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.560 how close or far off from the programmed temperature you 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.200 actually are. And if it's pretty far off, it may 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.160 mean that you need to have your thermostatic calibrated, which 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:30.359 could require a visit from a repair person. Yeah, because 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.800 I mean if if you have the manual and you 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.159 feel confident in your skills to to take off a 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.960 panel and uh and and act and work on a thermostat, 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.720 then possibly you could do it yourself. Um. I would 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.639 never attempt such a thing because I like having people 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:49.879 who are certified that kind of stuff doing for me. 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.960 That way, if they break it, I have some recourse. 0:17:54.520 --> 0:18:00.600 But anyway, yes, that's also very important. So another thing 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.200 you can always do, obviously is use food thermometers to 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.840 keep track of how your food is doing. And this 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.200 is probably a good idea either way, because the oven 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.200 temperature is measuring, even if it's measuring it more or 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.240 less accurately, it's measuring the oven temperature, not the food temperature. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.040 And what matters is the food temperature. Right. And if 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.680 you're if you're cooking a turkey and you think, oh, 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:23.920 I did this last year and it was perfect, I'm 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:25.919 going to do it exactly the same way. You have 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.919 to remember turkeys aren't all identical, right, Like, if you 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.080 have one that has thicker, thicker muscle tissue, so that 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.359 you know it's going to take a little longer for 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:38.600 the heat to be able to cook that food, that meat, 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.320 then clearly you need to keep an eye on that 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.360 sort of stuff. So even as there can be variation 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.800 in ovens, there's also obviously a huge amount of variation 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.640 in the food we put in our ovens. Or even 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.640 something as simple is not remembering which rack you put 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:55.800 it on. Putting it in a different place in the 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.560 oven can make a difference. Oh sure, yeah, putting putting 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.080 something on the top rack versus the iraq actually does 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:05.280 make a difference. Um, So these are all factors that 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.200 you have to take into an account. Or how about 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.879 the fact that you've got stuff like a window in 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.520 your oven typically, I mean most people do, right, so 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.760 that you can look through the little window and stare 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:21.360 and say, does that look golden brown to you? Jonathan? Stop? 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.080 Tell me the definition of golden brown? How is it 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.760 different than golden or brown? Uh? You know, I think 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.160 golden brown. The definition is how can we make something 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.159 sound so enticing as to convince people to buy this oven? 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.199 Cooking all foods to a delicious golden might be a 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.640 little cynical because of certain life choices that are coming 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:51.800 up to me right now, which involves buying big appliances. Yeah, so, Jonathan, 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:53.520 are you in the in the market for an oven 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.760 right now? Not right now, but please don't call me 0:19:57.119 --> 0:19:59.639 if you're an oven salesperson because I'm already dealing with 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.679 sales people right now. Anyway, that the idea being that 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.200 the windows is a nice thing to have, and windows 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.440 typically don't allow a whole lot of heat to escape. 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.000 They're double pained. Usually they don't. There's not If the 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.560 seal on your door is fine, that's not allowing a 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.320 lot of heat to escape. That's not a problem. Yeah, Well, 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.439 the problem is that they're not like the walls of 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.360 your oven. What are the walls of your oven supposed 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.639 to do. They're supposed to radiate that heat into the 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:31.800 chamber of the oven, right, Yeah, they absorbed the heat 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.280 that's created by the heating element and then they're supposed 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.679 to send it right back in. Yeah, but the window 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.400 doesn't really do that. Window the windows ability to do 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.359 that is much more limited compared to the walls the oven. 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.959 So you have this zone on the walls of your 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.840 oven or on a wall of your oven that is 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.600 not equivalent to the others, which again can lead to 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:59.600 some uneven heating and cooking. Um. I don't know that 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:05.080 there's necessarily a huge issue for most types of of 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.200 stuff you're gonna be doing in the oven, unless you're 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:11.280 cooking at particularly high temperatures. So if you're baking something 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.600 in the baking temperature is pretty high, then you might 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.600 run into some problems with this where the unevenness actually 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.359 comes into play, whereas at the lower temperatures it's not 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:23.800 such a big deal. Um. So, if you're like doing 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:27.480 something where you're just roasting some vegetables or or something 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.359 along those lines, it's not a big it's not a 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.200 big problem. But if you're baking a cake or something, 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.040 then it might be. Well, this issue brings us to 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:37.200 one of the main things we're going to talk about 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.840 in this episode, which is an article that the address 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.480 this very topic. Yeah, it was published in twenty in 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:50.000 the I Triple A Spectrum by Nathan Mirvold and w 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:55.320 Waite Gibbs, and that it's essentially the same basic topic 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:57.720 we're talking about today. Can you design a better oven? 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.359 And their answer is oh, yeah, yeah. I get the 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.639 feeling as I read this article that they're they're that 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:07.840 they could be like the two guys in front of 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:11.560 a group of people just doing that fast paced pitch 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:13.960 back and forth. There's like a whole series of kids 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:16.240