I am also considering buying Gaggenau combi-steam and have a couple of questions. I've posted them already on the forum but somehow have not gotten any answers. I apologize for my repetitions, but I feel that real experts are on this thread and thus you may know. 1. Gaggenau combi-steam oven manual says that the oven cooks with normal pressure of the steam. I've contacted Gaggenau and received that as a reply: "Thank you for your email and interest in Gaggenau Appliances. I can confirm that our Combination Steam ovens are non pressure. Pressure steam ovens work by building the steam in a pressured and sealed cavity, although cooking in a pressured environment can cut down on cooking time it doesn't allow you to cook different food types to the desired and required time and also to maintain taste and nutrients. As different types of food require different lengths of cooking time the Gaggenau non pressure system will allow you to access the oven adding and taking foods out at different times to ensure the varying types are food are cooked to perfection whilst having them cooked and ready at the same time." Miele combi-oven does not say anything about steam, only mentions that if the door is opened, the operation stops, and pressure needs to be equalized. Do you cook with Miele in stages, meaning do you add things in the process? Can you please comment on it? Is there real difference btw Miele and Gaggenau ovens or not? And does it matter? 2. I also hoped that Gaggenau oven would have pull-out racks but it does not. Miele does. Gaggenau however has a side door. Will I miss the pull-out racks if I go with Gaggenau, or direct access to the oven ensures that I really do not need the racks? Thanks a lot! MTC

No real steam visible when hot. As long as you can see bb's of water going in, and as long as it really steams up at 200F, it should be okay. One caution is that you should really have a fine filter inline (Gaggenau sells one). At least in the early models, the water for the steam goes through an orifice that is only 0.6mm. I was verifying operation of my floor model in my shop, using a garden hose, and a small piece of something clogged it up after a while. I took off the side (just sitting on my work bench) and was able to troubleshoot and fix it. Lucky I didn't have to pull it out of a cabinet. Anyway, so far so good with the inline sieve/filter. Gary

We are getting a Gaggenau steam oven because the Thermador chef at the builder show told us that if his house was on fire he would take his Gaggeneau steam oven with him. He was telling my husband that is it larger and he can start smoking his meats in his smoker for 4-5 hours and then finish in the steam oven. The Gaggenau is the largest one so my husband was sold. We are getting the Thermador convection oven (I know they don't match but Thermador doesn't give you credit for buying 2 ovens with them. I love that the Thermador convection oven also has a dehydrator with it too! We are doing Thermador induction stove top and then you get the dishwasher for free. I'm so excited for the induction stovetops (but we are plumbing for gas in case when we sell someone wants gas or when I get old and the pans are too heavy, I can switch to gas. I just hate having to take off the grills to clean underneath because I always have things spilling below the grill. It will be so nice to just wipe off and to be able to use the surface to serve on because it cools so quickly when you take away the pans.

Well, sous vide cooking just refers to cooking the food completely enclosed (usually vacuum packed, hence the name) in a constant temperature water bath. So, no liquid can evaporate. After that, it's all about time and temperature. A good sous vide setup can maintain +/- 0.1 degrees for days across the entire food, much better than any oven. The temperature of the bath can be anything up to just below boiling. A Gagg combi set below 212, with 100% steam does exactly the same thing, just with a little more temperature variability. Actually, there is another difference: cooking at thick slab of meat at lower temps can take hours (sometimes more than a day, which is also why one might want to double check pasteurization charts), a sous vide setup is much more energy efficient than an oven and won't time out on you like the Gagg might. For meats, the temperature chosen can be as low as the desired internal temp when finished. This way it is impossible to overcook the food (it's OK if it sits in the bath after it meets the required internal temp, it'll just hold at that temp) and 100% of the meat is rare (on a grill, going for rare, only the center is rare, the parts of the meat nearer the surface are typically more medium to well. This is why rare-meat lovers go so gaa-gaa over the process - they get more of what they like. If the sous vide meat you see prepared is rare or rare-ish, that's because the cook chose to finish at that temperature. There's nothing to prohibit setting the water bath to the temp needed to cook the meat well done (since well done temp is also below 212). But because rare is in and because this techniques shines for that level of doneness, that's usually what you see. I think there's also a dismissive idea among some foodies and chefs that well-done meat lovers don't care about quality, so why bother using the sous vide technique for them, we'll just throw that rare piece on the grill and dry it out and till it is cooked through and through. Heck, why bother even starting with a better piece of meat for them in the first place -- just grab that uglier slice and use that. Our family members are mostly rare meat lovers (yes, even lamb and duck), but I don't think snobbishness about it is warranted and I do see the problem you face. Now, it's also true that using only sous vide you can't get any sort of crust or maillard reaction. Why? This requires the surface to be dried out. The real cooking geeks have an uber cool technique for this problem as well. The problem being: how to make a crust as thin as possible so the meat just under the surface is not dried out and doesn't cook any further? Well, take your perfectly cooked but crustless and ugly looking meat slab, dip it in liquid nitrogen and then drop it in the fryer. Time it right and only the very surface will get crisped up.