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Scrambled Egg Cement Mixer

builder's breakfast
  (+31, -1)(+31, -1)(+31, -1)
(+31, -1)
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Looks like a miniature cement mixer, but instead of producing cement, it makes perfectly cooked scrambled eggs.

Here's how it works: crack in the eggs; add a little milk; drop in a knob of butter, and switch it on. As it churns away just like a regular cement mixer, its teflon inside drum also heats up, gently cooking the mixture as is slops around against the angled agitating blades.

When it's done, just tip the scrambled eggs out unto a plate, and get someone else to clean it.

xenzag, Feb 12 2011

Part of this complete breakfast. Breakfast_20Convoy
[Voice, Feb 12 2011]

Cement Truck Music Box Ice Cream Maker Cement_20Truck_20Mu...Ice_20Cream_20Maker
Music while you eat your breakfast, then desert [normzone, Feb 12 2011]

Mary Roach interview https://www.motherj...w-digestive-system/
"No engineer could design something as multifunctional and fine-tuned as an anus. To call someone an asshole is really bragging him up." [a1, Jun 14 2023]

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       Will this also be available in a brass-and-mahogany Stemapunk version ?
8th of 7, Feb 12 2011
  

       //get someone else to clean it// I wonder if you could scramble an egg in situ by sonicating it in the shell. Not only would solve the cleaning problem, but the egg could be both scrambled *and* soft-boiled.
mouseposture, Feb 12 2011
  

       Crackin eggs in the cement mixer?...
you know that's a paddlin.
  

       do you have a model that actually moves around the table delivering scrambled eggs from plate to plate?
Voice, Feb 12 2011
  

       Superb!   

       For cleaning, you could have a number of miniature broken bricks which you throw into it and leave, dislodging residual egg whilst annoying the neighbours.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 12 2011
  

       Is this full size, I hope.
pocmloc, Feb 12 2011
  

       Um, how do you get the drum to heat up? Electricity through slip rings? Flame on the outside?   

       When scrambling eggs, I put the butter in first, just to slick the pan a bit, and leave out the milk, as I was told it toughens the eggs (although the butter is also a dairy product, as is the cheese I always put in).
baconbrain, Feb 12 2011
  

       Love it. A perfect application for induction heating, too, as it could both rotate and heat the drum from one coil. If this is how it worked, the drum could be completely removed and cleaned in a dishwasher, but I feel this would be detracting from the idea somewhat.
mitxela, Feb 12 2011
  

       Seeing as scrambled eggs are the least difficult type of preparation, this idea is delightfully overcomplexicated. [+] Would be practical for big batches, however.
daseva, Feb 12 2011
  

       I'd long been thinking of something like this as a stir-fryer, but I got hung up on trying to keep it from spattering all over, as well as on getting the heat to it. Induction heating, eh, [mixtela]? Gotta look at that.   

       With the right lid this would work for popcorn, too.
baconbrain, Feb 12 2011
  

       I love this. Especially if it could come with cookie- cutter-style moulds to turn your toast soldiers into spades.   

       Nice work, xen!
lostdog, Feb 12 2011
  

       Brilliance.
Jinbish, Feb 12 2011
  

       Or, for tube-shaped omelets or crepes, tilt up vertically and set to 'centerfuge.'
RayfordSteele, Feb 12 2011
  

       Scrambled eggs...yum. Done in a cement mixing truck, double yum. (yum-yum).
blissmiss, Feb 13 2011
  

       I love this idea, because I've been trying to find a way to cook really good SE's without all of the attention.   

       The flavor really comes out in SE's when they are cooked at really low heat in a teflon pan and stirred constantly with a silicon spatula. This can take 20 minutes for five servings, but the results are really something else again.   

       You really only have a couple of options to keep them in motion: tumble them and let them stick to the pan, or have some sort of gentle scraping device to dislodge them from the surface.   

       Because I am a UF who will probably never do much with any idea, I will follow up with a realted idea that I thing will work, without the cleanup.
nomocrow, Feb 13 2011
  

       + can I get one delivered by tomorrow?
xandram, Feb 13 2011
  

       Does anyone know if this would really work? Where's the turmeric?   

       Maybe it will work. I'm one who manipulates the eggs maybe more than they need to with the spatula. I do it so they won't burn into the pan, though.
Zimmy, Feb 14 2011
  

       The kit simply must come with a small shovel, and an apron that shows the top 1" of builder's cleavage.
Ling, Feb 14 2011
  

       //Where's the turmeric?// Never put that in my scrambled eggs before. Must try it.
xenzag, Feb 14 2011
  

       Very good - and it needs an accompanying skip of toast.
hippo, Feb 14 2011
  

       After several attempts I am unable to design a valve which will allow steam to pass but keep on the inside a sloshing, hardening semi-solid. Any ideas?
Voice, May 28 2023
  

       Hydrophobic cooking surfaces.   

       //Any ideas?//   

       Paging [dr3]; after all, he's the one who won a prize for designing a valve, IIRC.
pertinax, May 29 2023
  

       Maybe "valve" is not the best idea; maybe we should be thinking more of a semi-permeable membrane.   

       Anyway, [+] for the original idea.
pertinax, May 29 2023
  

       Why do you need a valve? cement trucks don't have valves. Nor do frying pans? just tilt the cylinder upward and let gravity do the job.
mylodon, May 29 2023
  

       I don't know I never saw this, but I like it!
21 Quest, May 29 2023
  

       I think you want some baffles inside the barrel to mix the eggs a bit so they don't cook into a solid tube
zmatt, Jun 07 2023
  

       hello [zmatt]   

       Don't cement mixers usually have baffles as you suggest?   

       Anyway what's wrong with a solid tube of scrambled egg?
pocmloc, Jun 07 2023
  

       //crack in the eggs; add a little milk; drop in a knob of butter, and switch it on// - just a note on process: for perfect scrambled eggs, the butter (or most of the butter) should be added right at the end. If you don't do this, the residual heat continues to cook the scrambled eggs on your plate, and it ends up dryer and firmer than it should be. On the other hand, if you cook the scrambled eggs to the perfect consistency, take it off the heat and *then* add and gently mix in the butter, then the butter slightly cools the scrambled eggs as it melts, arresting the cooking process.
hippo, Jun 13 2023
  

       // ... unable to design a valve which will allow steam to pass but keep on the inside a sloshing, hardening semi-solid. Any ideas? //   

       [Voice] Study the internal and anal sphincter muscles. When working correctly they can contain or release on demand any combination of gasses and solid + liquid mixes of various densities.   

       Hat tip to Mary Roach for that insight. (link)
a1, Jun 13 2023
  

       //Study the internal and anal sphincter muscles. When working correctly they can contain or release on demand any combination of gasses and solid + liquid mixes of various densities.//   

       So what you're saying is that your bum can poop or fart or ...squirt on demand? Or any combination of those (for 8 total, including "all off")?   

       I think it's reasonable to model the sphincter as a graduated constriction, capable of restricting the flow anywhere in the range from fully closed to fully open. Given that, it effectively has one degree of freedom.   

       So how does it yield 8 distinct effects?
I think you meant to say that it can hold back or release its load, regardless of that material's constitution. Which is fine, but I don't think that was the issue Voice was struggling with.
Loris, Jun 13 2023
  

       That's exactly the issue I'm struggling with, except that it also needs to release only the gas either continually or at a given point of build-up. In conjunction with the recommendation tilt the barrel (it can't completely lie on one end) to keep the liquids mostly at the bottom the problem is solved: A tilted turning barrel. At the top a simple actuated soft-plastic-covered valve. Over the valve on the outside a second hard flap to keep any splashes of runny hot egg from escaping with the steam.

The valve can remain mostly closed when cooking, close completely when tilted to dump, and then open to dump, with the secondary flap to help direct the egg flow and keep any egg from squirting up toward the user.
Voice, Jun 13 2023
  

       I guess I don't understand what your problem is.   

       Cement mixers don't have a problem with premature discharge, they just rely on gravity and a tilted barrel.   

       I'm imagining that the egg scrambler would need a scraper, to remove cooked egg from the side of the tumbler and mix it back into the batch. So there wouldn't be build-up on the side.
So you just keep going until it's cooked appropriately, maybe add the butter last if you're hippo, then dump the stuff out onto a food-safe surface.
  

       No valves are needed, at least in contact with the food.
Loris, Jun 13 2023
  

       Cement mixers don't release a large amount of steam as they work. Also I'm not sure how the mix is pumped up toward the top to be hosed out but all of that is too complicated and expensive for a toy egg cooker. Furthermore I don't want the user to have to set up a flow channel. The solution is to rotate the whole barrel at dumping time onto a connected rigid flow channel.

I'm hoping it can go through a heavy six plate breakfast without anyone having to actually mess with the thing except to tell it where to go. If someone has to work with it, it's no longer any more fun than the same person going around with a saucepan full of eggs.
Voice, Jun 13 2023
  

       Are you thinking about a cement truck?
Because we're talking about cement mixers. (Only, cooking eggs instead of mixing cement.)
  

       There's no pumping. You just tip it over.
Loris, Jun 13 2023
  

       [Loris]. I can see how my original (poor) wording implied it could provide any mixture of gas/liquid/solid on demand. Sorry about that, I only meant to address [Voice]'s concern about selectively releasing gas incrementally or all at once from a container that also has solids, sem-solids, or liquids in it.   

       Most people in good health can fart with that degree of control - even if they're full of shit.
a1, Jun 13 2023
  

       //Most people in good health can fart with that degree of control - even if they're full of shit.//   

       Yes, I think there's enough control to release gas while retaining solids, that's true.
But without going out of my way to look for them, I've heard enough stories involving a failure to discriminate between gas and liquid from young and apparently healthy people to doubt that capability is widespread.
Loris, Jun 13 2023
  

       yeah, I originally left out the oft-repeated quote "never trust a fart." But I think lack of ... um ... conditioning ... and sometimes poor health are responsible for those failures.   

       As for whether or not "conditioning" is the right word, I'd leave that to sociologists and physicians alike to figure that out.
a1, Jun 13 2023
  


 

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