Combi steam oven comparison + help (Miele, Gaggenau, Thermador, Wolf)
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Gaggenau vs Miele wall oven+warm drawer+combi oven
Comments (23)@Sarah, I bought the 36" fridge/freezer combo (bottom freezer), and a 24" wine cooler column. The fridge has been installed about 4 years ago, the wine cooler still standing in my garage - need to make room for it and have been procrastinating. Also my better half developing a bit of a wine habit has not helped to incentivize me to install a full wine rack - unfortunately. Had 0 problems so far. It just freaking works. @JJ Mekai, in my experience you don't get a better longevity from any other brand. Don't know about Miele, but I did have to replace my Miele dishwasher (installed in 2007) about a year ago. The Gaggenau cooktop and vent hood installed at the same time don't even blink. I may replace some parts because they get rubbed off for looks... but functionally they are rock solid. Sorry... the hood had a snafu once couple years back. Circuit board replacement, cost me $350 to fix. The ovens, and they are used daily, as the refrigerator, installed about 4 years ago, knock on wood, are rock solid and seem to just keep on ticking....See MoreMiele combi steam reheating times vs Gaggenau?
Comments (9)These are ovens not sci-fi marvels. If you have a cold house and a cold kitchen and a cold oven, it can take a lot time to heat up. Because it's cold. And the oven is only heated when the oven itself is hot, not just the air in the cavity. That's why so many older recipes say to start at 425° F for the first fifteen minutes. They don't really mean it. They mean if you set it to 425° when the preheat light goes off, it's really at 375°, and after fifteen minutes of trying to get back to 425° after you open the door, you're really back at the 375° that you wanted to be cooking at in the first place. I find that Gaggenau is better about that, though I will still start the oven early to get it good and hot and even. I can't remember if the combi- set up has an option to have fast preheat or not. I don't like it because I do cold start baking. My six year old combi- takes about 15 minutes to get fully to heat for regenerate if it's starting from dead cold. That's in a mild climate and warm, by most people's standards, kitchen. If it's been used within the previous 24 hours, it's more like 10. If there's a fast preheat option, and you have it enabled, it could be five, for all I know, but I doubt it could be less than that just on a logical basis. Once the oven is hot, regenerate takes about 10 minutes for a full plate of food. So, here's the thing--I would never use it to reheat a bowl of oatmeal or a small dish of pasta. Those are things that do really well in the microwave, and only take two minutes. What microwaves do best (I'm assuming a really good microwave here--some cheapies can't really do any of this well) is heat a single, compact item. That is, warm a sandwich, melt cheese or butter, warm up a single piece of meat, a potato, a dish of cereal or pasta or soup or stew. What a microwave can't do is heat up a composed plate evenly or well--or even one of those frozen dinners that are supposed to be microwavable. What it doesn't do well is heat up a casserole dish of whatever, or several portions of food, or several different foods at once. What the regenerate cycle on the combi-steam (or approximations thereof) does best is warm up a plate or two of food, like the supper that went cold because an important call came in just as you were starting to eat. Or leftovers. Meat, starch, vegetables, all on one plate, all being warmed through gently without any drying, petrification, overcooking, or any of the other issues that come with it. Better than if it were kept in a warming drawer--the food tastes fresher. What the combi-steam also does well is heat up multiple sandwiches, or pieces of meat, or whatever. Things the microwave might do well on one of but can't possibly hope to do four of evenly and well. When you look at it that way, heat up times really don't matter. If the only difference to you between the two makers is this factor, I'd start by seeing what the companies say about heating times. Do they have accelerated oven heating? Also take your best kitchen thermometers to showrooms where they have them working, and test the before temperatures of the oven walls and air, time the heating, and check the after temperatures. I would guess that they're probably about the same, unless one has accelerated preheating and the other doesn't....See Moremiele convection steam oven vs wolf convection steam oven
Comments (10)I went through the same question some years back. Miele has more features for the $$, so I originally wanted that, but at the time they didn't have a combi/convection steam oven that could take 208V (what I had), so I settled with the Wolf instead. And I must say, I've been really happy with it. It works, it's not fussy. Yes, it doesn't have the color swipey screen the Miele has, but I'm not convinced I miss that all that much. Would I like a broiler? I think so, as it is something I use, but I do have another big oven with the broiler (that unit almost always takes a backseat to the convection steam unit) and I can use that when I'm broiling something, so it's not too bad. I've kept tabs on the Miele, and I've discovered that considering that if you don't get a plumbed unit, the Wolf is more forgiving than the Miele on how much water is in the tank (I'm pretty lazy and never fill it up all the way, and the Wolf lets me still use it as long as I have enough water). If you really want to go into the details about adjusting settings, moisture level, turning on upper element broiler, you'll want the Miele, but if you just want to use it, I think you'd like the Wolf. I certainly don't regret having to "settle" for it at all....See Morerecent comparisons between Gaggenau and Miele CSO (combi-steam ovens)
Comments (29)@JJ Mekai . Hi. For what it's worth, I decided on the Gaggenau CSO instead of the Miele. Three reasons. I preferred the two-knob controls -- which at first can be intimidating, but once you learn what's what, very easy to use. I knew I was not going to use the Miele pre-programmed recipes. The second reason was Gaggeenau having the broiler "under glass." As NYGuy says above, cleaning the broiler unit on the Miele would be a real pain. I took one of the Miele CSO classes; the instructor was touting her "invention" of wrapping a damp paper towel around a fork and sticking it every which way along the broiler element to clean it. I have read, though, that the new models have a detachable boiler unit for easier cleaning. Finally, I got a very good deal on a scratch-and-dent model that came with the complete warranty. That still made the Gaggenau more expensive than the Miele, but I got the side opening door and self-cleaning feature as well. Have been very happy with the choice, especially for baking bread and cooking veggies using steeam. Pizza also cooks well. When we've had lots of people over to make pizza, I put a pizza stone (not Gaggenau's version) on the bottom rack, heat the oven for an hour and then also use the broiler. Works as well as the regular oven, even without having bottom heating. Like anything new, there is a learning curve -- and I am still learning. My only regret is not getting the Gaggenau wall oven. There I went with the Miele purely because of price. It's been fine, but I miss the knob controls and the side opening door. As in so much of life, compromise rules the day!...See MoreSimple_Mind
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