Held suspended within a column of super heated air, your three minute egg will now be cooked to perfection in a fraction of the time, with no wasted water or pot to clean.

Catchers mitt not included.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 01 2011

No more egg on your face http://www.aeroglid...nt-ovens-dryers.php
[4whom, Apr 01 2011]

A washed pot never boils. http://boards.strai...x.php/t-340140.html
I mean I never wash a pot after boiling water. [rcarty, Apr 06 2011]

Romantic Hovering Soufflé Restaurant Romantic_20Hovering...ffl_e9_20Restaurant
Related airborne comestibles idea [hippo, Apr 06 2011]

Eggxactly (+)
-- normzone, Apr 01 2011


"Choo choo"
-- skinflaps, Apr 03 2011


Nice, now we will need more chickens, and chicken huts. +
-- blissmiss, Apr 03 2011


Side of steamed rice.
-- reensure, Apr 03 2011


I just saw a beach-ball floating above an electric fan, and thought that was pretty. But I doubt you'd get an egg to hover very easily.

Or to cook quickly with air. The air-impingement oven site says "The technology is best suited for products with a high surface area to volume ratio. ... a high surface area for heat transfer, and a minimal thickness for heat diffusion and moisture migration. " They mention reconstituted tobacco sheet, which sounds yummy, and not at all like an egg.

Water, on the other element, conducts heat nicely. And bubbles quietly.

There is a video somewhere of how to peel an hard-boiled egg by blowing into one end, and ways to empty fresh eggs by blowing. So there may be a market for this, yet, if it could multi-task. [ ]
-- baconbrain, Apr 03 2011


You'd think an egg would be more aerodynamic than a beach ball.
-- FlyingToaster, Apr 03 2011


An egg would be a lot more aerodynamic, which would mean you'd need more air to hold it up, weight for weight. And an egg is a lot heavier, is not spherical and doesn't have its weight distributed evenly within its shell.

I'ma Google for aero eggs ...

... and not finding anything heavier than a ping-pong ball being lifted by a jet of air. An egg is just not going to fly. You'd really need to make a jet very carefully--I'd say you'd start ripping the shell off if the egg drops near the nozzle.

You might make a wide air nozzle that the egg almost rests in, maybe, but there goes the show. The idea as posted does say "a column of air", so perhaps the cooker is a cylinder. I have seen a bowling ball lifted inside a clear tube, so that is possible, for sure. But an egg might be harder to keep stable, especially while getting enough air past it to cook it, rather than just float it.

I may be confused on the air suspension, then. But I still say it will be slow and noisy. And pointless ... but this is the HB.
-- baconbrain, Apr 04 2011


//you'd need more air to hold it up// and less air to keep it centred since it wouldn't be inclined to flop around at all.
-- FlyingToaster, Apr 04 2011


Stick the egg in a see-through egg-tight cone shaped tube with the smallest end the airblower? []
-- xxobot, Apr 06 2011


Clean a pot after boiling an egg? I wouldn't think twice about putting that pot right back in the cupboard.
-- rcarty, Apr 06 2011


I wouldn't think of doing that even once.
-- baconbrain, Apr 06 2011


Here's a discussion some people have already had about washing pots after boiling eggs [link].
-- rcarty, Apr 06 2011


If you have a large enough pan, and a heating element to match, one big enough to bring a gallon or so of water to the (near) boil, then you can make a poached-egg the purist way, by stirring the water into a slow vortex and dropping the egg into the centre. The hydrodynamics holds the egg in place, without it separating too much, and the quantity of water means that it wont lose all its energy on the introduction of the egg, and be able to cook it all the way through. Wait 3-5 minutes, and then scoop out with a runcible spoon and viola, un oeuf.

My worry with the column of air is that it may set up vibration waves in the initially uncooked egg [edit: at this point, I'm imagining cracking the egg into this device and cooking it sans-shell] causing it to lose structural integrity and encouraging it to send bits of half-congealed egg flying around the kitchen/laboratory. Again, I think you'd need to fine tune the dynamics of the airflow - perhaps setting up a high-pressure ring to contain the perimeter of the egg, with a lower-pressure heating and suspending stream to cook it.

Aha, I've just realised, you're talking about cooking the egg with the shell still on! That simplifies the whole thing greatly. [+]
-- zen_tom, Apr 06 2011



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