Cinder (YC W15) – Smart Countertop Grill

[InternetofJim]

Co-founder/CTO here with a little backstory. Cinder (YC W’15) is like a countertop grill that controls temperature precisely to 2F across the entire cooking surface. I’m hoping this is exciting to HN because it’s not just a connected cooker— it means you can hack your food. With this accuracy, you can target specific kinds of chemical reactions, fine tune your preferences and when you come up with something amazing, send the cooking recipe and your friends can replicate it anywhere. I put a quick summary of some of these things at http://blog.cindercooks.com/cinder/2015/3/4/hot-tips.

Feel free to ask me any questions here about Cinder or the magic of cooking more generally.

[placeybordeaux]

Do you feel like you are competing with sous vide products like anova?

If so how do you justify the price difference?

I love the idea, but I just got an anova for ~200 and felt like that was just at the edge of a reasonable price for me. Not having to bring water up to temperature/have a giant pot sitting around would be nice, but just not sure if it is worth the extra 300.

EDIT: a tiny amount of reading later: I see that another advantage is that you can do both the low tempature 'sous vide' style work and then sear with the same machine. That is a nice value add.

I personally got an anova largely because of chefsteps. I would highly recommend sending them one if they will take it.

[blacksmith_tb]

Sounds like an interesting product (I am pretty fond of induction - but it lacks the smarts, so I could be swayed). I am curious about branding: to me, the connotations of 'cinder' are not positive when it comes to cooking, i.e. 'burnt to a cinder'. Did the name test well?

[sdab]

You guys mentioned having a test chef. Have you thought about reaching out to Kenji Alt? He writes a popular column for SeriousEats called FoodLab and evaluating a product like this would seem right up his alley.

Take a look at his Turkey brining experiment for a good example of applying his science background (an MIT guy) to food. http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/11/the-food-lab-the-truth-ab...

[buro9]

How is the temperature control done? How do you stop it from exceeding that heat, accurately?

Or specifically, is the heating method induction? And how do you determine the temperature from that? (If induction, is it deduced from resistance?)

[chefprogrammer]

it would be good to get more technical specifics on the operation of your device (1) how is contact between the grill and the food set? is it a single hinge? is the height adjustable? (2) is air free to circulate on the sides of the food--is it a closed or open compartment? (3) how does the power draw of your device compare to a sous vide machine at moderate to low temperatures, e.g. 135f for eight hours? (4) what is the usable volume of the compartment?

thanks!

[avibryant]

I often cook steaks from frozen (sous-vide, or just low temp in the oven). I'm curious: is that one of the use cases you're testing or thinking about?

[mzl]

When it comes to searing a cooked steak, how fast will the heating element go from low even heating to searing temperature?

Also, please consider making all measures defaultable to standard metric measures. I have some appliances (e.g., the Polyscience Sous Vide Professional) that support metric measures, but where I have to choose it every time. Very annoying and seems to be not uncommon in stuff form the US.

[sterlingross]

Do you have an idea of how many watts this will run at? I live off-grid so every watt counts.

[gcb0]

what's up names reusing common words? isn't that impossible to trademark?

[dagw]

If anybody from the company is reading this, why an app? This seems like a new trend in cooking equipment and I fucking hate it. I don't want to have to flip between a half dozen apps just to make dinner. How hard is it really to put a small display and a handful of buttons on the appliance in question and make it usable without having to use my phone? Maybe I'm just strange but as much as I love the idea and really want one, the lack of a UI on the device itself is currently holding me back from ordering one. Call it the "Old Luddite retro model" and charge me $50 bucks extra if you have to, but give me an interface right on the device and I'll give you my credit card details.

[pjc50]

But how can you do pervasive user metrics and in-app purchases with a simple button? /sarcasm

[whysonot]

Basically the same concept as the sous-vide (precision cooking) without the water bath, right? I like it a lot in theory because I cook several meals a week with sous vide and bet that Cinder will produce a slightly different cook with for the same time/temperature.

$500 is a tough sell though if you can get roughly the same thing with a sous vide for <$200.

[InternetofJim]

Precision cooking is the same, but this goes way beyond sous vide, because we can go above boiling, which is where all the fun reactions happen.

Caramelization, browning, and similar reactions are what produce the really great, complex, flavors in the best food. It's not just about searing steak -- we can take apples and convert them into apple pie filling with no added sugar. We can make butternut squash sweet and eggplant creamy. We can perfectly brown cheese without burning it, so you can have a grilled cheese where the cheese inside is browned, like the stuff that sticks to the grill.

We have a test chef who is coming up with new ways to use this all the time, and we're going to share them through the app so everyone can play.

[abakker]

Question on food safety: What is the longest available cook time? I ask because in an aerobic environment an extended cook time is necessary at 135 degrees to achieve pasteurization. Even in sous vide, it is necessary to extend cook times to achieve sufficient pasteurization. With oxygen present I expect you could grow some very interesting cultures. Specifically in foods like ground beef, where there is no inhibiting the movement of bacteria from surface to center of the cut.

[lifekaizen]

We've focused on your daily gourmet of 30 minutes or less, and we make sure to cook to safe temperature. Above 131F is considered outside of the bacterial growth zone (basically between fridge to 131F, bacteria multiplies like crazy); if you hold it, it will eventually pasteurize. A more insurmountable problem comes from anaerobic bacteria that can exist in a true vacuum, and the spores will survive high temperatures; we avoided that problem by not requiring a vacuum.

[djloche]

This looks great, and I'm willing to pay the $500, but there's no release date. If I'm am being charged immediately, you have to have a release date - or otherwise communicate how the pre-order period works.

[lifekaizen]

You are correct, and to thank you for point this out I'd like to give you a Cappuccino Card (email me or [e-mail] with your Transaction ID and we'll give you $5 off). If you don't scroll the bottom of the page, you don't see "Shipping early 2016." So I have now updated the pre-order page with the expected shipping date.

We plan to ship in early 2016. We're doing everything we can to stay on schedule -- we have a pretty experienced team who's shipped products before, and are working with PCH, a company who specializes in manufacturing and logistics (they do all of Apples accessories and Beats, for example).

If you change your mind during the pre-order period, we will give you a refund if desired.

[avitous]

Nifty idea, but how durable will this thing be? At $500, it'd need to be able to cook several hundred meals before needing any expensive repair/replacement, else its market will likely be limited to those affluent enough to not care about the cost.

[InternetofJim]

It's pretty, but there's nothing delicate about this cooker, and we plan to do a fairly extensive test program. We intend for this to be a real workhorse for cooks, usable several times per day for years.

[aurora72]

The parts which contact the food are made of aluminum. Even if they are covered with Teflon or made non-stick, it's still not good.

[zrail]

I cook with anodized aluminum pans all the time[1]. What's the problem?

[1]: Specifically, http://smile.amazon.com/Emeril-All-Clad-E83602-Anodized-8-In... (not an affiliate link)

[davvid]

Teflon is bad too[1]. It's quite horrible IMO.

Additional source: I know a lawyer that worked for DuPont. Their job was ensuring that DuPont would never be held accountable for problems caused by Teflon. That was enough evidence for me to throw away all of my teflon pans.

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2007/05/teflon-foreve...

[ars]

It mentions a connected app - will this need an internet connection, or can the app communicate locally, directly with the grill?

(If you are still deciding how to do it, then if it helps, I can tell you I absolutely never buy any device that requires an internet connection to perform functions that should be local.)

[ch]

The article doesn't give a good indication of scale. Is this simmilar in size to a Forman grille? Also where do the juices and fats run off? Do they just collect on the cook surface?

[johnxy888]

Our device will have 10"x10" cook plates. perhaps our video will give a better sense for scale? https://vimeo.com/120412550

And as far as grease management goes, we will have drainage and trays that collect the run-off (similar to products on the market now). Happy to hear any suggestions or insights

[abuteau]

I tasted a toast from a smart toaster a few weeks ago and it was the best toast I have ever tasted. Looking forward to taste more products from smart cooking tools.

[brianbreslin]

So I am gonna say to the average person this looks like a george foreman grill with an app connected. Are we going to see a smart toaster? How about an app for the vitamix blender?

[InternetofJim]

It cooks with heated plates, but it's an entirely different cooking process than something like Foreman-- more versatile, and with dramatically better results and enables new cooking techniques which can't be done reliably on any other device.

[Anisa_Mirza]

can't wait to own one of these! Solid product + founder combo.

[gcb0]

never knew yc onboard consumer products

[lifekaizen]

YC has backed many, the better known include Pebble and Coin.