Removable Catch Pan for a Broiler

Continuing use of a standard broiler, particularly in commercial food-service establishments, generates a lot of debris composed mainly of charred fat and meat particles. This material must be periodically scraped off the grille to maintain proper conditions for cooking. It is common practice to just scrape the accumulations to the rear, and permit them to fall off the back of the grille onto the floor. The standard broiler is mounted on rollers or casters, and is occasionally pulled far enough away from an adjacent wall to permit cleaning the floor area. This practice tends to keep the floor saturated with grease, and produces undesirable odors that are not associated with the efficient and sanitary preparation of tasty food. The additional effort in time required to move the broiler and clean the floor area is obvious.

The present invention provides a catch pan preferably at the rear of the broiler at a level close to coplanar with the grille. The catch pan includes a trough extending along the back of the broiler, and a hooked edge of the trough engages a ridge that is present on the standard broiler structure at about the level of the grille. The opposite side of the trough extends upward at a rearward inclination to form a stop plate for debris thrown to the rear in the scraping operations. Handles on the device make it easy to lift it off the ridge, dump it out, and clean it.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a standard broiler equipped with a catch pan provided by the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional elevation from the side through the central portion of the catch pan and the rear portion of the broiler.

Referring to the drawings, the standard broiler generally indicated at 10 has a grille, or grate, 11 on which meat is normally placed to be broiled by the flame from burners positioned under the grate as indicated at 12. The top rear of the broiler 10 is defined by the ridge 13. This is standard construction.

The catch pan structure generally indicated at 14 is essentially a trough, in which the front wall terminates at its upper extremity in the hook portion 15 embracing the ridge 13 for the support of the device. The rear wall 16 extends upwardly well beyond the level of the grille surface and the ridge 13 to form a stop plate that intercepts any debris scraped off from the grille surface so that it drops down into the trough, and collects there. The rearward inclination of the plate 16 permits it to contact an adjacent wall, where there may be obstructions at the lower extremity of the broiler that prevent the broiler from being shoved close enough to the wall to prevent gaps where the debris could fall behind the catch pan. End plates as shown at 17 and 18 in FIG. 1 complete the confinement area to prevent endwise loss of the debris that may have been accumulated. Handles as shown at 19 and 20 facilitate the vertical disengagement of the device from the ridge 13, so that it can be dumped, cleaned, and returned to its illustrated position.

To accommodate the device to the configuration of the usual standard broiler, it is preferable that the gap of the hooked portion 15 should be approximately 13/8", with the down-turned flange approximately 1". The bottom of the trough 14 should be about 3" below the top of the hooked portion 13 to provide for the accumulation of the usual amount of debris that can be expected between cleaning operations. The depth of the bottom of the trough (in a front-rear direction), as viewed in FIG. 2, can be approximately 4", and the height of the back panel 16 from the bottom of the trough should be approximately 18", to provide an adequate backstop for debris that may be thrown to the rear during aggressive scraping operations. The top of the plate 16 should be approximately 1" further to the rear than the lower inner edge of the trough, to provide the desirable degree of upward-rearward inclination assuring close contact between the top of the plate 16 and an adjacent wall. The entire device is preferably of sheet metal construction, which can be either aluminum, or stainless steel.