NIST: New smoke alarms are better at detecting fires, but still go off for bacon Fryers of bacon who hope enhanced technology will stop alarms going off over the slightest whiff of smoking oil will have to wait a while longer. At least, that's according to research from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Every home should have smoke alarms. According to NIST, between 1975 and …
Is this the perfect opportunity for AI to be able to detect when it's only some regular bacon being cooked, instead of some ones bacon being cooked?
Or am I just being sarcastic because AI isn't fit for real world use by the avg person... It has it's place, being able to detect diseases and so forth... But for everyday use... it should fuck right off.
It strikes me that all that is required is a people-detector in the kitchen... if there are one or more persons in the kitchen, they're either cooking or they already know about it. If there aren't, they left something cooking which is now browned to a lovely black, and so should be alerted.
No doubt there are all sorts of complicated fire department rules to prevent such an obvious extension.
> it's the *people* on fire and frying
Sorry but in that case I fail to see the added value of a fire alarm, since people on fire tend to be quite vocal about it.
It would be only useful in the rather complicated (and unlikely) case the person in the kitchen was knocked out by your grease fire (?), and there is another person on the premises, somebody capable of doing something about the issue, but who for some reason didn't yet notice the fire, the explosion, or that other person getting knocked out and catching fire.
Cheap Chinese made ones often wouldn't notice if they were themselves on fire. More expensive ones tend to go off if you glance at them sideways. I had to throw away some moderately expensive Fire Angel smoke alarms because they had a penchants for going off at 3am upstairs for no apparent reason. Only had them for 3 or 4 months. The quality of individual devices seem to be pot luck.
Yup. Recently turned my back on the grill for a few seconds to get something from next room... toast instantly starts smoking... alarm in the hallway goes off, then alarm at the top of the stairs chimes in... heat alarm in the kitchen just silently smirks as I wrestle with the window lock to get them open to clear the little bit of smoke that caused the chaos!
In fairness, I wouldn't expect false positives to be as big an issue for smoke alarms as for cars or the like. 1. they are SO loud that it's hard to ignore them, and 2. Usually when the false positives happen, you are physically standing over a pan of smoking oil and can identify the source. If it starts blaring and I don't already know exactly where the smoke is coming from, I know to be, well, alarmed.
Here in the UK, I think they are now a legal requirement for new builds and rewiring. We had one fitted when we redid the kitchen last year, which involved some rewiring and the sparky just fitted one. When I asked, he said it was required now.
We've actually got 3 smoke/fire alarms all wired into the electrics. A heat one in the kitchen, and smoke alarms in the hallway and at the top of the stairs.
I've never triggered the heat detector in the kitchen, but have managed to trigger the hallway smoke detector... with bacon. :)
We've got one in the kitchen and it behaves nicely, coping with frying bacon. It only objects if toast is on fire.
One morning after a heavy overnight storm, the smoke detector in the conservatory was screaming its head off. On checking, a small leak had developed in the conservatory roof and the poor gadget was absolutely inundated with water. "Help! I'm drowning!"
This prompted me to go wandering around my apartment to actually find my smoke alarm. It is outside of my delightfully separate kitchen, over the door to the corridor, which in fairness is still within three meters of the door (oldish build, so the kitchen is separate but also a little galley thing)
Hey Richard, thanks for that URL. I'm not in London or even on your side of the pond but there's some great information there. And as I've just moved into a wooden house in the countryside far from the fire brigade I have been wondering where to educate myself on such things.
>Also, WTF is "broiled"?
'merkan for 'grilled'
I think it might have also been pre-WW2 pommie. I recall some cookbook from around that era that referred to broiling which I had to look up (pre internet.) Possibly Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume's The Constance Spry Cookery Book - had to research Aga stoves too. :)
In AU smoke alarms are compulsory in all rentals (tested at least yearly), when building or selling a dwelling and all dwellings by 2027 . Photoelectic, Wired-in (battery backed) and linked. In the last twenty years smoke alarms have probably saved a lot of lives. It's smoke inhalations that gets you before broiling or roasting. :(
Broiling is direct application (i.e., not heating a cooking surface) of heat from above the food, typically about a third of a foot away. Generally, broiling has a way to have juices or grease move away from the food.
Grilling is direct application of heat from below the food. Sometimes, people will grill using something like cast iron with the ridges so that the food doesn't lie flat on the cooking surface, but the heat radiated from the cast iron gives a similar effect.
Yes, you could call broiling upside down grilling, but since the heat is from above, there is often less risk of the food falling through the grill and being lost.
In the UK, grilling food, whether gas or lecky, is heating food from above. Plain and simple.
One places ones food "under the grill". At least my manservant says and I trust Jeeves implicitly, apart from with the dry sherry after I retire for the evening.
In Aus, at least for big companies, "grilled" is "exposed to radiant heat", because "Hungry Jacks" aka "Burger King" made a complaint against McDonalds, which was trying to capitalize on HJ's "grilled" advertising.
The Hungry Jacks product was "flame grilled" -- on an open grid, flame from beneath, and branded by the hot grill: the McDonalds product was steam cooked, and branded by a "rotary brander".
In defense of M'D (always an unpopular position), in Aus before HJ's, "grilled" also had the meaning "Not Deep Fried", and at F&C shops you could buy "grilled" fish that was cooked on a flat hotplate.
Watch at least the first 90 seconds of this Technology Connections video.
You won't find the "Ionization Chamber" style anywhere in Europe, probably not in >80% of the developed world. But the US, even though it is known that type is causing so many false alarms people tend to ignore it, it is still allowed for "freedom of choice". Even though it is known the produce those tons of false alarms since they go off even without smoke, just 'cause the air is ionized by minor heat, like a non-smoking but hot toaster, of the famous bacon example.
Whereas, what I would call actual smoke detectors, use optics to detect only smoke.
As for Germany, actually whole Europe, only smoke detectors which passed specific tests, are allowed here. Any only cost less than 25 € per piece. Those with wireless connection, so if one goes off the others follow, cost more them 60 € each.
Let the arguments begin!
Its only after moving to the US we discovered that you should really put active ventilation above the range (that's "cooker" or "stove" in Britspeak). We sorta/kinda had ventilation in our British kitchens but nothing close to what we use here. The result is that we can fry stuff without setting off the smoke alarms. (We don't burn toast...)
Other useful things that I didn't know existed in our British homes are spatter screens -- fine metal mesh screens to keep oil droplets in the pan. Most people keep a fire extinguisher (and possibly a fire blanket) in the kitchen. Smoke detectors aren't in the kitchen, they're mostly upstairs in the bedrooms, and now we're required to have a carbon monoxide detector somewhere.
UK building regulations only require domestic kitchens to have an openable window and an extractor fan (since 2006) (*) - which doesn’t need to be above the stove.
Personally, I’ve been installing over the stove extractor fans since the early 1990s, it just made common sense. Although as you note most UK domestic cooker extractors aren’t all that powerful and also don’t tend to cover the eye-level grill when it’s part of the fitted oven rather than hob/stove.
Splatter screens been a thing since whenever, my grandmother was using one in the 1960s, so I assume they were common circa 1920 when she would have been young.
(*) I’ve not been able to determine when the opening window requirement was first mandated or if there was a time when “and an extractor” was “or an extractor”.
>carbon monoxide detectors
These are mandatory in rented property but not domestic (although NHS/Social services will insist on them being fitted along with smoke alarms etc. before a person is discharged from hospital to home care, for good practise and the protection of care workers in their place of work).
The other useful detector is a gas leak detector - gas hob/fire burner unlit for some reason, plus the visual alarms - my cousin is deaf, he can’t hear the fire alarm even when standing directly under it. The final piece has been the linkage to his iPhone/iWatch and so he gets a vibrating alert.
I believe while not needed per BUILDING regs, the gas safety regs require them. Every heating engineer we have dealt with has either provided a battery one or requested a heat and co alarm in the room or cupboard the boiler is in, hard wired into the building's smoke alarms. Aico ones (the only brand we fit) have a different tone for fire or carbon monoxide
> my cousin is deaf, he can’t hear the fire alarm .....The final piece has been the linkage to his iPhone/iWatch and so he gets a vibrating alert.
In the Old Days, you could get strobe-light extensions for smoke alarms. They seem to be standard in schools and other hangouts for the deaf. Yeah, on the body makes sense.
I never had an extractor anywhere in any kitchen I had since I was born. It was only when buying this house and having the kitchen redone last year that I got my first above hob extractor. I grew up with a mum that used to deep fry things in a pan on the gas hob in a tiny kitchen. One of those old style cookers with the grill above the hob. My first flat, I was given an electric one like that to get me started, this was in the latter 90's, I was even given an old twin tub washer for my laundry... But to be honest it was so time consuming, that I'd drop stuff of back at my mums to do. :) I never had my first proper washer dryer until early 2004 at the age of 24.
That flat never even had a smoke alarm fitted (70's build)
Create your smoke alarm with a remote 'Frying Bacon' button.
Place the button in the kitchen and you press it when 'Frying Bacon' ... it would mute the alarm for 10 minutes or so then if still detecting smoke it would go full 'Blue meanies' bonkers as per usual !!!
[Maximum repeat presses allowed would be 2 ... so fry your bacon en masse !!!]
To allow for cultural differences the 'Frying Bacon' button would be supplied with many greaseproof labels and a special marker to write your own. :=)
P.S.
To close the obvious potential for miscreants to 'play games' the button would need to be cryptographically keyed to the alarm.
(only add another £5/$10 to the price ... worth it for noise free bacon !!!)
:)
My GrandParents, in their declining years, put a smoke detector in the kitchen beside the range hood. Its function was to go off and warn them to ventilate and turn down the stove, before the official smoke alarm went off and called in their retirement-community management.
My interlinked Aico alarms also have a light switch sized control panel.
There is a test switch (14' ceilings, you are more likely to injure yourself balancing on top of the step ladders to press the detector test button), and a silence switch that shuts it up for a few minutes to let false alarms clear. The bacon button is a solved problem. Plus only heat/CO detectors in the kitchen area.
There's also a locate button that silences all but the originally triggering detector just in case its not obvious which wing of the old pile the fire started in...
The best way to cook bacon for me, is using the sandwich press (with flat plates, not ridged ones). I line it with a piece of greaseproof paper twice the size, place my streaky bacon on it, fold over the paper to cover it, and close the lid.
It not only cooks perfect crispy bacon in minutes, it keeps it flat and there's not much in the way of smoke, clean up is a breeze, throw paper away and wipe down the sandwich press.
It's one of these https://www.breville.co.uk/sandwich-makers/panini-presses/breville-4-slice-sandwich-maker-and-panini-maker/VST026-01.html
That's not really what you do though, is it? Yes, it's a really good idea to put on a fan/open a window or door, so the room doesn't fill with smoke or coat surfaces with sticky condensate but what you actually do is shut the door to the room with the smoke alarm so it doesn't annoy the snot out of you for something that isn't a dangerous fire.
You shouldn't be leaving whatever is cooking unattended whilst doing that, so it's pretty safe (and yes, I do have a fire blanket stuck to a cupboard in case I ever need one).
It's not really hard...
Cook the bacon on medium instead of high.
?
It takes a couple minutes longer, and doesn't burn things. I haven't had a problem with smoking food. Ever.
higher heat -> cook/crisp the outside QUICKLY (steak that you want to eat raw with a blackened shell; fried chicken that is already cooked throughout but you want the breading to be hard as a rock)
medium heat -> cook things throughout, takes a couple minutes longer
low heat -> try and maintain the same temperature throughout the food for the whole cooking duration (soup)
Consider that you might change the temperature as your food cooks -- cook meat at a medium-ish to get that medium-pink, and then crank the heat for a carmelization on the outside.
Keep in mind the differential equation for heat transfer.
You can get microwave bacon dishes... it's a griddle bottom with a vented cover, and whilst it's not quite the same, they do actually work and do crisp the bacon a little. I've got one and use it when I need some bacon quickly and can't use my preferred 'sandwich press' method that gives fantastic, crispy and flat bacon.
I haven't had a problem with smoking food. Ever.
Me neither. It's usually fat which has dripped into the grill pan smoking or whatever it is that eventually turns into a thick black crust cremating itself.
So we might need to add "get a wife or partner" or "learn to clean" to "learn to cook".
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