The Blowtorch Attachment That Turns Fire Into a Handheld Broiler.
A naked torch is spectacularly good at being a torch and surprisingly crude at being a cooking appliance. Dave Arnold's Searzall solved that mismatch by putting engineered metal mesh between flame and food, spreading concentrated combustion into broad radiant heat. The current Searzall Pro makes the original idea larger, hotter, more even and more useful, without losing the wonderfully eccentric premise.
By Dr. Rob Urban · On radiant heat, torch taste, Maillard browning, high-temperature alloys, ceramic insulation, sous vide, portable salamanders and why correcting a wrong hypothesis can still produce the right invention
First, the current-product check
The original Searzall is still sold, but the Searzall Pro is the newer model and the correct version for this story.
Booker and Dax currently calls the Searzall Pro its newest model. The original remains available as the lower-cost version, but the Pro is the seven-years-of-refinement expression of the idea: 50 percent more searing area at roughly the same weight, a redesigned cone that spreads heat more evenly, materials compatible with MAP-Pro gas, improved ergonomics, no initial seasoning requirement and dedicated torch options designed around the attachment.
That is enough to trigger the newer-generation rule for this collection. The subject is therefore the Searzall Pro, while the original remains essential to the history because it established the category in 2014.
The manufacturer describes more than 250,000 Searzalls sold worldwide. That is a remarkable number for an object that looks like a small piece of experimental kitchen hardware and began as an answer to a narrow problem in low-temperature cooking.
The best way to understand it is not as a fancy blowtorch nozzle. It is a heat-conversion device. The torch supplies combustion. The Searzall reshapes how that energy reaches food.
A torch flame is optimized for solder, not steak
The problem is heat flux.
A common utility torch produces a narrow, intensely hot flame. That geometry is excellent when you need to concentrate energy onto a fitting, bolt or small workpiece. Cooking usually asks for something different.
A steak has area. So does a burger, a fillet of fish or a slice of bread. Sweep a pencil-like flame across that area and the operator becomes the control system. Move too slowly and one spot burns. Move too quickly and another remains pale. The heat source is both too concentrated and too small.
Searzall places a cone and two layers of high-temperature alloy mesh in front of the flame. The first mesh intercepts the concentrated flame, heats intensely and spreads the energy over a larger area. The second layer evens the output further. Much of the useful energy leaves the glowing face as infrared radiation rather than as a narrow jet of flame striking the food directly.
There is a cost to spreading energy: heat flux per unit area necessarily falls compared with the torch's tiny hottest zone. That is not a defect. It is the point. The device trades extreme local intensity for a broader, more controllable cooking surface.
The result behaves less like a plumbing torch and more like a miniature overhead broiler that you can hold in your hand.
The useful transformation is flame into radiation
Heat can reach food without the hot gas being the main actor.
Cooking heat moves by conduction, convection and radiation. A hot pan browns food primarily through conduction where the surfaces touch. An oven uses moving hot air and radiation from its walls and elements. A broiler places an intense radiant source near the food.
Searzall belongs mostly to that third family. Its mesh becomes incandescent as the torch heats it. Hot material emits electromagnetic radiation, including infrared wavelengths readily absorbed at the food's surface. The glowing orange face is therefore not merely a diffuser. It becomes the radiating element.
The Pro adds a lightweight ceramic-insulation lining around the cone. Booker and Dax says the insulation captures heat that would otherwise radiate toward the operator's hand and redirects energy toward the front. The insulation also helps the working assembly reach temperature quickly without turning the entire outer structure into a massive heat sink.
This is elegant industrial product design because every layer has a thermal job. The torch creates energy. The cone shapes flow. Mesh converts and distributes heat. Insulation controls unwanted losses. The cage creates physical separation between the hot core and the surrounding world.
The best part of the origin story is that Dave Arnold's first explanation was wrong
“Torch taste” turned into a lesson in experimental thinking.
Cooks using naked torches sometimes notice an unpleasant flavor or aroma on fatty foods and meats. The intuitive explanation is fuel: perhaps unburned propane or odorant is landing on the food.
Dave Arnold originally believed essentially that. His early idea for mesh was intended to improve combustion and reduce presumed fuel contamination. Then testing challenged the premise.
Booker and Dax says chemical analysis performed for the company at UC Davis indicated that the objectionable “torch taste” was associated with compounds created on the food under the torch's excessively intense local heating rather than simply unburned fuel depositing on the surface. The mesh still solved the problem, but for a different reason than Arnold first expected.
That is one of my favorite things about the Searzall story. A bad product-development culture protects the hypothesis. A good one protects the observation.
Arnold wanted better-tasting food. When the data contradicted his explanation, the explanation changed while the useful invention survived.
Being wrong about why an experiment works is not failure. Refusing to update after the experiment tells you otherwise is.
Searing is chemistry accelerated by surface heat
The goal is browning before the interior has time to overcook.
The Maillard reaction is a network of reactions involving amino groups and reducing sugars that generates brown color and a huge family of roasted, nutty and savory flavor compounds. Texas A&M's meat-science materials identify it as the chemistry responsible for characteristic browning in cooked foods, while Stanford chemistry teaching uses seared steak as a direct example of nonenzymatic browning.
For a low-temperature steak, the challenge is temporal. The interior may already be exactly where you want it. The surface still needs enough heat to dry and brown. Every extra second spent heating the exterior also pushes heat inward.
A useful finishing tool therefore needs high surface power delivered quickly and controllably.
A pan can do this through conduction, but it requires contact and usually added fat. A commercial salamander can do it through intense radiation but is large, fixed and expensive. A naked torch is portable and powerful but too concentrated for many foods.
Searzall occupies the odd gap between those tools. It gives up the throughput of a commercial broiler in exchange for portability and directional control.
The Pro is not merely a bigger cone
Increasing area forced Booker and Dax to rethink the thermal architecture.
Booker and Dax says the Pro increases searing area by 50 percent while remaining approximately the same weight as the original. A larger face sounds simple, but enlarging a radiant surface without adding proportionate mass or creating hot spots changes the engineering problem.
The Pro uses a new conical inner screen rather than the original's simpler flat inner-screen arrangement. The manufacturer describes high-temperature metals chosen for better radiant performance and compatibility with hotter MAP-Pro fuel. A second mesh layer continues to even the output.
The cone is lined with lightweight high-temperature ceramic insulation. That lining reduces heat directed backward toward the hand and reradiates energy forward. Because the assembly avoids excessive thermal mass, Booker and Dax says it becomes ready to sear within seconds and the outer cage becomes safe relatively quickly after shutdown.
The company also removed the original model's seasoning step. The original Searzall required an initial high-heat procedure before cooking. The Pro is designed to work out of the box.
Ergonomics changed as well. The larger working area means fewer passes over broad foods, and the Pro is designed to pose less of a tipping hazard despite its increased face area. Current packages and recommendations also support purpose-designed torch heads and a tank holder for tall fuel cylinders.
Fifty percent larger
The Pro covers more food on each pass, reducing the painting-with-a-tiny-flame problem further.
Reworked heat distribution
A redesigned inner geometry and high-temperature materials spread the stronger input more evenly.
Heat aimed forward
Lightweight ceramic material limits backward radiation while helping useful energy leave through the cooking face.
Sous vide created the perfect problem for the Searzall to solve
Precision cooking made the inside easy. The outside became the unfinished business.
Sous vide and other low-temperature techniques can bring a piece of meat to a remarkably uniform internal temperature. The method is excellent at doneness control precisely because it avoids the large temperature gradients created by aggressive high-heat cooking.
But a steak emerging from a bag is visually disappointing. Its wet surface has not experienced the dry, high-temperature conditions required for meaningful browning.
That is why modern cooks often separate cooking into two stages. Boston University food-science coverage describes the logic plainly: bring the interior to the desired temperature gently, then use very high heat briefly to brown the surface and develop Maillard flavors.
Arnold encountered this problem while teaching sous vide and low-temperature cooking at the French Culinary Institute. He needed a finishing method powerful enough to create crust rapidly without undoing the precision of the preceding cook.
Searzall is therefore an accessory born from another technology's success. Once immersion circulators made interior temperature predictable, a new bottleneck became obvious: surface finishing.
This is a recurring pattern in innovation. Solve one constraint well enough and the next constraint suddenly becomes worth engineering.
Why call it a culinary salamander?
Because a restaurant salamander is basically concentrated finishing heat with a permanent address.
A commercial salamander is an overhead high-heat broiler used for browning, melting, glazing, gratinating and finishing. It sits above or near the cooking line and delivers intense heat to the surface of food.
Searzall does not match a commercial salamander's area or throughput. Booker and Dax says that directly. A restaurant broiler can process more food simultaneously, and a powerful deck broiler is in another league entirely.
The conceptual connection is still useful. Both tools separate surface treatment from bulk cooking. You can cook something gently, then expose only its exterior to aggressive radiant heat.
Searzall shrinks that idea until it can travel with a fuel cylinder. It can brown a steak at a picnic, melt cheese over a burger, crisp poultry skin, toast meringue or revive pizza without requiring a fixed high-output appliance.
That portability is the charm. The product does not miniaturize the capacity of restaurant equipment. It miniaturizes the finishing principle.
The safety cage tells you what kind of object this really is
This is still a torch-powered high-temperature tool.
The Searzall Pro surrounds its hot cone with a wire cage intended to reduce accidental contact and help prevent the incandescent core from touching a countertop if the tool is set down or dropped. The Pro also ships with or supports a tank holder because tall narrow MAP-Pro and propane cylinders can be unstable with a torch assembly attached.
Those details should not be treated as decorative accessories. The device uses an open-flame torch and produces an extremely hot radiant surface. It demands ventilation, stable fuel-cylinder handling, awareness of combustible materials and the same basic respect any serious kitchen flame deserves.
Booker and Dax recommends specific torch heads and fuel configurations rather than promising universal compatibility. Its current performance recommendation is the Bluefire MRAS-8099, while the familiar Bernzomatic TS8000 remains among the compatible options. MAP-Pro is supported by the Pro but not by the original Searzall.
That last distinction matters. A newer fuel compatibility claim should never be back-applied to old hardware just because the products look similar.
Good product design reduces risk. It does not turn a flame source into a toy.
A strange little tool with an unusually good origin story
Searzall came from the food-science culture around Booker and Dax.
Dave Arnold built his reputation at the intersection of culinary practice, experimentation and equipment. His Booker and Dax operation grew from the experimental bar associated with Momofuku into a kitchen-equipment company focused on solving specific food and beverage problems.
The Searzall emerged publicly in late 2013. Its Kickstarter ran from November 29 through December 27, raising $226,425 from 2,811 backers against an $80,000 goal. Early units were already being tested in prominent New York kitchens before broad retail availability.
By late 2014, the original Searzall had moved beyond crowdfunding into ordinary retail. The device eventually became Booker and Dax's defining product, and the company now says the family has sold more than 250,000 units worldwide.
The Pro came after years of refinement. Instead of abandoning the wonderfully simple original premise, Booker and Dax increased working area, revised the cone and mesh architecture, added ceramic insulation, expanded fuel compatibility and improved ergonomics.
That is exactly the kind of evolution I like in the Things Worth Wanting series. The second generation exists because people actually used the first one enough to discover what should change.
Dave Arnold and Booker and Dax unveil Searzall and launch the crowdfunding campaign.
The original handheld broiler moves into broader retail availability after the Kickstarter run.
Arnold's U.S. patent for a torch and torch attachment is issued, documenting the basic culinary-torch architecture.
Years of use lead to a larger working face, revised cone, new materials, ceramic insulation and broader fuel support.
Booker and Dax still sells both generations and identifies Searzall Pro as the newest model, with more than 250,000 Searzalls sold worldwide.
A handheld broiler has handheld-broiler limitations
It is brilliant for finishing two steaks and absurd for finishing fifty.
Searzall does not replace a pan, grill or commercial broiler. Its working area remains small enough that the operator must sweep it over larger foods. Booker and Dax says steaks typically take roughly one to two minutes per side, while bread and some delicate foods can finish in well under a minute.
That makes it ideal for precision finishing, not volume production. A restaurant serving a large rush will prefer equipment that can brown many portions simultaneously. A home cook making two steaks may value exactly the opposite: no large broiler to preheat, no pan to smoke up the kitchen and direct control over the target surface.
The tool also consumes bottled fuel and requires a compatible torch. The inner screens operate at punishing temperatures and are wear components. Booker and Dax sells replacement screens because oxidation and thermal cycling eventually take their toll.
There is technique involved. Distance, movement, food moisture and desired browning still matter. Searzall moderates the torch, but it does not automate judgment.
Those limitations are healthy. The device is compelling because it is specialized, not because it pretends to be an entire cooking system.
The Searzall is a beautiful example of controlling energy instead of generating more
The invention lives between the fuel and the food.
Consumer-product innovation often gets framed as adding power: a stronger motor, larger battery, hotter element or faster processor. Searzall takes a different route.
The commodity torch already had plenty of power. In fact, it had too much power concentrated in the wrong geometry.
The useful innovation was impedance matching, in a loose engineering sense. Take an existing energy source and reshape its output so it better matches the load. The cone and mesh sacrifice the torch's needle-like intensity to produce a broader radiant field that food can tolerate and use.
This is a recurring lesson in consumer product development. Better performance does not always come from increasing the input. Sometimes it comes from understanding why the existing input is poorly coupled to the actual task.
Searzall is almost comically literal about that. The solution is a piece of engineered metal sitting in the way.
Why it goes in the digital time capsule
Because it is what happens when someone looks at a familiar tool and asks the right second question.
The first question is obvious: can a blowtorch brown food?
Of course it can.
The second question is better: why does a tool with more than enough heat still produce a worse result than the cook wants?
That question leads to heat flux, radiant transfer, surface chemistry, mesh geometry, material durability and eventually a small metal cone glowing orange at the end of a propane torch.
Searzall is also a perfect artifact of the sous-vide era. Precision low-temperature cooking made interior doneness almost boringly controllable, which exposed surface browning as the remaining problem. Arnold did not need a better immersion circulator. He needed a better ending.
The product is delightfully analog. No battery. No screen. No firmware. No app. Its intelligence is frozen into geometry and materials. High-temperature mesh, ceramic insulation and a cage perform their jobs every time the flame enters the cone.
And the origin story contains the scientific humility that makes invention interesting. Arnold's first explanation for torch taste turned out to be wrong. The experiment still pointed toward a useful solution. Instead of hiding that, the story became part of the product's identity.
The Pro generation makes the object better without sanitizing its weirdness. It is still unmistakably a torch attachment. It still looks like equipment someone fabricated because ordinary kitchen tools were not solving a specific problem. It just covers more area, distributes heat better, tolerates more fuel options and asks less setup from the owner.
There are more sophisticated cooking systems in this collection. There are certainly more expensive ones.
Few are as satisfying conceptually.
Fire goes in one end. Better-behaved heat comes out the other.
Sometimes that is enough engineering to make an entirely new tool.
A few practical questions
About the Booker and Dax Searzall Pro
Is Searzall Pro the current model?
Yes. Booker and Dax currently identifies Searzall Pro as its newest model. The original Searzall is still offered as a smaller and less expensive alternative.
What changed from the original Searzall?
The Pro has 50 percent more searing area, a redesigned cone and high-temperature mesh system, ceramic insulation, improved ergonomics, MAP-Pro compatibility and no initial seasoning requirement.
Does Searzall make a torch hotter?
Not in the useful sense. It spreads and converts the torch's concentrated flame into a broader radiant heat source, reducing local heat flux while making the energy more appropriate for browning food.
What is “torch taste”?
Booker and Dax uses the term for unpleasant flavors associated with naked-torch cooking. The company says testing performed for it at UC Davis pointed to compounds formed by overly intense local heating rather than simply unburned fuel landing on food.
Can the Searzall Pro use MAP-Pro fuel?
Yes, with a compatible torch and proper tank support. Booker and Dax specifically warns that MAP-Pro is not compatible with the original Searzall.
Why is it useful after sous vide?
Sous vide can cook the interior very evenly but leaves a wet, pale surface. Searzall supplies intense surface heat for rapid browning while limiting the time available for additional heat to move into the already-cooked interior.
Does it replace a commercial salamander?
No. A commercial salamander has much greater capacity. Searzall miniaturizes the radiant-finishing principle into a portable tool for small quantities.
Do Searzall screens wear out?
Yes. The mesh operates at extremely high temperature and experiences oxidation and thermal cycling. Booker and Dax sells replacement screens for worn units.