Barbecue Burner Cover

This invention relates to gas barbecue grills generally. In particular, it relates to covers of gas burners to provide-even distribution of heat, to prevent grease fires and to provide effective vaporization of meat juices for enhancing flavor of meat cooked on gas barbecue grills.

Previously, there have been covers of gas burners that are component parts of entire gas barbecue grills that do not provide the distribution of flame heat, safe conveyance of grease and vaporization of juices in the manner and with the effectiveness taught by this invention. An example of a different burner cover is a quick-assembly and portable grill described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,106, issued to Raymer, et al. on Jan. 11, 1994. It taught horizontal plates that had elongate orifices and was integral with a grill cover that was positioned over flame containers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,195,425, issued to Koziol on Mar. 23, 1993, described a rotisserie grill with an arcuate deflector of heat. U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,676, issued to Jurgens on Jun. 16, 1992, taught an elaborate gas grill with drip-deflection channels positioned in relationship to tubular heat distributors. U.S. Pat. No. 4,762,059, issued to McLane, Sr. on Aug. 9, 1988, taught a cooking grill with a plurality of L-shaped collector grates and bars juxtaposed on a pivotal food container above a special gas burner. U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,867, issued to Beatty on Aug. 4, 1987, taught a gas barbecue grill with separate plates that were attached pivotally to a grill housing above burners for collecting grease. U.S. Pat. No. 3,593,647, issued to Copeland, Jr. on Jul. 20, 1971, described a bucket-shaped grill with a conical heat deflector positioned above a central gas burner.

In light of problems that have existed and that continue to exist in this field, objectives of this invention are to provide a gas-burner cover which:

Eliminates flare-ups from grease dripping on gas burners in barbecue grills;

Distributes heat evenly to cooking areas of barbecue grills;

Decreases cooking time;

Saves fuel;

Allows vaporization of cooking juices for enhanced flavor without burning or flame;

Eliminates need for lava rock for a heat bed; and

Can be used conveniently and inexpensively on any gas barbecue grill.

This invention accomplishes the above and other objectives with a burner plate having drain slopes on opposite sides of a dihedral ridge, louvered heat vents at sides of the dihedral ridge and grease gutters at bottoms of the drain slopes. The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings wherein there is shown and described an illustrative embodiment of the invention.

This invention is described by appended claims in relation to description of a preferred embodiment with reference to the following drawings which are described briefly as follows:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a ridge-vent embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a slope-vent embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a partial cutaway end view of the ridge-vent embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a partial cutaway end view of the slope-vent embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a partial cutaway end view of the ridge-vent embodiment positioned in a gas barbecue grill; and

FIG. 6 is a partial cutaway end view of the slope-vent embodiment positioned in the gas barbecue grill.

Reference is made first to a ridge-vent embodiment of this barbecue-burner cover illustrated in FIG. 1. A burner plate 1 has a first-side drain slope 2 and a second-side drain slope 3 on opposite sides of a plate ridge 4. At least one first-side heat vent 5 is positioned on the first-side drain slope 2 and at least one second-side heat vent 6 is positioned on the second-side drain slope 3. At least one first-side vent-cover eaves 7 is extended from the burner plate 1 to a position vertically above the at-least-one first-side heat vent 5 in horizontally covering relationship to the at-least-one first-side heat vent 5. At least one second-side vent-cover eaves 8 is extended from the burner plate 1 to a position vertically above the at-least-one second-side heat vent 6 in horizontally covering relationship to the at-least-one second-side heat vent 6. A first-side grease gutter 9 is extended from a first end 10 to a second end 11 of the burner plate 1 proximate a bottom of the first-side drain slope 2 and a second-side grease gutter 12 is extended from the first end 10 to the second end 11 of the second-side drain slope 3. Gutter plates 13 are extended designedly upward from the first-side grease gutter 9 and the second-side grease gutter 12, respectively. Gable covers 14 of the burner plate 1 are positioned vertically on ends of the plate ridge 4.

Referring to a slope-vent embodiment illustrated in FIG. 2, first-side heat vents 5 are positioned on first-side drain slope 2 and covered horizontally by first-side vent-cover eaves 7. Second-side heat vents 6 are positioned on second-side drain slope 3 and covered horizontally by second-side vent-cover eaves 8.

Referring to FIGS. 1-3, either or all of the heat vents 5 and 7, gutter plates 13 and gable covers 14 can be extensions of a single piece of material, such as sheet metal, from which the burner plate 1 is constructed. Alternatively, either or all of the heat vents 5 and 7, gutter plates 13 and gable covers 14 can be separate material attached to the burner plate 1.

Referring to FIGS. 3-4, eaves-extension sides 15 of the first-side vent-cover eaves 7 and the second-side vent-cover eaves 8 are parallel to an extended from proximate an axis of the ridge 4 in the ridge-vent embodiment described in relation to FIG. 1. Optionally for the slope-vent embodiment described in relation to FIG. 2, the eaves-extension sides 15 of the first-side vent-cover eaves 7 and the second-side vent-cover eaves 8 are parallel to the axis of the ridge 4 but extended from the first-side drain slope 2 and the second-side drain slope 3, respectively. There can be a design plurality of the first-side heat vents 5 and the second-side heat vents 6 with first-side vent-cover eaves 7 and second-side vent-cover eaves 8, respectively, for either the ridge-vent embodiment or the slope-vent embodiment.

Referring to FIGS. 5-6, in a typical gas barbecue grill 16 with which this barbecue-burner cover is used, the burner plate 1 is positioned on a grate 17 vertically above gas burners 18 where lava rocks are positioned conventionally. The grate 17 is porous to allow heat from the gas burners 18 to travel to a grill plate 19 on which meat and other foods are placed for cooking. With this barbecue-burner cover, heat from the gas burners 18 is disbursed broadly through the burner plate 1 without allowing grease and other drippings from food to come in contact with flames or lava rock that has heat spots which burn grease drippings and cause flare-ups. Instead, drain slopes 2 and 3 have optimum heat that provides vaporization of grease over their entire surface to enhance flavor of meat without burning or flare-ups.

Although the ridge-vent embodiment is illustrated in a gas-barbecue grill 16 with one gas burner 18 in FIG. 5 and the slope-vent embodiment is illustrated in a gas-barbecue grill 16 with a plurality of gas burners 18 in FIG. 6, either embodiment can be used in either or any conventional gas-barbecue grill 16.

A new and useful plate for a gas-barbecue grill having been described, all such modifications, adaptations, substitutions of equivalents, combinations of parts, applications and forms thereof as described by the following claims are included in this invention.