Speed oven - it's more versatile.

Alright, Plllog, here is what I did today with my Miele Speed oven, just as an example, and by the way, I loved your explanation of the steam oven, I can't really say I have ever "gotten" them other than I would really like to have one for when I bake sourdough. They sound great the way you tell it.

Okay, just as an example, I made a couple of racks of ribs for dinner tonight. After peeling the membranes, I applied a dry rub I make and wrapped the two racks up in aluminum foil. I set the temp for "Convection Bake" to 225 and put the ribs in the oven for about 2.5 hours. I made a braising liquid and poured it in with the racks at about 1 hour into the cooking time and raised the temp to 250. (you can set the temp in the Miele to as low as 125F)

When the ribs were done I poured the braising liquid into a saucepan and started a reduction on the stove on medium heat. I took one humongous beet out of a bunch I bought today, lanced it a few times and put it in the speed oven on microwave for 5 minutes. Meanwhile I reduced the braising liquid down to almost a syrup and then coated the two racks with a bbq brush. By this time the beet was done so I pulled it out and set the speed oven to broil.

Back into the oven went the ribs, this time on a baking sheet. About 5 minutes on one side and 3 on the reverse and the ribs were nicely finished with some good caramelization on the surface.

I doused the ribs with the remaining sauce and down the hatch they went, along with the beet, all work being done in the speed oven except for the stovetop reduction of the sauce.

About the only drawbacks I can think of for the speed ovens is that if you have one, chances are you won't have a microwave sitting around. But if you are baking bread or something and need to melt a stick of butter like you typically would in a microwave, the darned thing is occupied. This does not happen very much to us because we are empty nesters now and there isn't that big a demand for walk-up nukage. But back when the kids were home it would have likely been an issue. The other negative is cost. They are really pretty expensive, although the alternatives are coming out now and the price seems to be coming down. For instance, you can get a "Chef Model" Miele for a couple grand now. When we were looking the cheapest Miele Speed oven we could find new was $3000. (No, I did not pay that, I found ours over on the coast for sale by a builder who didn't build a house he had planned.)

So there's some more info to chew on.

mojavean and pillog, thank you so much for the descriptions of how you use the steam oven and the speed oven. Extremely helpful.

In another thread, a poster wrote that the speed oven destroys the texture of meat when used in combi mode because the MW is on long before the oven heats up enough to provide thermal heat. Do you think you can get around this by starting the meat in one of the thermal modes and then switching to combi?

I was also concerned about the possible contention issues between MW and oven, and am glad to know it is not a big deal. I am trying to basically combine our use of the old counter MW and a counter toaster/convection oven into the Miele Chef Speed oven. I find I use both quite often in preparing a meal (soften a little butter or honey or heat some pre-cooked bacon to get more grease out in the MW while food is baking in the Breville). I would like to keep the counters clear but will have the Breville as backup.

Mojavean, was any of that stuff speed ovened, rather than merely made in the speed oven? If I understood right it was baked, broiled and microwaved, right? It's the combination, speed mode that I don't use a lot.

It's cool that you could do all those things in one oven since they were done all for one dish.

I did make the assumption that Nellyn has another, full sized oven with a broiler. In that situation, I'd choose the steam oven and a $100 countertop microwave.

Given the further explanation, the big question comes up...what about toast? The Advantium makes terrible toast and it takes too long. I don't like oven prepared toast anyway, but loved my old, original model toaster oven for toasting (have a cheap new one stashed in a drawer). The Miele might toast better with the broiler. If disposing of the microwave is really important, then get the speed oven.

Re the combination (speed) mode, the Advantium has the halogens, so doesn't have that long MW run up. I wonder if it would help on the Miele to preheat? That said, one of my issues with the quality of the speed cooking in the Advantium, is that it does seem too microwaved. That is adjustable on it--you can set it for how much of each input you want, but if you use the program you get what they think is going to give the best outcome.

Fortunately, I have a relatively large pantry (vs. a much smaller kitchen). So when I got the Miele Speed oven, I just moved my old Sharp microwave and my ancient, beloved, toaster oven into the pantry.

Now, about 8 months after the remodel, I still use the toaster oven for toast, having never even tried to toast in the Miele. And the pantry's microwave gets used to do something quick (like melt butter) while the Miele is pre-heating, or baking, or whatever. Though these things only happen occasionally, its been often enough that I haven't seen my way to tossing out either old oven.

The drawback, of course, is that there are 5 ovens in my little kitchen/pantry area, which seems excessive. And I suppose the pantry has less counter space for canned beans or whatever...

As for the Miele's combination mode, I've only begun to explore this by using it to reheat things like casseroles -- Alton Brown's "Cauliflower Say Cheese", last night. Master Chef expects me to know how much these things weigh, which is a struggle, but last night's guess turned out just fine.

Oh yeah, if you select Defrost mode, the Miele speed oven will heat in the range of 75 to 125 degrees. This setting is useful for cooking "raw" foods at 104.

I did think about a steam oven as well, but there really was no way to fit it in there.

Thanks for the feedback to date. Perhaps some context would help. My new digs (a condo) has a pass-thru kitchen that faces a combined living and dining area (the kind with the big island that looks beautiful but utterly useless in terms of space). To make room for the speed oven or steam oven, I will have to remove 2 cabinets from the island.

The purpose of the small oven is to make small portions of food and reheating. I will have a full size range (a Capital Culinarian manual). Both the steam oven and speed oven have convection bake so I have no doubt that I can bake and broil in it with no issues. As many of you have indicated, I wonder about:

Steam cooking
(+) reheating, healthy cooking with less or no oil, can blanch/steam vegetables, can steam dim sum items
(-) no microwave heating for melting butter/chocolate or reheating a drink
(?) will I get sick of the taste of steamed food, will cleaning be an issue
(*) I already have a stovetop steamer

Speed Oven
(+) option to cook fast and functions like a microwave
(?) not sure how often I need to use the speed function
(?) some people have reported texture issues with food cooked in a speed oven
(*) I will not have room for a microwave and toaster oven on counter-top

After a while, it boils down to steam cooking vs microwave functionality, doesn't it?

Hi Plllog, (I always want to say Pillog for some reason, is that how it is pronounced?)

No, I did not use any combo modes on the dishes I made that evening, but I always do ribs low and slow, usually on the grill, but I wanted to try this technique with the foil in the oven. Plus my allergies were bothering me and I wanted to stay inside.

The combo stuff I have done has usually been casseroles, gratins, pies, stuff in a dish.

As far as toasting goes, the speed oven works great so long as you are looking to toast one side, like bagels or English muffins. But if I were doing bread needing both sides toasted I would just use my toaster. In fact, I would just use my toaster anyway unless I were doing a really large amount of toasting, like I do when we have the gaggle over for Eggs Benedict. Otherwise, for just bread, you would have to turn the slices over to get both sides since the broiler element is up top.

Hi,

I'm just wondering if you have an update on what you ended up getting. I started renovating my kitchen few months ago and I was in the exact situation. I'm waiting for Miele to release the XL model steam oven in the US and hopefully it will happen this year.

hey, just a followup. miele finally released their XL combi steam oven this week.. i just orderd one.. so can't review it yet.

Noopd, it looks like you'll be the first with this, here. Please let us know how you like it, and what all it can do, after you've had a chance to use it for a bit.

Hey Noopd,

We have an entire Miele kitchen in storage ready to install and were planning a Wolf combi because the Miele wasn't out yet. Now that it's here, can you share what you paid? Is it much more expensive than the Wolf (3800)? And is it as big as the Wolf inside? We have nowhere locally to look at one but I'm really excited it's finally arrived since the rest of my appliances are all Miele.

Thanks!

hey, i ordered it but looks like they don't have it in stock till april. Right now i have an install date of 4/9 and i'm can review it after i have it for a few weeks. Miele always has a "set" price that retailer can't change. the price is 3495. I know wolf has one but i decided to go with miele cuz 1. i just like miele, made in germany and all 2. it will match my miele oven which I will install right above, with my miele warming drawer at the very bottom, so it's a unified look thing 3.miele is a bit more experience with steam oven.. this model has been out in europe for awhile. wolf's model is their first attempt at steam oven nevertheless.

I'm sure the wolf steam oven will work just as well based on the reviews here.. from the spec, the wolf oven is a little bigger too

see my response to this thread:
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/appl/msg031009454591.html?6

(Cross-posted in other Miele Steam Oven threads)

We bought a Miele DGC 6800 XL Combination Steam Oven (non-plumbed) and a few months later on a whim descaled the unit. Right after the descaling process, my Miele steam oven gives me a 'Fault 20' whenever I try to do steam cooking. The regular convection cooking works fine. Wish I had bought something else!

It's out of warranty even though we probably used it about 20 times. Now Miele is asking for $150 for a technician to come out and pay an additional $90/hr for labor + $ for parts!

If you cross-post, can you please also post a link to the one location that you want the discussion to happen at. It's not very helpful to spread this out over half a dozen tangentially related threads.

I suggest linking to here: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5851297/fault-20-on-miele-combination-steam-oven-dgc-6800-xl-cross-posted