Method for abating odor and smoke emissions in the vapor exhaust from a meat broiling grill

Claim 1

In a restaurant meat broiling method for a restaurant having a property line bounding the restaurant, in which method meat slabs are to be supported on a grill and cooked from below by heat radiating from a layer of heat radiating bodies which, in turn, are heated from beneath, typically by a gas burner, and wherein the rising cooking vapor exhaust stream is collected in a hood which connects with a stack for discharging the cooking vapor exhaust stream to the atmosphere, a method for abating odor and smoke emissions in the cooking vapor exhaust stream, comprising: running the grill with the heat radiating bodies at a temperature, at the surfaces thereof which are presented toward the meat patties, between 600° F. and 800° F., in order to more completely incinerate meat juices which drop from the meat slabs onto the heat radiating bodies; and spraying into the cooking vapor exhaust stream, after the said stream is collected in the hood but before said stream is discharged to the atmosphere sufficient quanta of oxidizer for the odorous aldehydes released by char-broiling meat, to render the discharged stream substantially odorless as sensed at the boundary of the restaurant property, wherein sufficiency of quanta is determined by initially running the grill at various degrees of saturation expected during meat broiling at the restaurant, for each of several degrees of increasing saturation, adding to the rate of said spraying until, from the boundary of the restaurant property, the discharged stream is sensed as being substantially odorless, sensing the degree of opacity of the cooking vapor exhaust stream as it enters the hood, tabulating the spraying rate for achieving substantially odorless discharge at said boundary versus the degree of saturation of the grill for each of said several degrees and ranking the degree of opacity with the corresponding degrees of increasing saturation of the grill, and utilizing the tabulation during operation of the grill to select the rate of spraying of oxidizer corresponding to the particular degree of saturation being experienced on the grill and the degree of opacity being experienced as the cooking vapor exhaust stream enters the hood.