You say tomato, I say tomato...

Since I actually work in the real effluent business, I find it comical that folks are using the word to describe something kitchen related.

One of my favorite quotes, regarding using reclaimed water (super highly treated wastewater) for artificial snow production in Colorado: "The affluent don't want to ski on the effluent."

I think the first time I heard the term was from our friendly engineer, Kaseki. (This is not to imply that all of the other fine engineers on GW are not "friendly!")

Anyway, it makes sense. Cooking "fumes" consist of products of combustion (with all gas cookers and also electrics when stuff get's burnt) and vaporized volatiles such as grease and steam. It all comes out in a stream moving upward away from the cooking surface, so effluent seems to me to be a reasonable, all-encompasing way to characterize it. It is a waste product that must be dealt with somehow, even if for some of us (and by some of us, I mean not me, usually) it means opening a window.

Well, maybe the guilt starts here, although the root word means to flow out of -- which might reasonably refer to a pan. A better word from the same Latin root is probably effluvium -- a rising vapor of invisible or barely visible gas or particles. Plume is also widely used. Maybe we can have a vote.

I suspect that I picked it up from some commercial ventillation site. And lo and behold, my first stab in the dark reveals in Greenheck's Kitchen Ventilation Systems Application & Design Guide this example on page 4: "Hoods that are used against a wall have a tendency to capture and contain the effluent using less airflow than in an island type application." (as _we_ all know). I don't have NFPA 96 handy to see how the NFPA refers to it.

The Greenheck guide deserves to be in the forefront of the literature search all wannabe hood questioners should engage in.

kas

Here is a link that might be useful: Greenheck Guide

Emilner - Actually I do say tomato.

Thull - Love the quote!

Mojavean & Kas - Thanks, mystery solved! Sounds like it's a Good Word to Use if you want to people think you're smart like Kas. ;-)

fwiw "vapor" is often used just to mean a dispersion in air of a liquid (or solid) i.e. not smoke, and my guess is most people associate the term with water vapor.

But I'm all for effluvium. Efflux. Stuff in the air.

I'm going to start saying miasma.

nebulosity

Miasma aggravates my asthma.

I vote for effluvium or miasma. Then we can have fun with plurals (effluvia and miasmata, respectively.)

My Dad told me, "Son, don't step in the effluent." I've found that to be handy advice working around DC.

So, is it 'effluvia' when the output of more than one pan is intended? Or is indistinguishable and mixed effluent still 'effluvium' and the plural 'effluvia' limited to the output of multiple cooktops into separate hoods?

I suggest 'miasma' be limited to the result of insufficient capture and containment.

kas

Kas, you crack me up!

I think "effluent" is pretty on-target with some of my cooking results.

LOL

"Effluvia" sounds like a character in an Oscar Wilde play.