LANSING — Just in time for July 4th, an over-engineered marshmallow roasting device is resurfacing for those who want to bring the fanciest stick to the bonfire.
Invented by two Williamston men, the Gyroaster device is for sale locally and on platforms like Amazon. It sells on Amazon for about $30; if you're local you may be able to snag two for $55 here .
It's total overkill, said Travis Stoliker, an investor and former Saddleback BBQ co-owner , who bought the company and patent from the local men who created it, in part because his son Lane, 6, loved the product.
The device came out of an Up North campfire, where the pair of Williamston men - an inventor and his patent attorney buddy - figured out how to cook the elusive last end of a marshmallow, the side facing the holder.
The men used an old kitchen mixer, the kind with big gears spun by a handle, as inspiration.
They started selling it on Amazon, where reviews on the product date back to 2020.
The device starts like a normal marshmallow roasting stick: It's a long stick with a pointy end for the marshmallow. But then the Gyroaster adds two-axis rotation, a set of gears at 90 degrees that will spin the marshmallow over the fire with a twist of a second handle, making it easier to create the Maillard reaction - a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars to create melanoidins - that browns and caramelizes the sugary marshmallow.
And easier to reach that one end.
"You rotate it one way, it turns in a full circle, if you turn the other handle the marshmallow just spins," Stoliker said. "It's totally unnecessary, a total overkill, but this is a clever design and it works."
Stoliker said last year he and some of his friends, including engineers, began to tackle the same last-end marshmallow problem at Lake Lansing. They got all the sticks they could grab, no luck, and were about to try to invent their own version when they decided to check Amazon and ordered two instead.
"On the side of the box it says 'from Williamston,'" Stoliker said. "How could this thing I bought on Amazon end up being from 15 minutes away?"
He arranged a meeting with the men, and when one of the men died earlier this year, Stoliker bought the company and the patent.
He said it's a social media product: People need to see the admittedly ridiculous over-engineering to understand it will be the talk of a campfire and a fun memory for kids.
It's also about traditions, just like s'mores.
Stoliker said he wants Lane, who was 5 when the journey started, to grow into entrepreneurship and the Gyroaster is a great way to teach math through the business of social media clicks as well as communication and other skills.
He said Lane had a friend over the other day and he heard his son, say: "This is our company Gyroaster, it's the world's best marshmallow roaster."
Contact Mike Ellis at mellis@lsj.com or 517-267-0415
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: How do you roast the perfect marshmallow? Lansing entrepreneur has the answer
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