JPH10127487A - Rice cooker with rapid cooling and cool keeping functions and device for rapidly cooling rice and keeping rice cool - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To rapidly cooling the boiled rice to the vicinity of normal temp. and keep the temp. thereof by providing a rapid cooling mechanism for cooling an inner pot through opening an upper cover half and sucking outside air from upper and lower parts forcibly for cooling the inner pot, and a cooling mechanism such as a thermoelectric cooling element. SOLUTION: An air suction port 10 is formed at a lower part of a housing 1 and a fan 9 with a shutter is additionally provided, and thereby outside air sucked in is blown to a part between an inner pot and an outer pot 5 through a ventilation hole 14 formed in the outer pot 5 and the inner pot 4 is thus cooled. An upper cover opening and closing rod 13 interlocked with an upper cover lock is provided in the housing 1, and by using the same 13 an upper cover 2 is half opened. The upper cover 2 is provided with a fan 41 with a shutter as well as an air suction port 12. A ventilation aperture is formed at the front surface of an inner cover facing the fan 41 and a shutter mechanism 17 interlocked with the half opened upper cover is provided thereto. By operating the funs 9, 41 outside air is sucked and blown to the rice in the inner pot 4 slantly to cool it. As a cool keeping mechanism a thermoelectric element type cooling plate 15 is provided at a lower part of the outer pot 5.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a domestic electric or gas cooker.

[0002]

[Prior Art] Home rice cookers cook rice deliciously,
In addition, it keeps warm as soon as it is cooked, so that you can always eat warm rice. As long as it is a mature product, it is almost technically completed. However, there is no function to rapidly cool the cooked rice to near room temperature or keep it cool.

[0003]

[Problems to be solved by the invention] Rice is cooked,
Eating warm is not always the case. When making lunches, rice balls, sushi, etc., it is necessary to cool to near normal temperature rather quickly. Particularly in the situation where recently highly toxic bacteria have spread, it is strongly required from a sanitary point to make a lunch box with sufficiently cooled rice.

[0004] In addition, when the once-chilled rice as described above is stored for a long time, it is better for the hygiene and taste to keep the rice remaining in the rice cooker warm immediately before it is refrigerated than to keep it warm again. This is desirable.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, after the rice is cooked in a normal household rice cooker, the upper lid is opened halfway, and the outside air is sucked from the upper and lower parts. A quenching mechanism, such as forced air ventilation to cool the inside of the kettle, is added to provide a quenching function to meet the task.

Further, a cooling mechanism such as a thermoelectric cooling element is also provided to add a cooling function to solve the problem.

[0007]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention is to add a quenching / cooling mechanism to a conventional domestic electric rice cooker or gas rice cooker without changing the size and shape of the rice cooker. It is assumed that. Therefore, even if it is called quenching, it is the operation that people were doing conventionally, for example, take out the inside of the rice bowl with rice, cool it with a fan, etc., or cool the rice by thinly changing the rice on a large plate and let it cool down A certain amount of time, ie, tens of minutes, is allowed. Insulation is refrigeration at several degrees Celsius, similar to a home refrigerator.

Although the present invention has many possible implementations,
An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. First, the quenching mechanism and its operation will be described. An intake port 10 is provided at a lower portion of the housing 1, and a fan 9 with a shutter is provided.
The outside air is sucked and blown between the inner shell 4 and the outer shell through the ventilation hole 14 opened in the outer shell 5 to cool the inner shell and exhaust the air to the upper part. In addition, an upper lid opening / closing bar 13 which is linked with the upper lid lock is provided in the housing, and the upper lid 2 is half-opened using this. Further, the upper lid is provided with an intake port 12 and a shutter-equipped fan 11 in the same manner as the lower part, and a vent window is provided on the front surface of the inner lid fan, and a shutter mechanism 17 interlocked with the upper lid half-open is attached thereto. It is closed, but it is opened easily when ventilating, the fan is operated to suck the outside air, and the inside of the rice is blown obliquely from above to cool it. When the cooling plate is cooled to some extent (detected by a temperature sensor provided on the outside), the cooling is accelerated to a certain extent by operating a cooling plate 15 of a cooling mechanism described later. During rapid cooling, the upper lid is half-opened, but once the rapid cooling is completed, the upper lid is naturally closed. Also, during this time, a considerable amount of hot air blows out from the upper part, so that there is no hygiene problem such as fly or foreign matter jumping in.

Next, the cooling mechanism will be described. As a cooling mechanism, a cooling plate 15 of a thermoelectric element utilizing the Peltier effect is provided at the lower part of the outer bowl, and when cooling is performed, cooling is performed by energizing this circuit. Since it is only necessary to have a cooling capacity from normal temperature to normal refrigeration temperature, that is, at most zero degree Celsius, it is calculated that, even with this slightly inefficient device, the casing can serve as a cold storage tank and perform a sufficient cooling function. Is done. The heat radiating plate (heating end) 16 of this mechanism is provided outside the housing.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, only the rapid cooling mechanism of the above-described embodiment is provided.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, only the cooling mechanism of the above-described embodiment is provided.

Another embodiment will be described for the quenching mechanism of the first and second aspects. (See FIG. 2) In the above-described embodiment, the fans provided at the lower part and the upper lid of the housing are separated from the rice cooker main body, and separately put together, and then the flexible telescopic tubes are used for the inlets of the lower part and the upper lid of the housing. It is connected to the rice cooker body with a wire installed in a flexible telescopic tube, and the other parts are as described above. It is the same as the example. In this case, a space is required, and it becomes somewhat difficult to handle, but an appropriate one such as the capacity of the fan can be selected, and an improvement in the cooling rate can be expected.

[0013] The fourth aspect has the same purpose as the first aspect, except that all of the quenching mechanism and the cool keeping mechanism are separately provided independently of the rice cooker main body, and are combined with the rice cooker. It performs the same function as item 1. However, since the rice cooker is not integrated with the rice cooker, the rice cooked in the rice cooker needs to be refilled by a necessary amount in a cooker or a special cooker, and then transferred to a rice chiller / cooler. An embodiment (see FIG. 3) of the rapid cooling mechanism and the cool keeping mechanism is the same as that of the first aspect.

A fifth aspect of the present invention has only the rapid cooling mechanism of the fourth embodiment, so that the inner lid and the shutter mechanism attached thereto are not required.

Since the present invention is configured as described above, the following effects are obtained.

[0015] Lunch made from rice that is not sufficiently cold
The dew inside the lunch box creates moisture by condensing dew, and the temperature of this and rice helps the bacteria to grow and makes the lunch box painful. Therefore, it is indispensable for sanitation to make a lunch box from cooked and sufficiently cooled rice. Also, increasing the handling by replacing the platter with a platter or taking out the inner pot to cool the rice increases the chance of contamination. Especially recently,
Under the condition of highly toxic bacteria, the rice cooker with the quenching function of the present invention is an effective sanitary weapon for a household making a lunch box.

[0016] Among households that make lunches every morning, those who do not eat rice every morning (for bread), if they cook with a timer using the rice cooker with the quenching function of the present invention, they can be cooled every morning. In addition, in a home where rice is eaten every morning, when rice is put in a bowl for breakfast, if the rice cooker of the present invention is stirred slightly and put into a quenching operation, it can be ensured in a short time like eating. It will cool down and you can make a lunch box smartly,
It is very helpful only when the housewife is busy. The present invention is very effective for saving housewives.

[0017] The use of cold rice is not limited to bento, but nigiri sushi, nori maki, chirashi sushi, inari sushi, rice balls,
Stir-fried rice (fried rice), chicken rice and many others. If the rice cooker of the present invention is used when cooking these dishes, as described above, it is very useful for hygiene and for saving housewives.

It is preferable from the viewpoint of taste and hygiene that chilled rice is refrigerated when stored for a long period of time and reheated immediately before eating. The rice cooker with the cool keeping mechanism of the present invention can easily do this.

The rice chiller / cooler and the rice chiller also have substantially the same effects as the rice cooker of the present invention. However, it has the disadvantage that it takes time and labor associated with separate placement, but it also has the advantage that it can be used for food other than rice.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a main part of a rice cooker with a rapid cooling and cooling function in which the present invention is applied to an electric rice cooker of a resistance heating type.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of a main part of a rice cooker with a rapid cooling and cooling function in which the present invention is applied to an induction heating type rice cooker and a part of the mechanism is put into a separate set.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a main part of the rice quench cooler of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Housing 2 Top lid 3 Inner lid 4 Inner shell 5 Outer shell 6 Heat insulation material 7 Heater or heating coil 8 Heat insulation heater 9 Fan with shutter (lower) 10 Inlet (lower) 11 Fan with shutter (upper lid) 12 Inlet (Upper lid) 13 Upper lid opening / closing rod 14 Vent hole 15 Cooling plate 16 Heat sink 17 Shutter mechanism 18 Flexible telescopic tube 19 Fan 20 Filter

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A home electric or gas rice cooker,
In addition to the normal rice cooking mechanism and the heat retention mechanism, a quenching mechanism that sucks in the outside air and forcibly ventilates the inside of the kettle, and a cooling mechanism such as a thermoelectric cooling element are installed inside or partially outside the housing. A rice cooker with a rapid cooling and cooling function, characterized by adding a function of rapidly cooling and cooling the cooked rice. 2. A quenching mechanism for sucking outside air and forcibly ventilating the inside to cool the inner kettle is provided inside or partially outside the housing.
A rice cooker with a quenching function, characterized by adding a function to quench the cooked rice. 3. A rice cooker with a cooling function, wherein a cooling mechanism such as a thermoelectric cooling element is provided inside or partially outside the housing, and a function for keeping the rice inside cool is added. 4. In a rice cooker-shaped container comprising a housing, an upper lid, an outer kettle, an inner kettle, etc., a rapid cooling mechanism for sucking outside air and forcibly ventilating to cool the inner kettle, and a thermoelectric cooling element. A rice refrigeration cooler equipped with a cooling mechanism such as that has a function to rapidly cool and cool cooked rice. 5. A rice cooker-like container comprising a housing, an upper lid, an outer kettle, an inner kettle, etc., provided with a rapid cooling mechanism for sucking outside air and forcibly ventilating to cool the inner kettle. A rice quench cooler with a function to quench rice.