Cooking apparatus with downward opening lid
View Patent ↗Provided is a cooking/grilling apparatus, primarily for outdoor use, providing smoking and/or direct or indirect heat cooking capability, and offering the user enhanced cooking flexibility, temperature control, safety and convenience of operation. The grill apparatus is unique in that it offers a downward opening lid that rotates, such as on rollers or a pivot mechanism, to a fully open position beneath the base plate of the cooking enclosure, and reverses to an upward rotation to re-close the cooking enclosure. Moreover, the grill apparatus offers a vertically adjustable cooking grate, controlled by a continuous loop cable, moving over a set of pulleys, thereby reliably controlling the height of the cooking grate when affixed to a crank on the outer surface of the grill, wherein movement of the grate can also be locked in place.
1. A grill comprising downwardly opening lid system affixed to the grill for cooking food, providing controlled downward movement following a curved frame support or side panel of the grill, said construction permits the lid to reversibly move under a cooking enclosure of the grill, from a closed position to open the cooking enclosure of the grill apparatus, the lid system comprising
a solid, fire resistant lid having
a curved exterior surface,
an interior surface parallel to and aligned with the curved exterior surface,
and four edges,
two opposing curvilinear edges, forming the sides of the lid, perpendicular to which are two opposing straight edges, providing a leading edge and a rear edge which moves consequent to the leading edge;
an axis of rotation of the downward opening lid, wherein said rotation of the lid centers linearly on a base plate of the cooking enclosure proximate to where the base plate meets a back panel of the cooking enclosure, such that:
a) downward opening movement of the lid slidingly follows the curved frame support or side panel of the grill, to a position under the cooking enclosure of the grill, to open the cooking enclosure, said lid extending beneath the base plate, as controlled by end-point and motion limiting features on frame members, to determine size of a resulting opening to the cooking enclosure; and
b) rotational direction of the lid following the curved frame support or side panel of the grill apparatus reverses upward from an open position to close the cooking enclosure.
2. The grill of claim 1 , wherein the lid travels on rollers over a curvilinear track support frame member duplicating the shape of the curved frame support or side panel of the grill apparatus, causing the lid to rotate downward to open the cooking enclosure of the grill apparatus.
3. The grill of claim 1 , wherein the lid pivots on a pivot mechanism duplicating the shape of the curved frame support or side panel of the grill apparatus, the pivot mechanism causing the lid to pivot downward in a curvilinear rotational motion to open the cooking enclosure of the grill apparatus.