Cooking Equipment
Food Service
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Over-Fired Broilers
Standard over-fired broilers are heavy-duty units designed to cook large quantities of food by exposing it to radiant energy. This energy is emitted by heating radiants above the grid. Infrared broilers work much like standard broilers, but they operate at higher temperatures (up to 1,600°F) to produce high intensity infrared radiation. Infrared broilers have very fast preheat compared to standard over-fired broilers.
Temperature and cooking time is controlled by moving the grid up or down through several grid positions. The grid is spring-loaded or counter balanced for convenient up or down adjustment. The grid also rolls in and out for easy loading and is removable for fast clean-up. Each deck of the broiler typically has separate temperature controls, usually with high-low or high-medium-low settings. This varies depending on the manufacturer and the type of fuel powering the broiler.
Drip shields are located below the grids and move with the grid to collect grease and food particles. V-shaped channels deposit the liquid residue in a drip pan for disposal.
Over-fired broilers are usually installed on stainless steel counters and are available as single and double-decked modular units. They can also be mounted on a one-pan oven base, convection oven base, or a storage cabinet base. In fact, some combinations of single gas broiler decks have storage cabinets below and a finishing oven above the broiler deck.
The waste heat generated by gas burners is sometimes used in the finishing oven cavity. This is an effective method of saving energy by recycling heat that would otherwise go unused.