Why Your Oven Still Leaves the Center Cold (And How We Fix It)
Ever pulled a tray of food out of a commercial oven only to find the outside is charred but the middle is still ice cold? It’s a nightmare. We call it the “cold core” problem, and it’s why so many cooks end up overcooking the edges just to make sure the center is actually safe to eat. To fix this, we stopped relying solely on hot air. We added infrared (IR) lamps to the mix. Think of it this way: standard convection is like trying to warm up a house by blowing hot air through the front door. IR is different. It sends electromagnetic radiation straight through the surface, shaking up the water molecules inside the food. It heats from the inside out. You get a perfect, crispy sear on the outside while the middle cooks through properly. The Gear Under the Hood We use short-wave and medium-wave emitters because they’re the best at hitting the specific “sweet spots” in water and fats. For the hardware, we stick with halogen-filled quartz tubes. Why? Because in a regular bulb, tungsten deposits build up and cloud the glass, which kills your heat. Halogen keeps the glass clear, so the lamps stay powerful for thousands of hours. We use standard R7s or SK15 connectors, so if a lamp goes out, you can just pop a new one in without a headache. But here is a word of warning for the folks building these machines: these tubes getinsanelyhot. If you’re cramming them into a tight chassis, you can’t skim on the ventilation. If the air doesn’t move around those sockets, your wiring insulation will literally melt and burn out. It’s not a matter of if, but when. Getting the Setup Right If you’re integrating these into a design, positioning is everything. If the lamps are too close, you’ll burn holes in your food. Too far, and the heat drops off so fast it’s practically useless. It’s a delicate balance. My best advice? Use a pulsed power supply. Instead of blasting the food with constant heat, you pulse it. This gives the core a chance to catch up to the surface temperature so you don’t end up with a carbonized crust and a raw center. It all comes down to timing and power density. Get that right, and you’ve got an oven that actually works the way it should.