Fuel conditioner for grill
AssigneeGMG Products, LLC
InventorsDavid BAKER, Wang PING
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A cooking apparatus can include an enclosure defining a heating chamber configured to be heated and used for cooking food, a burn box proximate to the enclosure and which is configured to provide heat to the heating chamber, a hopper fluidly coupled to the burn box and configured to hold fuel, and a fuel conditioner disposed between the hopper and the burner to condition the fuel prior to burning in the burner. The fuel conditioner can be, for example, a wood chipper configured to reduce the size of the fuel.
Claims22
A cooking apparatus comprising:
- an enclosure defining a heating chamber configured to be heated and used for cooking food;
- a burn box proximate to the enclosure and which is configured to provide heat to the heating chamber;
- a hopper fluidly coupled to the burn box via a channel and configured to hold fuel;
- a fuel conditioner disposed between the hopper and the burner to condition the fuel prior to burning in the burner;
- and
- an inclined surface at the base of the hopper and fluidly coupled to the channel, the inclined surface having at least one opening within the inclined surface to provide ventilation to the channel.
(canceled)
A method of operating a cooking apparatus, comprising:
- measuring a temperature of a heating chamber of the cooking apparatus;
- conditioning wood fuel using a fuel conditioner fluidly coupled to a fuel hopper and a burn box of the cooking apparatus, wherein the moisture content of the wood fuel comprises at least 32% water content by weight;
- and
- controlling, based on the measured temperature of the heating chamber, a control parameter of the fuel conditioner to change the supply of conditioned fuel supplied to the burn box.
A method of operating a cooking apparatus, comprising:
- conditioning fuel with a fuel conditioner;
- measuring a temperature of a heating chamber of the cooking apparatus;
- and
- controlling, based on the measured temperature of the heating chamber, a control parameter of a fuel conditioner fluidly coupled to a fuel hopper and a burn box of the cooking apparatus to condition fuel and a control parameter of an auger fluidly coupled to the burn box, wherein controlling the control parameters of the auger and the fuel conditioner changes the supply of conditioned fuel supplied to the burn box.
An apparatus comprising:
- a hopper to house wood chips;
- a fuel conditioner fluidly connected with the hopper to condition wood chips for use as fuel in a cooking apparatus;
- and
- a mating member sized to mate with an opening to a hopper of the cooking apparatus, the mating member having an opening fluidly coupled with the fuel conditioner through which conditioned wood chips can exit the fuel conditioner and enter the hopper of the cooking apparatus.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.