A LOOK INSIDE THE COPPERCORE OVEN
I’ve been wanting to provide a little more insight into the COPPERCORE oven for some time. The idea for the ANVIL came to me while cooking with my AllClad frypan. AllClad’s founder, John Ulam, was a metallurgist with a talent for coating steels for the military so they wouldn’t corrode in harsh conditions. The story is that one day Ulam took a laminated sheet home, pounded it into a pan shape with a hammer, and proceeded to cook a perfect omellete. The outer stainless layer provided the durable food safe exterior while the inner copper layer, conducting heat 20 times better, made a perfectly even heated cooking surface. The rest as they say is history. Today you can’t buy a great piece of cookware that doesn’t have a high thermal conductivity core made of copper or aluminum. I thought that because the application of CopperCore laminated structures had revolutionized cooking the same idea should be possible for vaporizers.
Following AllClad’s lead the initial design for the ANVIL had three goals. First, to transform the existing flat lamination technology into a cylindrical shape to fabricate a vaporizer. Second, to seamlessly bond the inner 316 stainless vapour-safe layer to an outer 416 induction ready layer for consistent and repeatable heat transfer. And finally, to structure the copper cross section itself to provide optimum thermal conduction performance for a full flavourful extraction.
A closer look at the ANVIL cross section shows three distinct copper thickness regions. The CopperCore surrounding the herb chamber is very thin, only 0.012” thick. The Heat Distribution ring at the top of the oven is 2 1/2 times thicker at 0.03”. This zone efficiently conducts heat bi-directionally both into, and out of, the thermal reservoir. The thermal reservoir itself is a full 0.120” thick - 10 times as thick as the CopperCore. Why is this geometry important? Because heat is able to conduct away from the point of torch application in BOTH directions during heat-up we can use this geometrical assymetry to create an even consistent estratto based exclusively on the point of application of the torch. When heating near the threads significant heat is still conducted up to the thermal reservoir through the thicker Heat Distribution Ring. When heating the thermal reservoir directly to “ride the line” and maximize oven temperature heat still moves to the herb chamber threads, but more slowly through the thinner CopperCore
cross-section. The SNAP discs in the herb chambers always actuate at the same temperature so the total heat stored in the outer oven can be controlled repeatably and consistently by the point of torch application.
Once the SNAP occurs and the torch is extinguished the heat in the ANVIL equalizes around
and along the length of the oven. When drawing in cold air stored heat is constantly migrated from the hotter thermal reservoir to the cooler inner oven wall to transmit as much energy as possible into the convection air stream. ANVIL’S unique geometry ensures an even temperature of the convection air over the full draw yielding consistent estratto across the total herb volume in the chamber.
Cheers
John