question about drip pans in indoor electric grills

I am well aware I'm not going to get the results of an outdoor flame grill, and that I can get a sear just as good on the stovetop, however that's not what i'm looking for. I've been looking at various indoor electric grills that advertise as smokeless, and so far I've looked into mainly 3 types of model: the entry level Chefman, the Hamilton Beach Smokeless indoor grill with the chunky removable hinging lid, and the Cusimax smokeless indoor grill which looks to be a generic model marketed under different other names like the Power Smokeless Grill and the Vevor. All 3 types of models have their grill plate with multiple slots along the grill to allow for draining on top of an accessory or included flattop. I did not bother looking into the Brevilles and Ninjas and Cuisinarts, or any of the double sided panini press like grills, especially the ones that have griddles tops without slots on the inside surface of the cooking area, not just on the sides. I've noticed something about the Cusimax model, about how there's a metal heat isolation panel inbetween the heating element on top and the small plastic drip tray with the water in the bottom. The metal intermediate panel is very lightly slanted towards the centre where there is a small drain with slotted holes to allow for drippings to drop down into the bottom drip tray. However the heat isolation panel is quite near the heating element and as you can see on the videos, end up burning up a lot of food particles and evaporating moisture, while oil manages to drip down into the pan. Also this model has a centrifugal fan without filters, that draw in the smoke from the top of the grill, into the side slots of the heat isolation plate, to recirculate all the smoke in the bottom. I was wondering isn't this a major design flaw? Why wouldn't they want to only a drip tray full of water like with the entry level Chefman or the Hamilton Beach? The hamilton beach heating element is embedded into the grill so less heat would make its way onto the chassis of the appliance, and the drip tray although made of plastic is directly under the grill/heater combo without an intermediary heat isolator that barely has any holes for the drippings to get into the bottom water tray. The chefman doesn't integrate the heating element into the grill but only has a wide drip tray that you fill with water covering the entire surface of the grill top. I'm not sure if the thing is made of metal, but in the video it sounded kinda plasticky. The majority of the smoke created on the stovetop when you sear with a pan come from the fact that a lot of your debris stays on the cooking vessel, which require lots of energy to get to temperature considering how it is much thicker than the electric grill tops and the resistor isn't basically inside the grooves of the grill or completely embedded in. If you were to spill stuff onto the drip pan of a coil stove at high temperatures enough for your pan to reach around 450f, you would definitely end up with a massive amount of smoke even if it's just a few drops. As you can see in the videos, that heat isolation pan ends up getting quite grimey. So my question is wouldn't the benefits of the fan basically get nullified by that heat isolation plate? I dont even understand why they bother putting water in the bottom drip tray considering not much actually makes it down there and there's a heat sink in the middle to prevent the outside of the appliance from getting too hot. Do anyone in this thread own that either similar models I've shown, have any of you own multiple kinds, do you know if there's big difference in smoke generation/leakage? Also I'm guessing the lid helps a lot. submitted by /u/da_ponch_inda_faysch [link] [comments]