Waffle iron light.

I think the way it works is like unto the following...

Pouring batter on the grill causes its temperature to drop, in turn causing the thermostat to turn on the heating coils -- and the light. When the grill returns to full temperature, the light goes off.

I have a pizelle iron that is similar. The indicator simply indicates when the heating elements are receiving power (i.e., when the temperature sensor is "calling for" heat

Its role, as such, is more of "the iron is now up to temperature".

ng

ill

Mix up some batter and try it out, or turn it over and undo the screws that should be on the bottom to hold the thing together.

Makes perfect sense to me. I guess it would take a little more than a temperature switch to sense exactly when the waffle was done cooking.

Thanks for your reply.

That is, indeed, common sense... But I remember my father making waffles on a waffle iron -- and the light was supposed to indicate when the waffles were done.

Remember, you can't see the waffle cooking, so you don't want to raise the lid until the waffle is likely done.

Here are the instructions for a Toastmaster Belgian Waffle maker.

1. Before using, wipe cooking surface with a damp cloth and dry. Lightly coat grids with vegetable shortening and close lid.
2. Plug into any 120 V ~ 60 Hz outlet. The indicator light will come on telling you the unit is heating. Initially, some smoking may occur. This is normal for newly manufactured appliances and will not occur after the first few uses.
3. When indicator light goes off, immediately raise lid and pour approximately 2/3 cup batter on lower grid. Close the lid. Indicator light will come on during baking process. The amount of batter required may vary with recipe or brand of mix. Any waffle recipe or mix may be used.
4. When light goes off the second time, gently lift lid to check for brownness. If lid shows resistance to lifting, the waffle may not be quite done. Close top and watch for steaming to stop before checking again.
5. Remove waffle when browned. If a second waffle is desired, pour batter immediately and close lid. If you prefer a darker and crisper waffle, close lid and let cook 1-2 minutes longer.

On my waffle iron, a pretty old model, the "light" is just a little window thingy through which you can see the heating element's glow. Hence, it's on when the heating element is on and vice-versa. The control knob adjusts the setpoint for a thermostatic control. I suppose more modern ones may be a bit fancier and have an actual neon bulb or other separate indicator for the light, wired with the heating element; it would certainly be a bit brighter and easier to see.

Exactly. Little more than a plastic "jewel" (mine is faceted enough that you can't really "see" through it -- like the textured glass of a bathroom shower door)

My pizzelle iron doesn't have a temperature control. Hence, the "indicator" is essential to getting things right!

You don't start using the iron until the indicator (coils) have turned off. Otherwise, all of that "cooking mass" is too cold to do the job.

And, if you manage to cook too many pizzelles too quickly and steal too much heat from the iron, you learn to watch the indicator to ensure it is back at temperature before continuing (pizzelle batter is very thin -- 30 seconds to bake. So, extending bake time by 5 seconds can leave you with *toasted* wafers. OTOH, if the iron isn't up to temperature, the 30 seconds may be 5 seconds too *quick* -- leaving you with mush!)

For a pizzelle iron, you never venture far from the iron (since its a 30 second "event"). So, the indicator is always staring you in the face.

How long does it take to bake waffles? I am sure their hefty thickness must dramatically increase cooking time. But, is it really long enough to venture far from the iron?

Precisely the same sort of thing for me--a multi-faceted slightly cloudy plastic widget. (I don't know if it started out slightly cloudy or has merely aged that way--but in either case, it's only the glow that's visible.)

I can't say I have a precise timing, but it's somewhere around a few (maybe five?) minutes. It does vary a fair bit for different waffle irons (depending upon the depth of the waffles) and probably the precise batter used, too. Commercial irons are probably somewhat quicker.

Ah, OK. So, there is a fair bit of "mass" represented by the waffle batter. Is it enough to noticeably cool the iron (i.e., does the light come on as soon as you slo the batter into the iron and then stay on for a fair length of time as the iron tries to reheat itself)?

Hi!

A couple of minutes with an electric waffle iron.

Only for a short period of time. I had an (old!) GE waffle iron that had both a thermostat control knob (it could make more than waffles) and an indicator light. Toward the end of its life, the indicator became somewhat inaccurate, and it was necessary to run the unit through more than one cycle to get properly made waffles out of it.

I always brushed the griddles down with oil to keep the waffles from sticking, and that was good enough to let me open it up to check on the progress the waffles were making.

I suppose the thermostat was just out of adjustment if anything. I almost tried adjusting it despite the stern notice on top of the shielded box it was in. But the unit had other problems (in particular, it had filled up with this hard to remove grease over the years) and it seemed like one of the elements was getting ready to burn out, so I replaced the whole unit with a newer one. It had to be at least 30 years old.

William

The light/heater does come on pretty much immediately upon introducing waffle batter; I don't know how much of that is from the batter itself and how much is heat loss from exposing the grid to the air. At least on my iron, the thermostat has little hysteresis, and so reacts quite quickly to small changes.

Being hungry, I decided to run an experiment in the name of science. On a setting between medium and medium-high, it took about 8 minutes to cook a waffle (which is, of course, the same as the reheat time, since the "waffle done" indicator is the heater turning off). In this experiment, the sample size was 2, and the resulting waffles were a lovely (and toothsome) golden brown.

The handful of commercial waffle irons I can recall seeing use a separate timer, and presumably have more powerful heating elements to better keep the iron up to temperature.

Ha! Be thankful we weren't discussing how long it takes to roast a SIDE OF BEEF! ;-)

No one has addressed at length (I've only covered it briefly) the basic issue -- the counter-intuitiveness of the way waffles are cooked while the grill is /returning/ to its "correct" temperature. Most forms of cooking are normally done at constant temperature.

I don't know!!! You tell me!!! Why would anyone get upset over making waffles??? There's really no need for it!!! You don't want to go running around the kitchen like a chicken with its head cut off!!! (Unless you're making chicken and waffles!!!) It would be too, too dangerous!!!

Waffles are one of the few quick-cooking foods that cannot be seen while they're cooking, so some quasi-automated cooking system seems necessary. If the grill has a sufficiently low thermal mass to cool quickly when the batter falls on it, and the heating elements deliver the right amount of heat to restore the temperature and cook the waffles by the time the thermostat kicks out again, you have, in effect, a timing mechanism that adds nothing to the cost of the unit.

While we're on the issue of thermostats... Most (if not all) modern toaster ovens have dropped the conventional double-thermostat system for making toast. You now set a mechanical timer of questionable utility. (There are two toast symbols at the extremes, and no marks between.) I carelessly burned some bread the other morning; had the sprinkler system gone off, I'd still be drying out the condo.

Does anyone know how to remove smoke stains from glass? I've tried any number of strong organic solvents (including MEK), and nothing -- not even citrus solvent -- seems to dissolve it very well.

Hot knife? In which episode/book?

Don't have any vinegar, but I might try a bit of Sno Bol -- it's mostly HCl.

Good suggestions. I'd been thinking of Soft Scrub, because the calcium carbonate (chalk) in it doesn't scratch. I'll try #1 and #3 if it doesn't work.

But, is that *intentional* or just a consequence of the way the device was hysterically made?

I.e., adding mass to the grill plates and increasing the capabilities of the heating elements would allow the iron to operate in more of a constant temperature mode (I am assuming that the energy required to cook it *can* be delivered from a 20A outlet).

However, heating elements have typically been flimsy in this type of appliance (are those in George Foreman's Grill any better?).

On the other hand, waffle *batter* may not take kindly to a very hot grill and may *prefer* being gradually brought up to temperature. E.g., many cookies like a "slow" oven while others prefer a very hot one.

Pizzelles seem to like a reasonably hot oven -- no doubt to contribute to their "crunchiness" (a "soggy" pizzelle would be received with about as much enthusiasm as soggy potato chips!)

I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning -- necessary vs. desirable. Consider that you probably only make a few waffles at a time. And, apparently, the time involved is long enough that small variations in timing have (probably) minimal effect on the finished product.

Contrast this with pizzelles: you make 50 or more at a time and the difference between 25 seconds and 35 seconds is enough to go from "raw" to "burned". Add to that, the variations due to a "cold iron" and *this* surely seems more the appliance for which automated cooking would be more "necessary"! :>

(that's not mentioning the truly *old* technique of using the stovetop as the heat source!)

Correct. Though that had recently devolved to a single thermostat.

Ours is electronic. I often jokingly "play" with it as if it was some sort of alien communication device (it has a dozen or more LEDs and all sorts of buttons on it -- way too comlicated for something designed to BURN BREAD!)

You need the "hot knife" from HHGTTG! (now *that* was cool!)

Try vinegar, water and copious amounts of elbow grease?

Three options I'd try:

1. Oven cleaner -- especially if this is mainly the inside of the toaster oven door.

1. Powdered cleanser (or baking soda might do) takes a bit of elbow grease, but can get most stains off of most glass or ceramic things. (These may cloud the glass a tiny bit by its grinding action, so I wouldn't suggest it for house windows without checking beforehand, but it should be fine for appliance door windows which aren't expected to be crystal clear.)

2. Scrubbing bubbles or similar bathroom cleaner works wonders on tobacco smoke stains; it might work here, too. It's also nice because it's generally compatible with most plastics, where other solvents and such are often not usable.