In looking at the instruction manuals for the two models at the Miele website, their steam ovens are described as steam only. The cooking temperature for most foods is 212, with sausage and some fish at 185. I didn't see anything that had a higher cooking temp . The manual also says "The food will not brown and does not get a crust. The food is gently steamed, not fried or baked. Cheese will melt but not brown." In comparison, the Gaggenau has a temp range of 85 to 450. I've cooked things such as meatloaf, baby back ribs and roast chicken at 400 with 100% moisture and gotten a browned, crisp outside. At those higher temps, the oven is roasting but with moisture that keeps the food interior tender and moist. It's not steaming at higher temps. And there are obviously a lot of combinations of temperatures (85 to 450) and moisture (0%, 30%, 60%, 80%, 100%.) As for the drain, it has a cover and all that goes down it is water that is injected to condense steam before opening the door. There's far more stuff that goes down a kitchen drain.

There are food smells and then there are horrible gunk smells. If you leave standing water, you can grow all kinds of nasty gunk. Gaggenau has a drying mode. Mine is plumbed, and I don't use the drying mode, and haven't had a problem, but it's there. I certainly would dump and dry the reservoir in unplumbed if it were going to be sitting for awhile, and do a quick wipe of the floor and other surfaces, including the recess that the reservoir goes into. Why leave pools of water in a warm, air/moisture tight environment? Doesn't that sound like a recipe for pond scum?

I have gotten more info (once I looked up pricing for copper pipes I got desperate and called Miele in Germany). The water will be discharged at 70 Celsius, (which is 158 F)- can this go into a plastic drain pipe? If yes, which one exactly: ABS or PVC? The more detailed manual I finally gotten today states: Water hose data Stainless steel inlet hose length 1,500 mm (1.5m) (diameter sign: "crossed over O" 12.5 mm ) Connection to stopcock / connection to appliance each 33.5 mm (~ 1.5 inch) Plastic drain hose: length 3,000 mm (3.0 m) diameter: 12.5 mm (a bit short of 1/2 inch) Connection to odour trap / connection to appliance 15 mm (0.6 inches) When laying the water pipes in ducting, we recommend a minimum inner ducting diameter of 50 mm (2 inches). Connecting the drainage hose: Connect the drain hose to the odour trap using the hose connector (diameter 21 mm). Secure the hose using a hose clip. Am I reading this correctly that I need a 2 inch plastic drain pipe to connect to a waste hose of the appliance? US code stipulates indirect drain for steam oven, which I can accomplish, but 24 ft of copper? Do I really need copper?

I don't know of any one with glass, but the container in mine ( a Viking) doesn't really get warm - it is pretty isolated from the cooking chamber, and the water goes into a pump, then a boiler, before it goes into the oven. At the end of the cooking cycle, it does put some heated water back in the container, but not much.