Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

http://cookmellow.com/

by cwilson • 12 years ago

144 157 12 years ago

cookmellow.com

cylinder• 12 years ago

Looks like a great improvement on the sous vide. Is there a prototype?

timdiggerm• 12 years ago

Did you watch the video?

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Yes.

alexnking2• 12 years ago

This is exciting - I think the fact that it has cooling built in easily puts it apart from crock pots for convenience - allowing you to go from the fridge to the stove is really cool.

Now I just have to resist getting a peltier module and making one of these before 2015...

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Hey Alex,

I'd encourage you to! Can I help in any way? (Mellow's designer)

alexnking2• 12 years ago

Thanks! I'll just try to be patient though :) Good luck with the product :D

utopkara• 12 years ago

Great looking web site. Perfectly in tune with the product; at least that was my impression. I wish I could eat it.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Thank you! We have a great web designer, I'll pass it along.

mapt3• 12 years ago

The timed refrigerator -> cooking -> {refrigerator / warm} cycle alone makes this a really, really nice idea.

The thin clear container and large volume of water is going to be a bit rough on power consumption for that use-case though.

lupin_sansei• 12 years ago

I don't think it can go back to refrigerator once it's cooked as it's too hard to recool that volume of warm water.

mattmaroon12• 12 years ago

You also have to do it very quickly due to anaerobic pathogens like Clostridium botulinum and Listeria monocytogenes. I don't think it's possible for something that fits comfortably in a kitchen and runs on a 120v line.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Hey mapt,

The water bath's double-walled, so that power consumption isn't heinous. We're looking at nonofficial steady-state heat losses/gains of 15-30 Watt at the most common temperatures.

mapt3• 12 years ago

Fantastic.

I do have a suggestion on the thermodynamically disfavored process of changing the water temperature rapidly though. Could you simply hook up one or two other reservoirs? Drain the 'cold' tank to one of those, preheat the other, then pump the other in and suddenly you're cooking.

Or just accept hot/cold faucets with a once-through system for rapid changeovers, followed by precision temp control on recirculation.

tptacek20• 12 years ago

$400 is relatively expensive. You can get a 1100 watt Polyscience circulator for that much.

No circulator or water bath I know of requires vacuum sealers; all of them work fine with zips.

Also, not to nitpick, but duck confit only takes 8 hours or so; it's one of the easiest things to do with a water bath.

It looks neat, though. It'll be interesting to see if the cooling feature is useful, or more of a gimmick. That cooling system doesn't look powerful enough to chill down a low-temp cook (you're supposed to ice down anything you don't serve immediately); I assume you use it to delay the start of cooking?

mattmaroon12• 12 years ago

It specifically says in the FAQ that it can't do cook-chill. I was debating trying to work on one that could awhile back but man is it hard to get that kinda cooling power economically, at least given my cursory exploration.

Also, I've never done duck confit sous vide. Maybe I'll try that next. I made some the good old fashioned way a couple months ago and wow.

mattmaroon12• 12 years ago

Must have run into the guy who made it. Three innocuous comments downvoted at once :)

tptacek20• 12 years ago

Low-temp water baths are like duck confit dispensing machines. In particular, you can get by with much, much less fat.

I'm not sure I understand the utility of being able to throw all the ingredients for my dishes into a water bath days ahead of time, since I need to bag the ingredients anyways; why not just keep them in the fridge and dunk them the morning of the cook? Also: it's a little misleading? to suggest that you'll be able to cook lots of different ingredients in a single bath, since the veg will need much higher cooking temps than the proteins.

edit to tone down slightly

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Hey tptacek,

A lot of our copy is directed at people who're not that familiar with sous-vide and might have very basic questions when browsing. Let me clarify further:

-$400 is expensive, you're right. And we're not making that much of a margin on these right now. That's because Mellow does so much more than just warming water. Whether those features are valuable is another question.

-On the bags, we're probably the only device out there that can routinely cook using open, unsealed bags. Due to the tall, skinny geometric, you can plop food in non-ziploc bags and use those to cook you Mellow. Huge cost saving in the long run, no floating bags, and a much quicker operation all-in-all.

-You're right on the confit (though I like mine cook at 70c@24h), it's just an easy example. A chicken breast or large fillet steak would be a better example of something you wouldn't be able to cook for 8-12 hours with regular sous-vide.

-Well-supposed on the cooling.

Ultimately, Mellow's the product of almost a decade of frustration with sous-vide non-pragmatism. It won't be optimal for everyone, some people will do better with their Polysci's, but for busy home cooks like us, I think it's a hell of a help. Thank you for the chance to debate.

tptacek20• 12 years ago

Help me understand how the unsealed bag thing works, again? What kinds of bags are we talking about for what kinds of prep?

(Sorry that I sound ready to debate; I shouldn't be. This is a neat looking device and you should be commended for bringing it to market.)

polemic2• 12 years ago

IANAchef but the video has the user selecting a "medium rare chicken breast". Is that a thing? =D

thenomad3• 12 years ago

Wow, $400 is expensive for a water bath these days?

My Clifton dual bath cost nearly $1500 when I got it 5-6 years ago. I love that this stuff is becoming more mainstream.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Tell me about it! The warm glow of being an early adopter...

andrewljohnson• 12 years ago

For some definition of robotic... I guess networked crockpot doesn't have the same ring.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Hey andrew,

It fits! I think defining robot as an anthropomorphic thing that moves around is too constricting. Mellow is an electromechanical machine that performs complex actions, based on natural language requests, taking into account its environment and context.

I think that's pretty robotic, but I welcome the debate. Didn't mean to be at all misleading, sorry if it seemed so.

WiseWeasel• 12 years ago

I expect a "robotic sous-chef" to clean and chop ingredients for me, then prepare the food. This is much better described as a smart sous-vide cooker.

robotresearcher• 12 years ago

I think people expect a robot to be able to move at least part of its body. South Africans excepted [1]

[1] http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2378730

GregorStocks• 12 years ago

What's this cost? The pre-order button doesn't actually bring up a pre-order screen for me.

smitec• 12 years ago

$400 is what pops up in mine.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Crap, that's happened for some people and we can't find out why. Could I ask you to try out the direct link? Sorry about that:

https://www.trycelery.com/shop/mellow

pcl2• 12 years ago

Happened to me too, on Chrome 35.0.1916.47 beta. I've seen the same issue with other sites using Celery as well.

mattmaroon12• 12 years ago

I've been debating trying to make a sous vide machine that can chill and uses a smartphone/tablet for control for two years. I ultimately decided it just wasn't worth it because the only application I could think of for the chilling was egg poaching, and even sous vide I prefer to gradient poach rather than equilibrium. (75C for 12 mins gets a firmer white with a runny yolk than I could at equilibrium).

But I can't wait to see what they and their community come up with. The UI on a smartphone at least has to be better than the current state of the art. And I'd love to hear how they're cooling the water.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Hey matt,

I knew other smart people out there had the same idea, great to meet you. Mellow comes out of the frustrations of having the knowledge and equipment to cook great food, and never using it because of lack of energy. We started with the problem and ended up with this technology.

Feel free to reach out to ze@fnvlabs.com, or even preorder a unit and join the gang. (shameless)

mattmaroon12• 12 years ago

I will reach out! I really can't wait to see what sort of uses you come up with. Every now and then I get annoyed by a 36 hour cook, because I'm rarely awake 12 hours before dinner time. But I'm sure you guys will come up with better uses for the cooling than that even.

jack-r-abbit3• 12 years ago

Already posted yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622369

Edit: I always love when people get offended by facts.

dang4• 12 years ago

When a story hasn't yet gotten significant attention, a small number of reposts (2 or 3) is ok. Otherwise, many more good stories would get lost to randomness and churn.

jack-r-abbit3• 12 years ago

Yes. And some times you guys merge them and the original submitter gets the credit. And some times you just kill the dupes. I was just pointing out that previous thread like so many people do every day here. I wasn't being a dick about it. No need to flog me for it. But what ever. HN has its finicky moments.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Founder/designer/actor here, glad to see HN pick Mellow up! I tried to post it myself to little success earlier. Let me know if I can clarify anything.

Theodores• 12 years ago

A small detail: Centigrade!!!

Only old people and Americans use whatever that other temperature unit is, for the rest of us '195 F' means absolutely nothing. Is it what a warm day feels like in 1957? Or boiling water? Or just below the boil, a simmer?

In your web page just put what the temperature is in normal Centigrade units underneath. We will then be able to relate to what it does properly - temperature is a huge thing in cooking as I am sure you know.

I know you aren't selling to The Rest Of The World yet, but a lot of people from The Rest Of The World go to the United States and it is only a small amount of text that is asked for.

jzig• 12 years ago

I am curious since I have never cooked sous-vide. I see pieces of meat being cooked in the video, so does that mean I would have to come home and prepare the side dishes?

tptacek20• 12 years ago

For the most part, yes. Vegetable cookery tends to happen at temps north of 175, and protein cookery tends to happen at temps south of 140 or so, so you can't really use the same unattended water bath for both.

zorpner• 12 years ago

I typically do the veg in bulk for the week and ice bath->fridge them, then reheat in the water bath while I'm finishing the meat, but yeah, it wouldn't work to do simultaneously (unless you e.g. wanted traditional-texture braised meat, which works quite well in a veg-temp water bath).

bsilvereagle• 12 years ago

Relevant reddit discussion on r/hwstartups: http://www.reddit.com/23mshg/

tl;dr

- Uses the Electric Imp platform for wireless communication

- cannot be used without smartphone/tablet/computer/internet connection

- heats in about 10 minutes

- not to be used for cook -> chill

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

We also have a thread full of great questions on PH: http://www.producthunt.co/posts/mellow

rrhoover• 12 years ago

Best Product Hunt AMA yet.

joezydeco2• 12 years ago

10 years ago Whirlpool introduced the Polara, a range that could also refrigerate the oven cavity until a timer expired or it was commanded to cook over the internet. It was a huge flop.

http://insights-2-ignite.com/2013/05/06/3-appliance-flops/

Obviously a refrigerated oven is a pretty complicated device - more than a cooled/heated water bath. The Polara had it's share of technical problems, but Whirlpool thought they were on to a new trend with this "smart" oven.

I'm a sous-vide enthusiast myself (Dorkfood DSV FTW), but by no means do I consider SV cooking a time saver. It's not going to make my day any more easy by kicking off a cook cycle from the office before I head home. In fact, part of the point of SV prep is that you can hold the cooked food for hours before finishing. Why do I need to precisely time the start if the end doesn't matter? Okay, perhaps eggs ready when I wake would be nice. But I could also kick it off before I go to bed and they would still be at a creamy 144F when morning comes.

The other problem is that you still need to prep ahead of time. Is a busy family going to handle breakfast and dinner prep before going off to work and school? American families barely make it through breakfast as it is.

It's a nice looking product and I wish them well. But the use cases escape me a little.

tptacek20• 12 years ago

Being able to come home from work with a protein ready to sear (Polyscience and hopefully soon Searzall represent) is definitely helpful. Also, have you held an egg overnight at 144f? That works well?

joezydeco2• 12 years ago

Yeah, bad example. Eggs may not work that well at that duration.

(and the Searzall is pretty damn sexy)

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Proteins aside, auto retrograding potatoes is really nice. It's one of those techniques that makes a huge difference, but you'd never use on a regular day.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Hey joezdeco,

I'm one of Mellow's founders/designers.

I'd debate that "the end doesn't matter"; I've eaten a lot of drastically overcooked sous-vide over the past years. But still, overcooking is not the point, peace of mind is the point.

Take 10 seconds to put something in a bag and plop it inside Mellow. Act on the notification when you want to, tell Mellow to have it ready whenever's convenient, and you're sure to com back to very well cooked ingredients. It's not prep, it's 10 seconds.

It's a shift from the regular way you cook dinner, and it's not ready for middle america yet. But we're getting there. We need the help of guys like you to try it out and call out the bullshit, and help us make it better.

tptacek20• 12 years ago

I'm still not following. It's definitely still prep. You're just doing the prep a day or two earlier. But you can do that with any water bath by prepping, stashing in zips, and sticking them in the fridge.

I think I see the value of being able to start a cook at 2PM as opposed to sticking to things that can run all day.

Most of the things that work really well in a water bath also hold really well for a day at temperature. I think you're right to feature white meat chicken in your marketing copy, because that's one protein that is iffy at long temps, but I can't think of much besides that (and eggs) that I'd worry about holding at temp a few extra hours.

bullfight2• 12 years ago

I just wanted to point out on the prep part and American families.

The time invested in prep for a device like this is hardly different that prepping a meal and throwing it in a crock pot before work. Crock pots are fantastically popular cooking devices found in almost every American's (middle america especially) kitchen and used on a regular basis.

Personally I have no experience with sous-vide nor am I very familiar to it. Watching he video I was intrigued but a little confused at what and how I could use a sous-vide cooker.

However connecting it and the process of using it to the very familiar crock pot I use at home instantly helped me to recognize the potential use of a device like this.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Thank you bullfight, the comparison between sous-vide and crockpots is very adequate. I'd say sous-vide is crock-potting taken to the extreme.

Sorry if the video wasn't very friendly for people unfamiliar with sous-vide.

chadwickthebold• 12 years ago

Is it just me or are a lot of the comments on this post getting greyed out? I thought that was only for flagged/sufficiently downvoted comments? What the heck is going on here..

jadence5• 12 years ago

What temperature-safe bags are out there?

I did some digging into this a few months ago and couldn't find anything conclusive. All I found were blogs, quotes, etc by wannabe scientists.

Of note:

• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/

Nearly all plastics (even the BPA-free ones) leach estrogenic activity chemicals

• http://pprc.org/index.php/2013/networking/p2-rapid/do-plasti...

Basically said that there is little evidence in either direction

• http://www.codlo.com/faq.html#.Ux5Ly-ddWlg and http://www.chow.com/food-news/107898/cooking-sous-vide-in-pl... and http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Author-says-use-of-plasti...

Says that bags made from polyethylene (PE) are safe while bags made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are not.

• http://www.beyondsalmon.com/2010/08/cooking-in-plastic-how-s...

SC Johnson (Ziplock manufacturer) themselves do not recommend cooking w/ their bags. Note their bags are made w/ the supposedly safe (per the links in the previous bullet) polyethylene (PE)

Right now I'm very intrigued by sous-vide but am too paranoid about the plastics to make the jump.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Hey jadence,

The bottom line: No one knows how safe HDPE sous-vide is in the long run. There's nothing conclusive out there, though what little evidence there is points to it being safe. Nathan seems so think so, too: http://modernistcuisine.com/2013/01/why-cook-sous-vide/

In the end you have to make a personal call. For me, the risk of undiscovered effects is vastly outweighed by the awesome food I serve.

I respect your concern, even if I don't share it, and I'm hoping to solve it soon enough, too. Be on the look out for a new product from us in the coming year.

timtadh3• 12 years ago

I don't know a lot about sous-vide, I am more of a wood fire and smoking kinda person, but what would prevent you from using a stainless steel canister? That would eliminate the risks from plastic. Perhaps, a ceramic would also work?

jadence5• 12 years ago

Thanks for the reply zemvpferreira.

How are you planning to solve the concern of plastic leaching while maintaining the benefits of sous-vide?

tptacek20• 12 years ago

Dave Arnold talked to (IIRC) someone from SCJ and below boiling, the Ziplock freezer bags supposedly won't leach plasticizers or anything like that.

jadence5• 12 years ago

Thanks for the reply tptacek!

I tracked down Dave Arnold's report to 9:28 here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cooking-issues-episode-1...

In summary: SC Johnson (SJC) told Grant Achatz and others chefs not to use their bags for sous-vide so Dave Arnold contacted SJC and asked specifically about using the bags for sous-vide and explained why he believes the practice is safe. The SJC representative replied with "Ziplock brand bags are designed to withheld being held in high temperature water including being used up to 82 degree Celsius for up to 72 hours." (quote at 12:05 of podcast)

I'd feel better if there was a specific statement about the safety of the food being held in the bag rather than an implication that since the bags withstand the bath the food isn't tainted.

pcl2• 12 years ago

Right now I'm very intrigued by sous-vide but am too paranoid about the plastics to make the jump.

FYI, immersion circulators are fairly common in restaurant kitchens, since it's so much easier to get predictable results with them compared to traditional means of cooking meat. So if you dine out, it wouldn't be surprising if you're already unwittingly exposing yourself to the plastics risk.

jadence5• 12 years ago

Thanks for the heads up, pcl.

I was already aware but it's a great point and one of the many reasons I try to limit how often I dine out.

kyleblarson• 12 years ago

Awesome dinner out tonight with a great sous vide duck breast or a 1 in a billion chance I will die from the plastic in the bag in which it was cooked? I choose duck.

budgi3• 12 years ago

Would vacuum sealed glass jars work?

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

For some foods, yes, perfectly.

softbuilder• 12 years ago

This is basically a Mr. Coffee.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Pretty much. The video was a trip to walmart + a quick 3-d printed cover.

dftf• 12 years ago

Surprised not to see any positive comments here – this is exciting stuff. The IoT should be changing the kitchen faster than any other room in the house (it's the room with the most gadgets to begin with, with the potential for the most time savings / life improvements). There's not a lot of serious projects in the kitchen yet, and there should be so many more!

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Thank you dftf. I blame twitter-fridge and the stupidity of most kitchen gadgets for numbing people to the power of well-designed products in the kitchen.

Most of the groundbreaking stuff has been with us so long that it's become invisible. Who really appreciates have access to cold storage these days?

johnurbanik• 12 years ago

Admittedly, I don't know much about state of the art sous-vide, but I'd be really interested to see a device with two reservoirs that can be held at different temperatures and fill/drain the main water bath.

Hypothetically, this would allow for cook->chill methods, though the overhead may not be worth it except for a small niche of customers.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

We actually played around with that idea a year ago at the insistence of a local VC.

Result: wasted a week.

bullfight2• 12 years ago

I think this is the first internet connected kitchen device that I have seen actually make it's use case for having an app or being connected.

I'm really impressed and while not having any prior experience with sous-vide I can really see making it part of my cooking process.

dang4• 12 years ago

All: For some reason, more than one user went through this thread downvoting everything. Abuses like that cause accounts to lose voting privileges.

When you notice substantive and civil comments which have been unfairly faded out by downvotes, please give them a corrective upvote. This doesn't mean you agree with the comment, only that it didn't deserve to be faded. Usually, one or two upvotes is all it takes to get back to par, so each user can make a big difference here. For example, all of the abusively downvoted comments in this thread have now been restored by corrective upvotes. (I just contributed a few, but most were already there.)

HN has long had this self-correcting mechanism, but it's more important since we recently made some downvotes more powerful (cf. sama's recent post about this), so we're asking everyone to do it consciously when they see a need.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

I'm sorry to hear that, dang. If you think my presence here is harming more than helping, I'd be happy to stop posting.

dang4• 12 years ago

By no means! You're doing great.

brianbreslin• 12 years ago

Shouldn't the title be renamed a bit. I was expecting a rosie the robot type sous-chef robot. This is a smart sous-vide appliance, not a "robot" in the traditional sense.

alexhutcheson2• 12 years ago

This looks really cool!

I've been interested in getting into sous-vide for a while, but I'm not sure where to start. Could anyone point me to some introductory resources? (websites, maybe cookbooks?)

I'm interested in learning the difference between different equipment setups, and also understanding what works well for sous-vide and what doesn't.

Tyr42• 12 years ago

I enjoyed the sous-vide section of Cooking for Geeks, (and the rest of the book is great too!) That's enough to get started.

alexhutcheson2• 12 years ago

Thanks! I'll check it out.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

I'd start by trying it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYGYyZcm6kE

ebiester• 12 years ago

So, I notice that it's quite possible to set on autopilot, but is there an option to have more control, in the case of recipes we find separately?

Is there some sort of way to know if the power went off? If so, does it check the temperature to see if it was just a surge or if it went into the danger zone?

I'm trying to reduce the amount of meat in my diet, personally, and most applications seem to be for meats. Are there significant advantages to getting one for anything short of slow carmelized onions and a few soups?

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Yes, yes, and yes. It's worth it for what it does to fish and seafood alone.

You're right though, meats have traditionally been the main focus in sous-vide, but it's by no means limited to them. Pears are amazing, eggs too. Risotto, potatoes, and carrots are insane.

eric_the_read5• 12 years ago

I have to say, this product sounds pretty cool, but for myself, I got really excited about sous vide, even made my own immersion circulator from Scott Heimendinger's plans a few months ago, but when I fried two aquarium pumps due to long times at high temps, I knew I had to get a commercial model. I ended up ordering an Anova, and at $200, it's just at the high end of what I feel I can afford. A $400 machine could easily be twice as good, and I'm still not sure I could convince myself to part with that much.

In addition, the new crop of immersion circulators (Anova, Sansaire, etc.) don't need very much space- they just clamp to an existing pot or whatever. It seems to me the Mellow has a very hard fight for precious counter space on top of the price.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

We're designing Mellow to be used every single day, and optimising for that means a constant presence on your countertop.

Our idea is that instead of making sous-vide as cheap and simple as possible, we want to make it as useful and effortless as possible. I hope there's room for both types of product.

eric_the_read5• 12 years ago

I hope you're right. Good luck!

satiani• 12 years ago

Your payment form is not secure, even though it makes a submission over SSL, the fact that it is hosted on a non-SSL page exposes it to Man in the Middle attacks. An attacker may, for example, change the iframe URL to something controlled by the attacker but looks like the payment form on your site, and trick users into giving them their credit card details.

The fix is simple, make your whole site https and redirect all http traffic over to https. There are cheap SSL certificates out there (as low as $99 a year) and its pretty easy to setup.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Forwarding this to our web guy right now, thank you.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

Happy to say we should be fully secure now, all the traffic is going through SSL-hosted pages. I can't thank you enough for bringing this to our attention.

Could I ask you one more favor? Would you check to see if we're as safe as possible now?

shalmanese• 12 years ago

Any plans to open the device up to API access? I know a lot of cheese makers who need a specific series of heating steps and it's currently a major pain in the ass with available SV setups as it all has to be done manually. A way to program it in would be awesome.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

It's a definite possibility, but we're 100% focused on delivering the feature-set we promised before.

prawn• 12 years ago

As an owner of a $2k+ Thermomix (which can do sous-vide in a very confined and limited fashion) this interests me and $400 doesn't seem outrageous if it can become a regular tool in the kitchen. I do wonder how much is covered by a slow-cooker though.

Going on the TM, my concerns would be cleaning (doesn't seem like a big issue) and how much of a meal it can actually do.

With the Thermomix, we found it went from gimmick to regularly used device quickly enough - marinades, sauces, pureed baby food, mashed potato, etc. Besides weigh, heat, blend, etc it can also work to a set temperature (though with broader increments) and I eventually tried some steak sous-vide. Vacuum sealed bag, into the basket (to prevent the blades from rupturing the bag) and away it went. It worked OK though the steak obviously needed to be seared at the end. That left me rinsing the TM and still having to wash the pan/griddle, etc.

If you still need to prepare/cook your sides, I wonder how much time has truly been saved? I've had reasonable success with the slow-cooker too: one-pot dish so cleaning is easy, sides aren't much of an issue, etc.

I imagine that the value in Mellow will come once the community strengthens and people work out a set of go-to recipes that minimise other mess and prep.

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

We've learned a lot from using TM ourselves. I'd encourage to try cooking proper sous-vide somehow; the TM version doesn't do it much justice. The temperature control just isn't there.

You're right that a lot of the value in Mellow is going to come from the community, but it's already massively nice to have a device cook your ingredients to their peak before you step in and finish the process. You're going to have to cook, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

roeme• 12 years ago

The first thing that sprung into my mind:

That thing will be a bloody mess to clean.

There's a reason why most kitchen appliances aren't rectangular and don't sport a lot of grilles, if any. And it will have to be cleaned at some point, like anything in a kitchen (or closed rooms, for that matter). Rectangular fluid containers are the worst.

(Other than that, seems to be a fine idea).

zemvpferreira46• 12 years ago

We're expecting cleanup to be very easy; mostly a wipe-down every once in a while. But you're right of course, kitchens are messy places and we certainly took that into consideration. The grille is entirely necessary for Mellow to function.

Mellow, the robotic sous-chef

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