I'm making this decision right now, too. Looked at CC's yesterday (deciding between 30" and 36", manual clean, with grill). Would really like to hear more about oven performance. A friend has the 48" with an oven and a half, and she reports uneven bakes in the smaller oven. Not sure about the big one. Not sure this is a deal breaker for me, but I'd like more information.

I have a 48" CC and I find the main oven to be very even. In the beginning I was having trouble with the front of the oven getting too hot and over doing what I was baking. I realized I was not centering my bake pans in the oven, once I moved them back all was great. The small oven is not great when it comes to evenness, but that is true of any 18" oven.

I have a 48" self cleaning model and the large oven bakes fine. My wife started using full sheet pans and had a problem when she used too high of a rack position. I think what happened was that the full sheet pan was above the main part of the convection fan which blocked airflow from reaching the thermostat. The result is very hot area below the sheet pan since the thermostat kept the burner on longer to try to reach set temp. Is suggested she move the sheet pan lower and now she is very happy. Baking is pretty even but she still rotates her cookies to make sure. As a point of comparison, we had Decor electric wall ovens in our old house which were supposed to great at even baking but that thing was driving my wife nuts. She is much happier with this oven than the Decor.

The small oven is another story. Heating is not even at all but might work ok if you are warming something. Might be we used too big of a pan in that one as well and had the same air circulation problem but given that it doesn't have a convection fan, it makes the situation worse. Almost wish I'd made room for the 60" to get a second oven that was more functional.

I keep checking this, hoping more owners who have used the CC ovens will respond. I'm not a baker, so this isn't as important to me as to some, but I AM interested.

Come on, CC owners. Talk to avidchef--and the rest of us.

Sandra

Sandra, The lack of response is concerning me. I know people are happy with the range tops but it seems there is a lack of enthusiasm for the ovens.When I am spending almost 7K on a range - I want to know that the oven is excellent. A store near me is hooking one up so I plan to try it soon - but putting a few cookies in the oven is not an adequate test. CC owners please respond.

We have a 36" manual - the oven is fine. Wife bakes and roasts meats all the time. Varies from beef to fowl, all without issues. She made a roast beef 2 days ago - perfect medium rare. Birds & pork come out with done meat & crispy skin. She bakes crackers, cookies, cakes, pies etc. No problems. The only time she has used a 48" was at Trevors & she baked a nice cod in the 18". The new house that we are planning for next year will house a 48" so in a little over 2 years (if things go as planned) we will have purchased a 36" & a 48". So yes, we are satisfied.

Uneven baking has been reported on all oven from all manufacturers from time to time.

We don't have any trouble with our CC when baking, unless we over load the oven which is the same for all ovens. if you don't center or over over load baked goods you may see some uneven cake tops for instance.

As for the small oven on 48" ranges, in general they are not designed for baking. no convection in most cases and not enough room once you put you goods on a tray that restricts air circulation, for small ovens stick to less delicate cooking in that oven, as a side not if you turn the small oven just until the oven light comes on and stop it will hold at 117 degrees or at least ours does.

"Sandra, The lack of response is concerning me."

I think the opposite should be true.

When people are mad they post a lot.

I have not responded because I have not had a chance to use mine extensively.

Almost done with kitchen but in sort of limo stage so have not invited people over. Using my Gagg wall oven mostly.

I have done two roast on the motorized rotis and they came out great.

No complaints here. It does what an oven is supposed to do. I notice a great improvement in pizza crust going from electric to gas. We cook homemade pizza often and it is noticeably better with our new CC 48.

The following is a repost from a similar thread which can be found in its entirety at the cited link at the bottom of this post.

I assure you we don't overcrowd our ovens when baking and still have issues. I honestly don't know yet if it's a malfunction or a design deficiency but hoping for the former. Will follow up once we engage Capital on the problem.

Let me add that in spite of our complaints we do love the range overall. Given the significance of the oven concerns this is a testament to what a well-built machine this is otherwise.

Here's the excerpted post:

I love my 48" Culinarian for the most part, BUT...the oven has been a disappointment. We've been running it since January 2012 and have not yet called Eurostoves or Capital about this but are frustrated to the point that a call is in order and forthcoming (will post results of those conversations).
My wife does most of the baking and she has consistently uneven baking results and oven temps that don't match the settings. Not 5 minutes ago she came into my office complaining that she had to leave cookies in for 15 minutes at 375 degrees just to get them cooked through when it should have taken no more than 8 to 10 (no convection). She just cooked another batch after turning the temp up to 400 deg. with the same results. We haven't noticed an appreciable difference when using convection.

We've had the same problem with the small oven and the larger oven in terms of uneven cooking. The back burns and the front undercooks. When I cook, I compensate by rotating the pan, but as my wife points out, on an $8K+ range this isn't really acceptable. Our inexpensive old all gas GE range baked and roasted just fine and evenly without the need for constant rotation.

We seem to have 2 issues: 1. Temp control seems to under-heat (esp in the main oven).
2. Cooking is uneven in both ovens and takes longer than it should esp. in the main oven.

I don't know if we have a seal issue (seems unlikely given the issue in both ovens, but possible) or a thermostat issue (wouldn't explain the uneven baking).

On the "up" side we do get good heat for pizza when cranking the ovens to "MAX", but it requires rotating the pizzas in order to get an even bake which does result in heat loss just opening and closing the ovens. With the extra effort we are still able to produce pizzas that impress. Same is true of other savory dishes, but can't say the same for confections.

Below are photos of some popovers baked in the little oven (still had 14 minutes of baking to go) and an "unturned" lasagne baked in the main oven.

Don't get me wrong here, the burners and grill are excellent. We've produced tremendous cuisine out of this range (even the oven..but with alot of fiddling). I truly hope there IS a malfunction with our oven, otherwise it would be difficult to recommend this range and I'd advocate for just buying a CC rangetop with a separate professional calibur oven.

Here is a link that might be useful: Capital Culinarian Problems thread

those results look terrible. I wonder if the fans in the doors are cooling the front of the oven too much?

I spoke to Bob at capital this morning and I understand that you have one of 3 issues

1) Air shutter needs adjusting
2) Burner tube issues
3) orifice wrong size of drilled incorrectly.

in all cases correcting the above results in even cooking in the oven. Give me a call anytime so we can get this fixed.

Thanks Trevor. Appreciate your diligence in calling Capital even before I called you. Best customer service in the biz! Looking forward to getting this sorted.

Cheers

Hey Trevor,

Yeah, I never figured the little oven to be as good as the main oven but was hoping to be able to bake a loaf of bread or some such in it. We started out with something simple. Baked veggies. Found that the rear was much hotter and bottoms burned. I figured that the tray we used covered too much of the space on the rack so the air couldn't circulate so next we tried a loaf of quick bread. Quick breads are usually pretty simple and in a loaf pan doesn't take much space so there should have been plenty of room for the air to circulate... results were very similar. Burned bottoms and towards the rear of the oven. Then we went to something really simple like corn bread but had similar results. The main oven is great which made the performance of the little oven even more disappointing.

Frankly, I never complained about this because I figured it was just the fact that it was a small oven. Smaller air volume usually means it can't maintain as steady a temp. I'd be curious to hear from owners of other brands of dual oven ranges where the smaller oven is of similar size.

I asked about the ovens because everyone always talks about the fabulous burners and terrific grills. I was hoping to hear extremely positive responses and then I would feel confident in making a $7,000 range purchase. People on this forum are proud of their ranges' capabilities and the fact that they are willing to spend money on a CC or BS indicates to me that they enjoy cooking and are not just into the prestige of having a well known name brand in their kitchen. I realize people post when they are mad, but I think that people also want to share their delight in their new purchases, so I have been surprised at the less then overwhelming response to my initial post. I finally decided to purchase this range, mainly because of the grill. I don't have the room to put in a range top which I would prefer to do. I am going to be getting rid of a perfectly good 2 year old range because we are getting new countertops and sinks and this is the only time I can move around cabinets in an existing kitchen to accommodate a 36 inch range. I simply want to hear people say they love their oven and it bakes wonderfully!! The fact that I have gotten so few positive user responses does worry me and so I am wavering in my choice. I really would like more feedback. I see Sandra and Kurth also need feedback.
I guess the bottom line is when I am about to spend so much money, I expect perfection or close to it - and I don't have the impression that most people are thrilled with the oven. So, if you are thrilled with your CC oven - please shout it out and tell us why you like it!! Thanks.

There is no perfect range.

The only rave-worthy cartwheeling baking ovens IMO are Wolf electric and Gaggenau.

Gaggenau does not make a range and Wolf does not make an induction range.

So you can spend ~$9500 on a Wolf 36" DF with grill and very mediocre burners with an oven that is great for baking but still not rave-worthy for roasting.

I baked some madeleines in the CC today. They came out fine. Maybe next week I will try to use two sheets.

I did not originally plan for a self-clean oven with my CC.

But I am being seduced more everyday by the motorized rotisserie. It may be blossoming into love :)

The differnce is ~$700 between a manual clean 36" CC with grill and a self-clean 36" CC with grill. I think the rotisserie is well worth $700.The self-clean is a bonus.

Hi Avid, etal. Sorry I haven't posted. Since the completion of my kitchen project, I don't visit these forums as often. Fortunately for me, I haven't had any of the issues that DCKelly and BFF have had. I have the 48" self-clean. I can only say that their experience has to be an anomaly.

I do find that the larger oven bakes fine with convection on. There is definitely unevenness from top to bottom with the bottom rack being the hottest with a full sheet. So when I am using full sheets, I avoid the bottom rack. I baked two full sheets of cookies and didn't see as big a difference left to right as I did top to bottom. What I did was pull the sheets out as they were ready rather than rotate them. It's only a 10 minute bake with cookies, so the time probably wasn't significant to be an issue. With half sheets on different racks, it was more even all around. I've also baked croissants from store bought puff pastry sheets and those also came out fine. I am planning to make about half dozen loaves of banana bread in a couple of weeks for a big breakfast. Up until now, I've only been baking a loaf at a time, so that's been in the Advantium on convection. For roasting and braising, which I do much more of, it has been great. It's also been great for pizza, calzones and focaccia. I love the rotisserie and use it often, even though I also have a rotisserie outside.

On the other hand, my experience with the smaller oven has been similar to what others have noted. It does run hot. Thermometer-wise, it has always been within range. But I think without convection, the airflow isn't adequate. It overcooked my first loaf of banana bread in there so I haven't used it for baking breads or pastries since. I do use it often to finish off skillet cooking or for braising. I've also used it as a warming oven. For those less delicate purposes it works fine. Come to think of it, I might bake one loaf of banana bread in the smaller oven at a lower temp just to see if that's enough to compensate.

I am someone who has actually has owned and used a Wolf range daily for three years. I am a scratch cook and I cook everyday for anywhere from 3-10 people, these days mostly 10 for dinner. We entertain a lot and will have 3 parties in the next few weeks, one for 40 and two for 60-70. I do all my own cooking. Wolf is "rave worthy" for roasting. Chickens and turkeys both come out crispy and retain their juiciness. This is partially because you can direct the heat more from above with the roast mode and partially due to the dual fans both with their own convection elements. The air movement from the dual fans is very drying which is essential to making skins crispy. Careful watch of the temp of whatever you roasting keeps the meat juicy. The oven has a probe but you can easily do this with a separate probe you can buy. Baking is great as well. For baking the heat comes more from the bottom which is especially beneficial for pies and quiches. I have had many brunches where I loaded it with quiches and it bakes very evenly and the bottoms all get nicely done. Cookies bake very evenly on all the racks. We have had flying plates for 35 people and the oven has kept up with that. My last oven and range oven, another brand, baked like those pictures and they could never fix them and finally bought them back. That would be totally unacceptable for me. Hopefully it is a simple fix. I think it is very difficult to have an oven that coordinates all the various elements and fans so there are no hot spots and still provide heat in the manner it is needed for the various cooking modes and Wolf has done a stellar job. In three years my range has performed beautifully in everything I have used it for and not one moment of disappointment. It has exceeded expectations.
The burners are a lower BTU than CC but it is still plenty for searing steaks and 1-2 lb stirfries. I use cast iron for the steaks and it gets plenty hot. You can read many reports online about preheating cast iron on conventional gas burners to very high temperatures to make pizza. We grill large amounts outside and never stirfry for more than a few people. Even if I could put CC burners on my Wolf range I wouldn't. I rarely have the burners cranked all the way now. The simmer and lower heat I use daily so it is more important to me. I laugh at the term "very mediocre" for the burners. For my pattern of daily use, I would become very frustrated with a burner that does not get low enough for how I use it and I might consider that type of burner worse than mediocre for me. I would not though demean this choice for others if that meets their needs for the way they cook and were happy with it. If CC would develop some sort of dual stacked burners, they might be able to get a really low heat for their burners.
Agree with deeageaux, no perfect range but when you realistically look at how you cook, and prioritize your needs, avoid marketing hype and misinformation, there will be some ranges that meet those needs more than others and that choice won't be the same for everyone.

Thanks everyone. These responses are really helpful and much appreciated.

Here are some pix of things I've done from the grill and oven.

Rotisserie Turkey:

Rotisserie Chicken:

Spatchcock Chicken:

And my most recent on Father's Day, Lechon Asado or Roast Pork Belly:

As you can infer, I'm not into dessert baking much. I think if I were into that, I probably wouldn't do a gas oven at all. Especially if I did a lot of cakes. For me, the CC oven has done everything I've asked it to admirably. At least the large oven has, anyway.

Looks delicious jscout!

For those interested...Capital phoned me today and they will be sending a technician out to check out my oven a.s.a.p. I spoke with two specialists and they both believe it's most likely a simple matter of an air shutter adjustment.

Will provide updates as things progress.

Cheers all.

Thanks JScout. Food looks luscious. Are you enjoying the grill? I am glad to know the oven roasts well.

Love the grill. Here it is now July 1 and I have yet to remove the cover on my Weber grill outside. Though it may finally see the light of day on the 4th, but only because I might need the space. I find that the grill on the CC performs better than the Weber. The only limitation on the indoor grill is that there is no hood to close to help cook. But I get around that by using my wok lid.

Wow!! Thats a huge compliment to the CC. I just bought a charcoal Weber while I debate if I should simply move my bake center (which may fall apart) and to accommodate a CC range top or move two cabinets, lose a cabinet and and OTR microwave, cut a cabinet, and get rid of a 30 inch, 3 year old GE range in order to accommodate a 36 inch CC range. I am doing this because I really want a grill so I am happy to hear you love yours.

Bought our 30" oven and range in January and have never looked back. The oven is still 30x30 and can take full commercial cookie sheets. Everything else I understand takes 1/2 sheets. At the back left of the stove inside is a vent which sometimes causes some lightening of bread and cakes if you are doing larger quantities. A shifting of the pan about 3/4 way through your cooking cycle and you don't see any difference at all. My wife and I love the oven. I don't have the double oven so I can't give you any feed back other than to say I believed it to be a supplemental unit with less capability than the larger oven. That was told to me up front. We didn't have room for the 36" or the 48" so we put in the size we took out.
We've done a lot of cookies for us and the neighbor boys, you know bribes for getting things done (it works on 20 year old sons as well). We've never had a batch turn out with mishaps. Just haven't. We've had ours 3 1/2 months now. We are waiting for a newly designed wok-ring. The standard ring doesn't work on the 30" range as it does on the larger models. We'll wait. We haven't been disappointed in any part of our deal yet. Hope this helps some.

MY CC Oven issue has been quickly and expertly resolved by Eurostoves and Capital. The oven performs wonderfully now and the range top needs no further praise.

Below is a link to my experience you may find useful from the "Capital Culinarian Problem" thread.

I strongly recommend buying through a dealer that will take care of you post-sale like Eurostoves!

jscout - I second your remarks about the grill. It really is amazing and not difficult to keep clean. I actually sent a suggestion to Capital a while back that they develop an add-on vented cooking cover for the grill to achieve greater heat while grilling (been toying with a design myself to have fabricated out of heavy gauge stainless steel). They seemed to like the suggestion, we'll see...

Here is a link that might be useful: CC OVEN Problem RESOLVED!!!

I purchased a 30 inch CC last week, after about a year of research. I am extremely happy. So far, the simmer has been great. I made perfect "Cordon Bleu" French style stirred eggs and Lynn Rosetta-Kasper's warm amaretto cherries, both of which requires a low consistant heat source. I haven't tried a stir fry or braised meat because it has been in the high 90s in Boise and I'm not interested in heating up my kitchen, but will do so once it cools down.

I forgot to mention that I used the oven to bake a pizza, which came out great. I didn't mean to avoid answering the original question about the oven, but wanted to assert that I had not found any of the cooktop problems that some other members had complained about. Again, once it cools off more, I will do some serious baking as well.

Bump