Oven cooking monitor for uniformly cooking a plurality of food items

Abstract

An oven cooking monitor and method automatically control the cooking, to a selected degree of doneness, of a plurality of food times requiring different cooking times, thereby permitting the food items to be loaded into the oven in random size order and to be removed in the order in which they become done. In restaurant or fast food cooking a number of different roasts of beef of different sizes often are placed in an oven to be cooked to a uniform degree of doneness, or roasts of similar or different size are placed in an oven at different times. Uniform cooking, without overcooking, is achieved through the present invention by providing a separate disconnectable probe for each food item to generate a signal varying with the temperature sensed by each probe. A reference temperature signal is set to correspond to a desired degree of doneness, and the sensed temperature signal and reference temperature signal are compared, yielding an output signal when the sensed and reference temperatures match. When an output signal is generated to indicate that one of the food items has reached the desired degree of doneness, the monitor indicates the particular probe associated with the done food item and automatically switches the oven to a holding temperature substantially curtailing further cooking. The done food item is removed, and its probe is disconnected, whereupon the monitor stops the probe indicator and automatically switches the oven again to its cooking temperature. Cooking then proceeds until the next food item is done. In this fashion, a plurality of food items such as roasts can be cooked without requiring careful supervision, and without exceeding a prescribed degree of doneness, thereby reducing waste. Roasts may be loaded randomly, and removed in the indicated order in which they become done.