Check out hot smells in your kitchen WHEN you smell them!

[thewayne]

I haven't been feeling too hot today, Russet offered to fix me some food. It didn't turn out how she wanted it to be, but it still tasted fine. And I noticed a hot smell....

I figured it was the skillet cooling down, but the smell didn't go away. Finally I go and check, and she'd failed to turn the burner off! She'd put the trivet under the skillet, but it still got bloody hot. I pulled the pan off, left the trivet there, and decided to build a heat-sink!

I took a pan and put a couple of inches of water in it, and put it on top of the trivet as an experiment. I have a Thermapen insta-read thermometer. VERY accurate, and as I said, insta-read. Fairly quickly it went from 64 to 65, then 66 degrees! Clearly putting a heat sink on the trivet to draw away some of that thermal energy to cool things down was a good idea.

I went back to doing things at the table on my laptop. A bit later, maybe 10-15 minutes, I went back to see how much the temperature had risen. First clue: bubbles across the bottom of the pan, just like building to a low simmer! Thermometer read 84 degrees! I don't think it'll get higher than that.

I should've grabbed my IR thermometer and checked the pan, I just put it on top of the stove and left it alone. I hope it wasn't damaged as it's a non-stick.

If I'd checked the kitchen as soon as I smelt that hot smell, could've avoided a lot of trouble and potential damage to that skillet. Oh, well. I need to trust my nose more.

Comments

[disneydream06]

I have never heard of a Heat Sink before. :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

A heat sink is a term more commonly used in electronics. It's a device, typically an aluminum block of fins attacked to a CPU that allows it to radiate heat to the surrounding air more efficiently. CPUs get very hot, especially under heavy load, and modern ones (post 1980s) will literally melt if not properly cooled.

Nowdays, they have a fan attached to them.

Extreme computer users actually have water-cooling rigs that circulate cold water around the CPU to keep them cold. It's the same concept as them using liquid nitrogen to cool the instruments at observatories as they stare at suns. Even though they are billions of miles away, the concentrated focus will melt sensors if they're not properly cooled.

I used the pan of cold water, which was much colder than the hot trivet, to suck heat from the trivet as rapidly as possible without causing thermal stress to it. If I'd thrown that trivet into a sink of cold water, it could have literally exploded! The metal of the pan formed an intermediate temperature barrier that transferred the heat of the trivet into the water that absorbed and warmed the water in a smooth fashion, cooling the trivet smoothly.

[disneydream06]

No explosions please. :o :o :o

[kaishin108]

Oh yes, trust your nose! I hope the skillet is not ruined.

Hahahaha

[dauntless_heart]

You're so funny!

[silveradept]

You did the right thing, the assumption was that someone else was managing the heat. Hopefully the skillet and the trivet survived the encounter.

[thewayne]

Trivet definitely did: old cast iron.  Haven't washed the skillet yet, it's probably okay.  I hope!

[felisdemens]

A neat experiment!

[thewayne]

Excellent way to safely cool the trivet and keep it safe from accidental hand/hot exposure!  The water in the pan never got dangerously hot, and the trivet was safely cooled.