A heating cooker to manage surface and inside temperatures of food. A heating portion heats inside of a heating space where the food material is placed. At least one processor controls the heating portion to perform driving for high-temperature heating after performing driving for low-temperature heating. During the driving for low-temperature heating, the heating portion may heat the inside of the heating space such that an average increase velocity of a reference temperature of the food material is lower than an average increase velocity of the reference temperature of the food material during the driving for high-temperature heating. During the driving for high-temperature heating, the heating portion may heat the inside of the heating space such that an average increase velocity of the reference temperature of the food material is higher than the average increase velocity of the reference temperature of the food material during the driving for low-temperature heating.

A heating element arrangement for a cooking appliance includes a first heating zone which is constructed to emit IR radiation in a first wavelength range, and a second heating zone which is constructed to emit IR radiation in a second wavelength range. The first wavelength range and the second wavelength range differ hereby from one another.

A heating assembly for a cooking appliance, such as a toaster or oven, has a support and/or heating element with a curved shape having a concave side facing a cooking cavity. The support and/or heating element may be flexible, e.g., having a planar shape when unstressed and a curved shape when stressed. The support and/or heating element may define a sheet, e.g., having a length and width. The heating element may have openings in the sheet. The heating element may be coupled to the support so as to be slidable movable relative to the support, e.g., so the heating element can slide relative to the support when the support and heating element are bent into a curved shape.

There is provided an electric suspended radiant disk heater apparatus comprising: a central and vertical ceiling mount pole for hanging from a ceiling at an upper end thereof in use; a radiant heater disk element fastened at a lower end thereof, the radiant heater disk element being substantially co-axial with the ceiling mount pole, being substantially perpendicular to the ceiling mount pole and extending radially from the lower end of the pole; and an electric heater element thermally coupled to the radiant heater disk element to heat the radiant heater disk to radiate heat from a radiant heat emitting undersurface thereof.

An infrared heating apparatus includes an infrared emitter with a coiled resistive wire embedded in a ceramic refractory material so that a first portion of the resistive wire is exposed and a second portion of the resistive wire is enclosed by the ceramic refractory material, such that the first portion forms an array of arcs that protrude above the ceramic refractory material.

A cooking enclosure is configured to hold food being cooked. The enclosure includes a surrounding, generally vertical, sidewall, projecting upward from a base. The base includes a floor bridging a bottom of enclosure, and the enclosure is capped by a vertically moving ceiling. The vertical moving ceiling secures a cooking heat source which is in thermal communication with the enclosure interior. The moving ceiling is configured to move up and down within the sidewall to vary, up and down, a volume of the cooking enclosure. The cooking enclosure is configured to have both a smaller cooking enclosure volume, suitable for quickly cooking small foods, and larger cooking enclosure volume necessary to cook larger foods.

An automatic oven having a controller and a sensor assembly for automatically determining a food type for a food item placed in a cooking chamber of the automatic oven, and cooks the automatically determined food item according to a cooking profile selected based on the determined food type, while optionally accommodating a user input on the determining of the food type, and the cooking profile, including an optional degree of doneness.

A heating appliance generally includes a housing having a compartment and a door for selectively accessing the compartment. The compartment is sized to receive a food product. The heating appliance also includes a heating element disposed within the compartment for cooking the food product, and a control unit for operating the heating element to cook the food product without preheating the compartment.

The present invention is directed to a multi-heat source fire pit apparatus. The fire pit apparatus is configured to provide ambient heating with both convection heat transfer and radiation heat transfer. The multi-heat source fire pit apparatus comprises an infrared emitter for generating infrared radiation. The multi-heat source fire pit comprises a shielding member between a heat source for the convection heat transfer and another heat source for radiation heat transfer.

An oven has at least one of bake and broil heating elements which have a temperature switch as a portion of the replaceable heating element. Upon reaching a predetermined temperature, the switch opens and power through the heating element is secured. Once temperature is reduced below another predetermined temperature, the switch closes for normal operation.