I'm positive it's minutes -- not hours. My Miele Master Chef has one other design feature that I find annoying. I often do very long slow braises. If I want something to cook for the entire day at a very slow temperature, I have to remember to check the oven after five hours. Apparently, Master Chef thinks I've left the oven on by accident. After five hours it goes into fault mode and turns itself off. I have to then clear the fault and restart the oven. There doesn't seem to be any way to override this feature.

I have the Master Chef 30" oven for almost 2 years and I haven't used the Master Chef settings once. So...of course that means I would say if you can buy a Miele oven without the MC settings, you'll be fine. Maybe one of these days I'll have to try it out. larsi said she didn't bake often, but I do bake often (mostly cookies, breads and pies) and my Miele oven is better than any other oven I've ever used, which was a surprise to me because I didn't think there could be a noticeable difference from one brand to another other than the extra features and the price. But, I've found the performance to be excellent and consistent, paired with good service from Miele. (total of 4 Miele appliances) When I read other threads about Miele oven owners having problems or non-Miele oven owners making negative remarks about the oven, I usually don't respond because my goal is not to sway someone's opinion into buying one brand over another. Everyone has their reasons for their appliance choices. Personally, I'd buy another Miele without giving it a 2nd thought. I have another oven at my baking center at the other end of the kitchen and how I wish I would have just sprung for two Miele ovens (even though I only use the 2nd oven 1 or 2 times a month). DH knows how much I like the Miele and our plan is to replace it with a Miele if it starts to be problematic, or we'll wait a few years and just change it out for a Miele. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a nice display model for a tempting price.

The resurrection of this thread is perfect timing. I'm planning on a six burner 36 inch Culinarian range, and had been up in the air about an additional oven. DW and I were in an appliance store in Tampa yesterday, and since we don't do a tremendous amount of baking, the Miele Speed Oven and a warming drawer seem to be a good complement for us to the large gas oven of the range (whether an additional full size wall oven, in addition or instead of the Speed Oven, would be better or resale purposes at some point down the road is another matter). In comparing the two, my bride much preferred the more conventional controls of the Chef series SO. Even though she's still likely to want a dedicated microwave oven (doesn't trust that the SO will do that and hold up over time), she didn't like having to push the Master Chef menu buttons through about three levels to get to the point where she could enter the numbers for a straight microwave task. OTOH, the combination of different modes one can use is so staggering to an untutored barbarian such as me that I have to wonder whether the Master Chef would ultimately show me how to get that much more value/use from the SO. For example, DW likes to take a frozen filet of salmon and nuke it. To me, it's hot and edible, but that's about all I can say for it. I can imagine the Master Chef first defrosting, then roasting that same block of salmon in a much more appealing fashion than straight nuking. I just wonder how many pieces of fish I'd ruin if experimenting with the Chef oven before breaking the code for times and modes of cooking. :-) I grill 90% of the fish I prepare (gas grill or over hardwood charcoal on the back porch), so the oven roasting would definitely be a new experience for me.

I've been using my broiler alot this season because my outdoor grill has been on the fritz. I've gotten excellent results. I've used the regular broiler because I'm just used to that mode and it's only the two of us. I use a broiler rack in a cookie sheet, nothing fancy. Usually use the 2nd rack from the top. If the meat is of reasonable thickness, I set the Temp to 525 or 550 to start. 550 was the only broil temp on my old standard oven. Then after I get a good char I may lower the temp down to 500. You may want to google "how to broil meat" and get some additional suggestions there. I don't believe there is anything different about the way a Miele oven broiler works compared to other ovens. I find that all the Miele preset temps are lower than what I normally use, so I changed them to what I'm more likely to use. Hope this helps.