The Searzall PRO

The Searzall is a revolutionary hand-held cooking tool for the professional and home cook. It gives you the power of raw fire but also the ability to moderate and control that power. We’ve sold more than 250,000 Searzalls worldwide, and the Searzall Pro is our newest model.

What is it?

The Searzall is a carefully engineered attachment that fastens onto a common blowtorch and shapes and moderates the torch flame to make it far more cooking and flavor-friendly. The Searzall puts the power of a bed of hot coals in the palm of your hand –instantly.

Torches are great for soldering, but are problematic in the kitchen. They give food a fuel-like off-flavor known as torch-taste. The Searzall eliminates torch-taste by forcing the torch’s flame through two layers of fine, heatproof alloy mesh converting the majority of the flame to infra-red, radiant heat –a cook’s best friend. Now you can have high-quality finish for sous-vide and low temperature meats and other foods without the unsavory aromas typically associated with a blowtorch and without breaking the bank for large and expensive pieces of professional cooking equipment. Get yours here, today!

Searzall Pro Improvements

Over the last seven years we’ve been refining the Searzall to be able to release the Pro model, which has:

• Gives you the ability to sear an entire hamburger in one go!

• Doesn’t need to be seasoned anymore, it works right out of the box!

How does it work?

The new and improved Searzall Pro is a patent pending cone-shaped metal chamber that sits in front of the flame of a torch. The torch flame passes through the cone and hits a layer of super-high temperature alloy mesh that spreads out the flame and converts some of it to infra-red radiant heat. A second layer of high temperature mesh evens the heat out and produces the characteristic burning orange eye of the Searzall. The interior of the cone is lined with high-temperature light-weight ceramic insulation and more mesh. The insulation captures the heat that would be radiated towards your hand and re-radiates it out the front of the cone, increasing efficiency and your comfort. The result: a hand-held radiant broiler. Because the Searzall is made of lightweight materials, it heats up very quickly, and it doesn’t stay hot too long. Around the outside of the Searzall is a wire safety cage that prevents the hot cone from touching you or catching your counter on fire if you drop it. 

What can you do with it?

The Searzall is your perfect kitchen tool for:

• Searing sous vide steak

• Putting a hard crust on fish

• Crisping poultry skin

• Scallops

• Shrimp

• Burgers

• Reheating pizza

• S'mores

• Runny eggs

• Gilled cheese

• Toasting meringue on the top of a pie

• Melting cheese on your burger or nachos

• Whatever else you got

Why do you need one?

The backbone of the modern culinary revolution is sous-vide and low temperature cooking. By using very accurate cooking equipment like the immersion circulator you can now cook a product all the way through with flawless consistency. The problem is, sous-vide leaves the surface of food pale and crustless. Professional chefs have long known that the best way to get a really good crusty-cooked surface on a piece of succulent sous-vide meat is by using fire –very hot fire. Unfortunately, that sort of heat isn’t available to most people –especially at home. Booker and Dax founder Dave Arnold thought long and hard about this problem during the years he spent teaching sous-vide and low-temperature cooking to thousands of students at the French Culinary Institute. The Searzall was his answer. While sous-vide / low temperature cooking was the original impetus for Dave's invention, it's not the only reason to use one. The Searzall's power is instant and portable. Carry it to a picnic, a catering event, or your mom’s house at the holidays and be searing in seconds. Whether you are cooking a fish at the beach, toasting the cheese on a burger at a cookout, fixing up the holiday roast, or finishing off that 6 hour sous-vide rib-steak, the Searzall will be your buddy.

Torch Taste

Anyone who's used a torch in the kitchen is familiar with the unpleasant phenomenon of torch taste. Torch taste is bad. For years we assumed that torch taste was caused by the fuel itself –by propane and butane and the chemicals added to them. Not true. Tests run for us at UC Davis indicate that torch taste is caused by the creation of new, unpleasant, chemical compounds on the food when the heat is too high. We did a chemical analysis of food cooked with a naked torch and with a Searzall, and found that the Searzall did, in fact, eliminate torch-taste (see chart below). We also did a lot of taste tests which showed the same result.

The flame from a regular blowtorch is designed for soldering and welding, and its intense, focused heat can be far too aggressive for food. Even in the hands of the most experienced cooks, the torch is notorious for charring food in some spots while leaving other underdone. With the Searzall, the temperature is high enough to create a great sear, but it's more even and more controlled. The heat is spread out and softened, and the results are predictable and delicious.

Searzall vs the Competition

• Naked Torch: The naked torch is no good for meats or breads, cheese, or most foods with fats. We still use a naked torch for crème brûlée.

• Electric Heat Gun: The heat gun does not produce a torch taste, but has a lot less power than the Searzall and is tethered to an electrical outlet.

• Pan: Professional restaurant ranges have burners that burn in excess of 30,000 Btu's per hour of gas. These burners can adequately sear meat in a pan. A range will also allow you to cook much more product and doesn't need the constant attention that a Searzall requires. Unfortunately, panned meat tastes different from broiled meat. Even restaurant ranges are not as good as a Searzall for applications like foie gras, and a pan can't toast cheese. Pans on home burners can never match the Searzall. 

• Broiler: Broilers can cook a lot more product at once than a Searzall can, but home broilers have inadequate power for cooking fish and finishing low temperature and sous-vide meats. Home broilers are good for melting cheese, but the Searzall is often more convenient. Restaurant Salamanders have adequate power for most applications except finishing sous-vide and low temperature meats, but are not portable and are expensive. Commercial Deck broilers are awesome, but most people don't have access to one.

• Knock-offs: Since the Searzall first debuted in 2014, many other companies have imitated our product, but never successfully. Some of them never reach a high enough temperature, others produce toxic fumes and have small bits of burnt particles rain out of them. Our units have been rigorously tested with a variety of different materials, and what you’ll get is the best possible searing device on the market. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Will it work on my existing torch?

It depends. We strongly recommend our proprietary torches which are specifically designed for the Searzall Pro. If you do not purchase our torches, we recommend the Blue Fire 8090 or Bernz-O-Matic TS8000 for use with propane and Map Pro gas. To use 14.1 ounce tanks you will need to buy a tank stand support. We know of no available compatible torches for IsoPro (Iso Butane/camping gas) other than the one we are selling. Our torches are designed to have an output of 20-26 grams every 5 minutes.

What kind of fuel tanks should I use?

If you purchase a torch that uses Map-Pro/Propane gas we recommend Map-Pro for the increased heat output but you must use the tank holder as the thin Map-Pro cylinders are not stable enough on their own. You may also use the 14.1 ounce blue propane cylinders with the tank holder but we prefer the 16.4 ounce green "camping" tanks. If you purchase an IsoPro (Iso Butane/camping gas) torch any compatible cylinder will work. If you have a choice of fuel in your area we strongly suggest Map-Pro.

How long will the Searzall Pro run on a tank of propane or MAPP?

With our proprietary torch head the Searzall Pro will run for 105 minutes on a 16 ounce tank of propane, or 110 minutes on a 14.1 ounce tank of MAPP. That is a lot of toasted cheese.

Is it dangerous?

Kitchen equipment is inherently dangerous. Knives are sharp, burners are hot and so are torches. The Searzall Pro has safety features built in to mitigate potential injuries, but it uses a very hot flame -- so use common sense.

How long does the Searzall Pro take to cook something?

That depends. We usually sear steaks 1-2 minutes per side. Foie gras is done in under 30 seconds per side. Bread toasts in 30 seconds or less. The Searzall Pro's heat is powerful, but it is a handheld device. You won't use it to sear 50 steaks at once, but you'll love it for two or three at a time. We put out a plated dinner for twelve using 2 Searzalls (double fisting).

How long does it take after you turn on the torch for the Searzall Pro to be ready to sear?

A couple seconds. See the video.

How fast does the Searzall Pro cool down?

The safety cage --the part that you would touch-- is safe within about a minute --the inner cone a couple minutes later. The interior stays hot for about 3 minutes, and warm for about 7 minutes.

For additional questions email: searzall@bookeranddax.com