Greetings to you all! This is my first post, so I hope I get it right. I looked for a similar idea but the cheese faucet was as close as I could find...so here goes! I was making nachos the other day as a snack, and it took me perhaps 5 minutes to grate the cheese, sprinkle on the chips, and then microwave. By the time I was approaching the end of my snack, the cheese was congealing and was no longer pleasantly toasty. My idea is that if you were to slightly modify the classic hot melt glue gun, you could have a cheese melting device to squirt hot cheese directly onto your tortilla chips. There are several benifits to this idea over the traditional grate-and-microwave method (including a reduction of cheese-cancer.) The first is that you skip the step of grating, instead inserting pre-formed cheese sticks into your Hot Melt Cheese Gun. This would save you several valuable minutes. Second, you could squirt the cheese directly onto the chips as you eat them, thereby eliminating both the cold, congealed lumps of cheese at the bottom of your plate of nachos and the disgustingly soggy chips that have soaked for too long in the cheese oil or guacamole if applied. In food service applications where multiple plates of nachos have to be made over the course of the meal period, the Hot Melt Cheese Gun could be left hot and used as needed, speeding turnaround times on melted-cheese hors d'oevres as no oven time would be required. As for the mechanics of the device, I propose that the standard hot melt glue gun design be modified to take the larger caliber "String Cheese" format and have a slightly more elaborate feeding mechanism to compensate for the softer nature of the material being melted. A plunger type feed would probably be more appropriate than the pivoting sleeve found in your common glue gun, and an absolute necessity with softer or crumbly cheese loads, such as Brie or Feta. Another change needed would be to waterproof and ground the housing to make washing less dangerous and to remove the possibility of a grease fire in the melting chamber being caused by internal sparking. Other than that I think the design would work rather well, as melting cheese is self lubricating. The existance of a readily available mozzerella cheese stick would enable instant adoption, but some sort of cheese-drawing die (as those used to make wire) would need to be included in the kit so that the consumer could load whatever cheese met their preference. This would allow the creation of cheese sticks of say Wensleydale or Old Amsterdam which would most likely be too expensive or low volume to justify the production of a formed cheese stick commercially. Enjoy, and happy nachos!-- Voltmeter, Nov 29 2003 (?) Could try one of these... http://www.abbeypow...showitemHP1600.aspxApply cheese and shoot. [waugsqueke, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004] What about Venezuelan beaver cheese?-- Cedar Park, Nov 29 2003 Is that the smoked one ?-- sufc, Nov 29 2003 Back when I was a student and sharing an apartment, we regularly enjoyed a burrito night. My contribution was usually to melt the cheese. This was achieved with a handheld blowtorch, available at any hardware store. We considered the crispy skin achieved superior to that from any fixed grill.
Also it's fun to play with blowtorches at the kitchen table. No, really. Ok, not really. Keep it safe and away from children, grown men, and other irresponsible juveniles.-- koshua, Nov 29 2003 Heh, smart one. I've noticed before the similarity between Cheese Strings and gluesticks, but have never made the leap in thought to using one in place of the other.
New from Domino's - your message on a pizza!-- egbert, Nov 29 2003 Yum. +-- sartep, Nov 29 2003 Well, *I'd* say you've got it right - more like this one, please!-- yamahito, Nov 29 2003 Great first post, [Voltmeter] ... this serves only to make me hungry, but since this is your first infraction, I'll let it slide ... enjoy the bun with the cheese! [+]-- Letsbuildafort, Nov 29 2003 Behold the power of cheese-related inventions. Nice one. (WTAGIPBAN)-- krelnik, Nov 29 2003 //what's wrong with melting cheese in a sauce pan? //[Renfield] Haven't tried this for nachos, but that's because I put the grated cheese on the chips and microwave the lot. Maybe that's weird, but it seems to work fine. I'm thinking the gun would be faster than the saucepan, more like Cheese on Demand [tm]-- Voltmeter, Nov 29 2003 Hmm, it's cheese after all, so it sounds like it would make a big mess. Maybe a heat selector?-- boneheadmx, Nov 29 2003 never mind sticky - thats HOT! that would be painful.-- po, Nov 30 2003 Well done, [Voltmeter].-- lintkeeper2, Nov 30 2003 I read [UnaBubba]'s post and cringed. After the pain of hot cheese on the roof of my mouth, I would think that soldiers would run in fear of getting that all over. Of course the environmental impact of melted cheese is negligible compared to petroleum-based napalm or phosphorus-based munitions. In fact the only impact I can imagine Cheese-palm having is the wildlife in the area would have bad dreams and perhaps flatulence until the battle site had been thoroughly scavenged of cheese remnants.-- Voltmeter, Nov 30 2003 Absolutely right. You should treat hot cheese very Caerphilly.-- hippo, Nov 30 2003 Cheese has lots of calcium and is good for your bones. Emmentaler because of it.-- Voltmeter, Dec 01 2003 Lets see......In correct category, nice name, well explained and thought out, involves cheese, involves *melted* cheese, involves real cheese and not processed plastic slices, would be fun to use. All together equals a great big cheesey croissant. Well done and welcome.-- squeak, Dec 01 2003 ...plus it eliminates the need to slice your fingers to ribbons every time you want something cheesy for dinner. +-- DrBob, Dec 01 2003 DrBob: maybe you should lay off the Welsh Rarebit when you're drunk...?-- DrCurry, Dec 01 2003 Sounds like a good name for a poem, "The Lay of the Welsh Rarebit"... Oh cheesy, yummy toastiness My favourite gooey mess. When hot food's needed urgently, Then settle not for less. It's quick and oh! so tasty, Each molten, chewey blob But why does it keep burning The roof out of my gob???-- DrBob, Dec 01 2003 + for the idea which is great but as a vegan I wouldn't use it. Now if you could invent a non-dairy cheese for the gun, which didn't taste the way grandma's socks smell.....-- dobtabulous, Dec 01 2003 Boy is this a great idea! Makes me hungry, though... I promise I will give you your positive vote right after I have breakfast.-- phundug, Dec 01 2003 Impressive idea, [Voltmeter]. Nachos will never be the same. I would like one for my father for Christmas. +-- k_sra, Dec 01 2003 I'd like it to shoot premeasured clods of hot cheese an appreciable distance.-- waugsqueke, Dec 01 2003 Not only is this a fine idea, there is the making of a fine Simpsons episode here. I can just see Homer with the cheese gun cheesing up first nachos, then hot dogs, then all food, squirrels, branches, Flanderses etc, daydreaming about a standoff in a dusty street with a cheesegun on either hip. Dang it, now I am humming the tune from Good, Bad and Ugly.
"There are two kinds of men in this world, Blondy! The ones who have the cheese gun, and the ones who grate..."-- bungston, Dec 01 2003 I was thinking more along the lines of a few feet or so.-- waugsqueke, Dec 01 2003 mmm cheese... +1 for me.-- Chomp Rock, Dec 28 2003 <oblig> Cheezy first post, Volto! </oblig>-- Letsbuildafort, Dec 29 2003 Not sure how I missed this one. (+)-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 30 2004 good ideas.-- Pop Weasel, Feb 10 2006 random, halfbakery