I 'm not sure what instructions were shipped with your oven, but I logged on to Miele.com and viewed the pdf file on the Master Chef. It seemed very thorough to me.

Have you compared that file to your instructions?

The ovens come with a manual. I still consult it for various settings. It gives you examples

It also has a place in the back where it tells you which masterchef settings to use and for what.

Here's a link to their website page that has both the instructions and recipes.

I personally don't use the master chef at all. I use the various settings with my own recipes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Miele Downloads

ltc4 - most ovens don't come with cookbooks, Dacor's does but I don't think any others do. Go to the bookstore or a cooking class if you need to learn skills. Much of the reason for getting the master chef is the computer is supposed to make it easier for folks to cook things. You simply choose items or types of cooking from the menu.

Mark is correct , this is one of the better manuals on the market, concise, yet still full off revelant info, even has pictures and step by step for some of the one time settings. The last part of the manual even gives you examples of what types of foods go with each heating type. What exactly were you hoping for, and what manuf. out ther e has that???

Here is a link that might be useful: miele manual

I'm with Antss. Those are basic skills, roasting a turkey, baking a pizza, broiling cheese on bread. Am unsure what is expected of a cooking appliance, I guess.

I admit that I do not know what "MasterChef" is. If it is a push button function that means that one does not have to know anything about cooking, then I guess I would never bother wiht it anyway. I don't even use the probe on my oven, being an old fashioned-type of cook.

Anyway, if you would like some fun with your cooking, check out the Cooking Forum, where many skilled home chefs can help you in the kitchen.

Fairegold, just for your own edification, "Master Chef" settings are the automatic settings on the Miele oven geared to people who don't know how to cook and may not have time to learn.

So you put in your turkey and the oven will calculate the cooking time and prompt you before it's done.

There's nothing to push -- the oven controls are done on an electronic touchpad. There is a learning curve associated with using it, however.

Recently, I made a video of the new Turbochef oven, which I saw at an NKBA new product fair. It's the first new type of cooking technology I've seen in a very long time: big blast convection combined with microwave.

What was most interesting is that, like the Masterchef, the controls are food driven, not temperature driven.

If you're cooking a leg of lamb, the setting is meat, lamb, leg etc. -- not 375 dgrees for 1 hour 20 minutes.

The Masterchef is partway there. But more importantly, I think we'll see more of the food-driven technology vs assumed knowledge, combined with moving from slow, single-energy heating systems towards faster and combi- energy oven systems. We see it already.

If one of your pals on the Cooking forum has a newer Miele, you might find it educational to take a look at how it works even though you might never use or want one yourself. It's different and cooking-forward.

I'm a classically trained and made a living cooking for a decade. What's such fun for me now is to adapt my my tried and true recipes to the way my new oven works.

Recently I bought a round roast on sale. It weighed less than 2 pounds. Rather than do any calculations, I stuck my probe into it, set the doneness for 135 (medium rare) and put the oven on autoroast (setting I prefer for meat and poultry) at 375. 4 taps on the pad.

I always cooked like autoroast -- starting foods hotter to sear them then turning the oven heat down-- but now it's automatic.

I have no idea how long the roast cooked. I know that 20 minutes before it was cooked to perfection, the oven beeped me and the 20 minute countdown to done started on the readout. The oven beeped again when the meat was done.

The OP needs her owner's manual. I'll bet they will send her a replacement if it's too cumbersome to download. I keep mine in the drawer next to the oven.

Gaggenau ships an owners manual, installation manual, a cookbook, & a quick reference card with each oven. The combi-steam oven also includes a reference "wheel".

Our Advantium came with an owners manual, cookbook, reference card, and a video (which I haven't watched yet).

My new Miele oven didn't come with a cookbook. Quite honestly, I've never used any cookbooks that came with some of the appliances in my house. But it does have one of the best instruction manuals I've ever seen. I actually USE it!!!!! So far everything turned out to perfection. The only time it didn't was when I purposely ignored the manual and tried a different setting to discover what would happen.

Can some explain to me how an oven will tell you how to cook a pizza or cheese toast? I can understand a roast as it is simply cooking by temperature through a probe. That technology is old. 15 years ago my GE wall oven did that. Those Miele oven are awesome but, asking it to cook a pizza..I don't think so.

Ok, I'm not an idiot when it comes to cooking. I LOVE to cook and can cook and bake very well in a regular old oven.

Last night I wanted to make a roast. Normally I would brown it in a pot and finish it in the oven.

Now the Manual on page 36 has Auto-Roast. So I want to try it. It doesn't ask how big the roast is. Won't a 6 pound roast burn on the outside in the time it takes to sear a 14 pound Turkey? It doesn't say anything about sensors nor does it tell you to use the probe.

I ended up putting it on the rotisserie and watching and testing especially near the end. It still overcooked slightly.

I can make a pizza in an oven - make them all the time. But I now have this "fancy" oven and I want to play. Under masterchef on page 43, all it talks about is cooking a turkey and using a probe. How do I put a probe in a Pizza? How does it know how big the pizza is. How does it even know when the Pizza is in the oven?

I tried an apple pie with Masterchef. There was no timer that came on. I had to watch that pie just as I would on any other setting. What's the advantage? SOmeone who doesn't know how to cook would know even less and end up with a burnt pie.

Hey Loves2cook, I am asking the same questions. And yes, expensive things need taken out for a spin. I would image that you have to input the weight of the turkey, pot roast, etc...I have used those ovens a few years ago(i am sure things have changed) but never used all the bells and whistles. In the past, I had a micro/convection oven. It had a built in "cookbook" as well. Let's just say the results were less than fabulous but, that was a long time ago.

I would be interested in how the Pizza things works though...i can't imagine.

Good Luck

loves2cook - You are confusing two different parts of the manual. It's not hard to do early on.

The first part of the manual explains how each oven mode works. These are when you are setting the mode and the cooking time and know what you're going for. Page 36 explains how to use the autoroast setting. That's a roasting setting that requires the little grill in front of the fan and that sears in the first few minutes of the cooking.

Masterchef settings are automatic cooking programs you just turn on. The guide for that is on P 45.

Here's what you'd do for a Masterchef pizza:

PIZZA
Fresh
Frozen
Self-Rising
Stromboli
Calzone

You'd select pizza, then the type. That programs the oven. Put in the pizza. End of story.

Villandry -- The oven doesn't tell you. It does it. Think what you like but it's not the same as the old probes.
The new way is not method driven. It is food driven.

Rocco, I am sure the oven does many things very well but food has far too many variables to be cooked by a pre-programed oven.

Fresh - how thick is the crust and what's on top. Does it know the stones temperature.

Frozen - how frozen?

Self - Rising - not sure what that is. Pillsbury?

Stomboli - how thick, how big and at what temperature?

Calzone - see above.

Unless it knows the weight, thickness, and temperature of the food. I don't see how it works. It must make many assumptions. But don't get me wrong, I would still buy the oven. They are very accurate and fast.

Temperature probe in a pizza? I don't think so.

Know what, I just own the oven and I'm trying to help out here. I don't use Masterchef because I have more or less figured out by now what the various modes do and know how to apply them to my recipes.

I'm not defending the food driven oven technology. I just find it fascinating to see it changing. That new Turbochef oven was totally food driven (there was, to be fair, a conventional oven below it). I think more ovens will be built that way in the future. Think about how many ranges and ovens you can find today that still work mechanically vs those with electronic boards. Maybe Lacanche and Aga. Hard to find.

As always, villandry, you are very practical and smart. I spent a huge amount of time (bless those of you who were here and had to live through it) evaluating the oven.

My worry was that I'd hate the complexity and the learning curve with the various modes. But, fortunately, the overall performance and convenience has been so terrific, it's worth paying attention. What I thought would make it more difficult has made it easier. I love the countdown. I never used a probe before -- ever. But it's honestly easier than sticking my arm into the hot oven to use the instant-read thermometer -- with the same result.

The broiler is fabulous but you need to set the temperature for it. Also whether you want the full broiler or just the center. Then it works on time. So it's like an instrument you learn to play. The fact that it turns itself off has prevented several thermal runaways. The broiler also does a superb job. But it's 3 taps, not 1.

Re the pizza -- I suppose it's trial and error with a pre-determined setting and depending on the food. But at 500 or 550, as long as the oven's preheated and the pizza is defrosted, the dough will cook and the cheese will melt -- fresh, frozen, stone or no stone. I expect the readout indicates what's what.

They do have actual people at Miele who help with these questions.

So rocco, does the PIzza go in when you start the oven? There didn't seem to be a timer going?

Now Roccogurl, don't get wrapped around the axle. It's a friendly debate. :)

Hey, its Sunday afternoon and thoughts should be moving towards properly chilled gin & tonics and crab hors d'oeuvres. Believe me, I am jealous. I wish I had those ovens but, right now I am in a holding pattern for my kitchen remodel.

Just a suggestion. Try making your pizzas in gas grill on a few terra cotta/soapstone tiles. Works beautifully and doesn't heat up the house.

Bon appetit.

ltc4 - You seem to want your cake and eat it too. On one hand the oven is too complicated for you to get the hang of initially, yet you want it to be able to it tell or accept direction about freezer temps, dough types and thickness, room temps. and ........? How easy will that oven be to use.

Rocco is giving good advice, use the oven to supplement what you already do, or just let it do all (well most ) of the thinking.

FWIW, Dacor has a menu driven control panel too, and I suspect others will follow. The Miele's is supposed to be updatable via computer and soon the whole line will self diagnose problems and Miele will call you to schedule a repair.

loves2 six -- I'm curious. How did you set up the oven -- the timer and language and all after it was installed?

Did you use the white book?

There are two ways.

1st way - Manual settings

To learn the easiest way for you I'd start with the manual settings.

For pizza you put the oven rack on the lowest rack. Select Intensive (they recommend for pizza). Set the temperature 25 degrees lower than your usual temperature. The oven will tell you when it's preheated -- it will beep. Miele suggested to me 30 minutes to preheat, longer than the beep and told me not to open the door during cooking. But it's been OK).

When the oven is hot, put in the pizza. Then set Timer 1 to however many minutes you need to cook the pizza. Watch it the last few to see how it's doing. My oven has been very accurate; hopefully yours will be.

2nd way: Using the masterchef

Adjust the oven rack. Select Masterchef. Select Pizza. If you made it youself select "Fresh"

Then if you want to see what the setting and time is -- to verify it -- the manual says:

"To view the settings of a "MASTER
CHEF" function, touch the control for
"Cooking Mode"."

I don't use the Masterchef settings because the other way is easy and I want to set the oven time and temperature by myself. But by checking the setting you can see if it's good for you or not. If not, just do it the first way.

This oven has a learning curve. It's not difficult, you just need to read the manual to understand how it works.

antss linked you to the electronic version of the book which you really, really do need to use the oven at first. I'd print it out and keep it handy until you get the replacement.

villandry -- LOL! I don't have a car.
Gotta run to the baseball game now. Have a drink for me.

Thanks Rocco

It's not like DH or I are stupid, we just want to use this oven to all it's potential which is SO much more than our old gas oven which couldn't sustain a temperature for what it was worth (which was NOTHING btw LOL)

I remember when I was researching ovens and there was a thread about Wolf vs Mieles and some others, where you and a couple others said how happy you were with your ovens. We were going to go with a Wolf and your replies persuaded me to look at the Miele which we went with mainly because of the rotisserie.

Another question? How many sheets of cookies can you bake at a time? The manual says 3 but when we went to the showroom for the pre-sale demo evening, the saleslady said up to 6. This was also a consideration. When baking cookies on convection the manual says to watch the sheets and remove as they are ready. I thought with convection, everything would cook evenly with no need to move sheets around.

ltc4- I have a Wolf in primary residence. Beside looking spiffier and being easier to see into, it has nothing on the Miele MS series. The control panel on the wolf is a boondoggle and it's impossible to switch between modes w/o turning the thing off. It cooks well enough, keeps good temp, but I think there are better values out there given the price tag.

re: the cookie sheets. You are correct about convection, but the funny thing about thermaldynamics is it's affected by impediments. 6 sheets are going to affect hot airflow more than 4 and more than 3. Manual doesn't say not to use 6 does it? Watching them is not bad advice, especially till you have some time in that model.

loves2cook -- you are right about the potential for the oven. I can only advise you to sit down with the booklet and a cup of coffee/tea and read it and try to understand the differences in the cooking modes. I check it before I cook anything to see which mode to use and make notes in my cookbooks when I do a recipe. With use, everything becomes clearer and easier.

It isn't something anyone can just turn on and know how to use. I've cooked on everything from wood burning fireplaces to this and it's still my favorite. And I'm still learning.

I did 3 sheets of cookies just fine. Since you have 2 ovens (I have one and therefore only 3 racks) you can do 6 at a time. I can't since I don't have the racks.

Once you really get to know it, you'll know what you can push and what not. With Thanksgiving coming up, my annual pie baking days are ahead so I'll be seeing how it performs. I usually bake about 8 to 12 pies so the idea of 6 at a time is great. But I don't know yet.

Before I bought my oven I called up Miele and spoke to the person who does all the cooking demos and development for them. He spent a long time on the phone with me giving me tips and answering my questions. I would give them a call and ask away. I can only talk about my personal experience with the oven so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to respond to something that's best handled by someone who works for them.

I can't contribute much intell here but just wanted to make a couple of observations:

This post was very enlightening to me. When I used the Miele oven, although I loved the oven, I decided that I didn't like Miele's interface (actually the nested menu really). But then, I was going for "Convection bake" at xyzF ... - aka the conventional style coz I wanted to experiment with its performance in the various modes. I pretty much sidestepped the interface about what I wanted to cook etc. Anyhow, RG's walk-through the process from the eyes of a cook was very illustrative for me and now I see the sense in a food-centric configuration as opposed to a process-centric one. Very interesting and quite eye-opening.

loves2cook, I don't have a Miele oven but I still consult the miele use manual (obtained from their online website) for my bosch oven! It is very helpful and very informative and I often find that between that Miele manual and my Bosch one, my question about how to cook something is usually well covered. & I'll agree with whoever posted previously that it is perhaps one of the best engineered and well-thought out product manuals around. I'm sure that at this point you were just frustrated trying to figure out how to map cooking from your previous oven which had two modes into one that has 18 or 19! (& I gnashed my teeth going from my bake/broil choices to an oven with a mere 7 or 8 modes! many of which I could safely eliminate) but between RG and the manuals you'll have the problem licked, I'm sure. Good luck.

Just an update...DH called Miele and - no questions asked - they are sending a recipe book out with recipes and lots of detail. I will see it when it gets here and let you know if it was of more use than the manual. They did not even ask for payment although we would have gladly paid if it helps us learn all these features.

They also have a home economist available to answer questions. That's impressive.

mindstorm: yes, we had an oven with two modes - under cook or incinerate LOL - so this is a huge leap for us. Oven prepped food can only improve from here on out.

yes, we had an oven with two modes - under cook or incinerate LOL - so this is a huge leap for us.

Yah, well my previous oven's two modes were: I'll think about it, And: No, thank you. So incinerate was me with the new oven coz I cranked the oven to 475 for EVERYTHING and then came back to the shock of my life that the cavity was H-O-T when I went to put the food in it. It took me a bit to realize that one can actually cook food in an oven set at 350 degrees and even lower! :-)

Sad part is that the oven belonged to a range that was scarcely perhaps 3 years old when we did the remodel.

My appliances arrived today. The Frigidaire freezer has a dent in it. They are bringing another one tomorrow. The Wolf looks great, but it is 4 inches from the wall. I need to move the gas pipe. And my Meile dishwasher, well I just don't have a clue what to do with it. The installation instructions consist of 28 pictures, and no words. Over the years I have put in 3 or 4 dishwashers, it takes about 5 minutes, a trained monkey could do it, but I am stumped with this one. I am slowly figuring it out. I thought it had two drain hoses, or you hook one up to a garden hose, for emergencies, but the lady at the appliance store said its the supply line? There are going to be a lot of left over parts, cuz, I have no ideas what to with them.

This is off topic but you could get Miele to install the DW and that would save the hassle of trying to understand the pictures. I Know all about those pictures. Clueless describes me when I looked at them. I didn't worry because I had the work done by the installer.

The HOSES: You cannot cut them. They contain electronics some of which have to do with preventing water leaks so once cut or if a hole gets into them the machine will not operate. What model DW did you get?

There are going to be a lot of left over parts, cuz, I have no ideas what to with them.

bob411, it was remarkable to read your post just now because we're going on a trip to Germany so just hours ago was looking over a cultural epistemology reference for Germany. One comment from there really stuck and methinks it may benefit you too in your German DW-assembly caper: basically while americans and the english might use words like "might", "could" or "would", Germans don't have much use for such helper words. It's "you must" and "you should" for them.

So, bob, in all liklihood those hieroglyphics aren't suggestions: they're serious about them. I'd make sure you can put all the pieces and parts together exactly in the order suggested or else do as Jerrod did and get a Miele installer.

OMG you're scaring me. I had the idiot installer of all time who NEVER read an instruction book in his LIFE install my Optima dishwasher and now I'm wondering if I should get it checked. We have used the machine a lot in the last two weeks with no problems though. This is the same idiot who installed my oven. Thank GD on that one we needed to take it out and discovered he hadn't cut the ventilation hole in the cabinet based as CLEARLY set out in the instructions. We could have burnt the house down the first time we ran a self clean.

Mindstorm, I know all about your oven. My old one would decide for itself whether it was on "under cook" or "incinerate" and I never knew what I was getting myself into until I opened the oven door to take the "food" out. Sometimes it would even change it's mind halfway through a recipe. A definite impetus for this remodel and for sure I didn't know what I was getting myself into on that either LOL

"What model did you get" It's the Optima seies, G2470.

"The HOSES, you can not cut them." The last 4 pages of the operating instructions, have some instalation instructions, the first 2 pages being,recycly the box it came in, recycle the old dishwasher, dont use an extension cord, it must be grounded. Duh. The last two pages are actually useful, and there is another picture of the inlet hose, with scisours, and a knife cutting them, with big Xs on the scisors, and knife. I know not to use a sawsall, either cuz there are actual words under the picture explaining why you cant cut it.

"You could get Miele to install the dishwasher for you." First off I thought I payed for that, in the over $14,000 dollars I gave the appliance store. It was my understanding that the trim kit for the Frigidaire freezer, and refrigerator, was the only work I was doing, and of course now, moving the gas, that some dumb*&%$, me, put in the wrong place. Second, I am pretty much out of money.

"I'd make sure you can put all the parts, and pieces together..." It came with a red piece of paper, with more words on it. "DEAR INTALLER When installing this appliance please do not throw away any part and/or installation/instruction booklets. These will be needed in the future. Please put any unused parts e.g. plastic bag of screws, plinths, instructions. etc. inside the appliance after installation. Any questions call MEILE USA 1-800-999-1360" Questions, yeah I got questions.

"OMG you're scaring me." Be afraid, very afraid.

bob411, get off the computer and call them! They will talk you through it or tell you who to call. Don't void your waranty.

loves2cook & mindstorm -- your old oven sounds like a close relative of my old oven -- a nasty expensive joke.

I called them. I can throw out the shiny silver strip, it's for steam, and only needed for wood counter tops. I now know what to do with the things that look like they are the pull strips for an SST racer. One of my questions was how do you adjust the door? At the bottom the door is centered, at the top, the door is all the way over to the left. The answer was, the door is not adjustable, it must of been damaged in shipping, call your appliance place, and they will call us, and get you a new door, or new dishwasher.

bob, you might want to install that silver piece anyway. As I recall it was pretty simple and I'd think it would protect the wood in the opening at the top of the dishwasher, not just wood counter tops.

Unless of course you've got stainless steel cabinets. :)

He said the shiny strip gets attached to the underside of the counter top, it's not wide enough to go down the sides of the opening. That coincides with the picture I have of it being nailed to the counter top. I have quartz countertops, and that ain't gonna happen. They brought a different freezer today, this one has no huge dent on the door, and the guy who delivered it looked at the dishwasher. It's not the door, its the "cabinet" of the dishwasher, not the kitchen cabinets, don't know what else to call it, this dishwasher, kinda resembles a portable dishwasher. At the top, the left side is solidly attached to the top. The right side is not, if you push the corner together, then the door looks right.

Bob

I suppose I could have taken a lot of time and figured out the pictures. The problem was that I had to guess what to do at almost every picture and even then I wasn't sure I was on the right track. I had already arranged and paid for installation so it was no big deal, but guessing what to do is not for me especially at the cost of my machine.
Some people are visual and good with pictures, sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not..I would rather read text instead of guessing what to do.

I would ask the appliance store about getting your DW installed. I paid something like $100 for installation.

The shiny strip that gets attached to the underside of the counter top is the steam guard and is not used for quartz or solid surface counter tops. If you have quartz the dishwasher is not secured to it. It is screwed into the cabinets on each side of it.

The pull strips are for adjusting a door panel up or down, not left or right or to center it.

Again...I suggest you get the DW professionally installed.
Please avoid a disaster because it really sounds like you don't know what you are doing with this machine.

The people at Meile have been very friendly, and helpful. As soon as I get a new one, or they finish putting this one together, I'll be fine. Just thought it was funny that the original poster was also having a problem, of lack of instructions from the same company.