Steam Oven Query - Love/Hate... why?

9 years ago

I've been set all along to get a double wall oven in this long-planned remodel. Occasional bad back, love of cooking & baking -- and a weekly homemade pizza night have driven this position. We are a family of 6, kids ages 7-14. (weekly pizza -- the thought was that 2 ovens would kick the pizzas out much quicker).

Throughout my planning, I'd be intrigued by the steam oven, but it was always out-of-reach budget-wise. With the introduction of the Bosch Steam Oven, it is still more than I was thinking of spending, but now in the realm of possibility.

I cook and bake a lot. My kitchen is used. Not a show kitchen. I've watched probably every you tube steam oven video -- it is very tempting.

Please tell me your experience with a steam oven. Do you love it? Do you use it more than a regular oven once you've passed the learning curve? Does it really make your food THAT MUCH better? that much HEALTHIER?

What about CLEAN-UP? How annoying is it? a quick wipe of the oven cavity after you are done? or a major cleaning out of water and other yucky splatters every time?

My oven plans:
either a dbl wall oven (considering electrolux or the bosch side swing -- probably side swing due to space consideration and my back)

OR
steam oven on top... with single bosch below. is the side swing/drop door as important for back issues when it is the lower oven? what about space? chances are with a drop down, I'd have to stand to the side. (other post noted my space considerations)

Besides additional cost, my other concern about the steam oven was the ability to produce a lot of pizza fast. I don't think the steam oven would be helpful on pizza night. ;-)

Thanks in advance for any input you have.

Featured Answer

schicksal

9 years ago

We have a Miele combi-steam oven above a large 30" convection oven. These days we do nearly everything in the combi-steam one. The smaller size is great (translation: stuff fits and it gets up to temperature quick) and it's worked perfectly with everything I've thrown at it. Cleanup has been simple too.

One thing though, is that after steaming vegetables I'll leave the door open slightly so the residual humidity can dry out. That seems to help.

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Comments (8)

Mistman
9 years ago
O.k. I'll chime in 1st. We have a 36" gas oven, a 30" convection in the wall and a CSO above it. Without question the CSO is the most used oven in the house for a couple reasons. 1st is probably that we use ovens quite a bit and the CSO heats up really fast and re-heats way better than a micro. It's also so versatile we don't really even think about how to use it anymore (been about 18 months). I think rather than all the specialty food it will produce it's just the most convenient appliance in the kitchen. It's our go to rice cooker, veggie steamer and re-heater. It will go to 445 using any of the convection modes (that's max heat). so for pizza and some bread it's not the best. However I do pan pizza in a cast iron pan in it perfectly. I make our lunch bread in it (2 loaves a week) using steam convection but not the specialty breads as I like a higher heat for that. I always make cookies with it (I make a batch of dough and refrigerate it, then make 10-12 an evening), pies, muffins, etc. I like the big gas oven for big cuts of meat/poultry, pizza, some bread and when I need to put a lot of things in an oven. The convection wall is used the least, mostly for proofing, keeping things warm, dehydrating, and baking when it's too big for the CSO but not enough to heat up the gas oven. If you have smaller sheet pans/cookie sheets you can fit up to 3 of them in the CSO but no pizza pan, too big (though we do have small pizza pans that fit). It's a great slow cooker also, I've done pasta but you have to keep an eye on it as it's easy to overdo it in the steam environment. I could easily eliminate the wall oven as between the gas and the CSO we would probably have plenty oven. Micro is basically only used to heat water, soften or melt, re-heat coffee, defrost and make smores :)
mjocean
9 years ago
Hi,
We have Wolf CSO and double convection wall ovens. We use all 3. I will say the CSO is our "go to" oven as there are just 2 of us and it is a perfect size. We entertain a lot hence the 3 ovens. When we were planning our kitchen the CSO was not considered until I visited the Wolf showroom and just had to have it! We don't regret it one bit. I agree with everything that Mistman wrote. Best of luck.
MJ
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Agreed with Barry. Given that you'll have a conventional oven as well, it shouldn't be an issue unless you want to produce ten trays of cookies or hors d'oeuvre at one exact moment. Though for that you really need a commercial convection oven rather than two conventional home ovens. :) Even the ones with broilers don't have the kind that you get in a really good conventional often, but it's supposed to be good enough if that's all you've got. What I end up doing for feasts is planning which item needs to go in which oven, and it might be a combination (I have Gaggenau combi-steam and conventional, plus Advantium, which is also a full on convection oven). Like a whole brisket on the first day of cooking goes in a medium-large roaster in the big oven. After cooling overnight, skimming and slicing, I have transferred it to a smaller pan to finish on the second cook in the combi-steam on zero steam. Or when I wanted the big oven for something else, instead of roasting a turkey, I put parts of one and a half in the combi-steam. I like the Advantium on convection for reheating casseroles. There's sometimes a little hopscotching, but everything gets made. For most purposes, a full sized conventional oven and a combi-steam should be enough cooking capacity for a family. Add microwave or not as you like. Sorry. I think this might be incoherent. If so, I'll try again when I'm more awake.
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M, It is two separate statements. My first statement is taken out of context and is a comment on this. It is talking just about transfer of flavor. "You can cook the fish vegetables and a starch, like couscous or bulgur, all at the same time in the CSO without any flavor transfers, This is because of convection and the catalyzer rather than the steam. ____________ The second statement is this. For someone making this decision, they need to isolate what the steam capability truly adds to the combi oven and how they might use it. I agree that using steam has certain unique capabilities and that is my point. Because a CSO can also function as a regular or convection oven many people attribute things that are functions of standard or conv ovens as benefits of the CSO. I'm saying isolate the benefits of steam to see if a CSO is a worthwhile investment for that person. Someone might say I can bake great cookies in a CSO. You can but there is not an exclusive benefit or use of the steam capabilities for that. "In this particular example, dry air actually has really poor heat conductivity and really poor heat capacity. If it wasn't for natural or forced convection, it would in fact be a really good insulator." Heat transfer is a pretty complex subject. A standard/conv oven has so many variables. A CSO adds steam but might take away something else. Cold air would be an insulator to cold chicken but hot air would still transfer heat. Fan assisted convection is one way to increase the rate of transfer because it moves that slightly cooled hot air away and replaces it with hot air. You also have heat transfer by conduction and radiation. Radiation can be 50% of the heat. How does the radiant heat vary in an oven with stainless walls vs enameled steel? With a hidden bake element? What is the bulk of a CSO vs regular ovens and how much heat does it hold. How does a Pyrex dish increase the rate of heat transfer in the different types of ovens vs aluminum or stainless steel pans? If you think about what happens in cooking, it raises a lot of questions. I have actually read that steam can be cooling. It slows the setting and browning of a crust on a loaf of bread. How can that be if it increases the rate of heat transfer? I guess the question would be if water vapor is condensing on the surface of meat, releasing heat and then evaporating taking away heat, what is the net loss or gain of heat? How does conductive and radiant heat figure in? How does the presence of water figure in besides increasing the rate of heat transfer? What is the level of humidity in a regular oven in different situations? How does it compare to a CSO? The Gaggenau use and care manual gives some insight into this. See the chart above. https://media3.gaggenau.com/Documents/9000880517_J.pdf Unless you have some way to measure humidity in the oven and adjust the amount of steam injected, the percentages are just names of settings for how much steam is released. I think it is more of a convenience than control. Control is some more and a lot. I don't believe there is any feedback mechanism to add control like you have for temperature. 80% setting may really be close to 100% of saturation, so is there a real functional difference between 80 and 100? They say that the 30% setting is the amount of humidity a cake releases while baking with the vent closed, no additional steam is released by the oven. How much more vapor is released while cooking something like a chicken, especially if it has drippings underneath evaporating? O% setting is whatever intrinsic humidity is provided by the food cooking minus what is vented out with the vent open. I don't know if it is actively ventilated. I'm sure these actual percentages vary pretty significantly. How would humidity vary in an electric oven (very small vent) vs a gas oven (big vent)? "With conventional oven, you can't start heating the surface until it has started drying out. That probably explains why everybody raves about juicy crispy roast chicken from a CSO" Juiciness of the chicken is determined by the end temperature of the meat rather than a little superficial dryness. The temperature probe is what is responsible for that. You can submerge a chicken in a pot of water and boil it dry. This is a pretty good article that talks about this. "The higher the internal temp the meat achieves, the more water it squeezes out and the drier it gets. In general, most meats are juiciest and most tender when cooked to medium rare, 130 to 135°F internal temperature." https://amazingribs.com/more-technique-and-science/more-cooking-science/basic-meat-science-cooks Whatever drying you have initially is very superficial and you will need to have it in cooking a chicken one way or another to get crispiness and browning. There are techniques to blow fans on chickens to dry the skin out before cooking so it will be crispy. Check out this technique using a hair dryer. http://mytartare.com/tip-blow-dry-chicken/ When a chicken cooks, the steam or hot air only affects the outside as far as drying. The inside of the chicken is cooked by heat transfer from the outer layer of chicken next to it. Almost every convection oven advertises juicy chicken with a crispy skin as a selling point. Cooking chicken is a balance in heat transfer and drying to get the perfect 165F end temp internally along with browning and crispiness no matter how heat is applied. Sous vide brings the meat up to the perfect temperature by cooking with a very low gradient of heat, and then super intense heat to brown. With a combi oven, the chicken is cooked by steaming but to get browning, you have to get drying. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f3qQh3DHDGA Baked goods are different from meat as far as the way they react to heat and steam. Sort of a side issue I noticed is that foods that have more fat seem to brown even in the presence of steam. Plllog here has talked about how chicken browns, being steamed at the end of roasting. Pie crust creates steam and it browns while baking. I think with the chicken, you have a layer of fat on the outside of the chicken skin from basting or fat being released during cooking. As the skin heats, moisture reaches the boiling point and turns into steam. As it rapidly expands, it goes through the fat but the fat acts as a barrier to it coming back onto the skin. You have drying that way. There the are probably a hundred more effects that are not being considered. Another interesting comparison is a steam assist like Thermador/KA vs moisture assist like Capital vs the CSO.
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ChristyMcK
9 years ago
We've had our Gagg combi steam oven for about 6 months now. We got it at a discount. I feel like I am still learning how to use it. I've downloaded all the manufacturer cookbooks I could find (Miele, Gagg, Wolf, some European one). I find these are guidelines only and not really great on target directions.

For example, We've roasted 4 chickens and finally on the 4th try I've come up with a steam:roast ratio that makes a great roast chicken IMHO (20 min 100% steam @ 390F then 20 min 420F 0% steam, 3.5lb bird, presalted for 36-48 hrs). So I guess I'm still on the learning curve. For this reason, its not our go to oven. Its really serving as our second oven. And I'm happy with that. I do like its precision and the different functions (slow defrost, regenerate/reheat) which complement our range. Our range oven is small (its a Lacanche which have smaller ovens) so the time difference to preheat is not that big so maybe that plays a part in it not being our go to oven.

I'm glad we have the combi steam oven and its been great, but I have yet to feel that it is an essential. Of course I feel like I'm still just getting started with it so I may change my mind. And I'm an experimenter so I just couldn't pass it up.
plllog
9 years ago
I LOVE my Gaggenau fully plumbed combi-steam oven. My biggest use for it is steaming, or steam blanching, multiple trays full of vegetables. I also use it a lot for cooking chicken. No worries about boneless skinless drying out. It's great for roasting whole chickens too. No need for pots of beer or wine underneath. :)

I've used it for a lot of trickier things as well. I have yet to find one single thing that one can do in the steam oven that cannot be achieved in a regular oven with some technique and attention. You can put a ramekin of water (or beer) in a regular oven and make it all kinds of steamy. One expert baker recommends putting ice in the ramekin instead. :)

Assuming you can cook, you do NOT need a steam oven. It is an expensive toy.

It's worth every penny to me. I have multiple pierced pans, and can be loading some up while others are steaming. Perfect for processing green beans and asparagus, and and and all at once. Or for steaming tamales. SO easy. And nothing that couldn't be done in a regular oven if you're willing to handle the water, or on the stove top, ditto. Much much love. Not worth it if it's not at the top of your wish list.

Oh, yeah. The one unique thing it does--I don't know if the other brands have this setting--is "regenerate". You can put a dished up plate of cold food in, that's meat, starch and veg in the classic way, and it comes out with everything warmed through but not overcooked or gone weird. It's an excellent trick. Not one I do very often because I don't generally have stragglers. Superb when I do.
philwojo99
9 years ago
I have the Wolf CSO and agree with what has already been said. The Wolf has a "Reheat" mode and I use that all the time in place of a microwave. We have a Wolf L-Series wall oven as well as a microwave and by far the CSO gets the most use. It is very versatile and great to use.

A couple of things, I wouldn't mount it up to high if the door swings down, I am not familiar with the model you are talking about so I am not sure how that one opens.

As for cleanup it is easy on the Wolf. There can be some water on the walls or bottom, but I only wipe up big puddles, if they are there, on the bottom and on the door when I have that open (more condensation on the door). Other than that just leave the door ajar while it is cooling off, 10-15 minutes tops, and no problems with the water.

Do things splatter in this CSO, yes, there is still cooking going on and not all modes use steam. So you will have to cleanup the inside once in a while, but using a magic eraser sponge (Wolf recommended in user manual) it is super easy to clean up.

Now is it healthier or better to use than a regular oven. I think others have touched on this, I would say no to that, you can do everything this oven does in another way in a standard oven. Is it as easy to do in a standard oven, nope, but it can still be done.

My wife and I don't eat fish and don't steam veggies, so we have only used it that way a few times at most, so I can't comment on that. But it does amazing with chicken as others have stated on here, and I use the temp probe with it all the time, things just come out amazing. My boneless skinless chicken breast come out some moist and tender, after resting them and cutting in to them the juices almost flow out for us, best chicken we have ever cooked at home comes out of our CSO.

Phil
LARemodel
9 years ago
I love my steam oven and use it more often than my conventional wall oven. I purchased my appliances two years ago during a kitchen remodel. I have a 30" Wolf wall oven with a 24" Wolf steam oven (with trim kit to extend to 30" wide) above it.

I have made apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, and brioche in the steam oven. It's great for reheating pizza, heating frozen egg rolls, and steaming fresh fish and veggies. I cooked a chicken once - it came out great but made quite a mess. Otherwise, have had no messes.

I will make a comment about placement as I am getting ready to tweak the remodel and may be moving appliances around.

IMO, ideal height for steam oven would be at counter height. I am 5'1" and my steam oven is at 46" elevation (that is, the bottom of the steam oven is at 46" and the top is at 63.5"). I have to stand on tippee-toe when I remove items from the steam oven; otherwise, my elbows are touching the hot oven door. If below counter height, I would be at risk of having steam in my face when I open the oven.

The wall oven is below the steam oven at 17" elevation (bottom of oven at 17" with a drawer below it); which actually feels a bit low - since the whole point of having a wall oven is to not need to bend down.

I am thinking about re-configuring my ovens such that the wall oven is on a wall by itself, with two drawers below it. I'm thinking about having the steam oven share a wall with a microwave (with pullout door) below it. Steam oven at counter height and microwave at below counter height.

If I had a bigger kitchen, I would separate all the wall ovens and place them in parallel.
a2gemini
9 years ago
I don't have a steam oven but am a PT.
I gleaned the comment about occasional bad back and your pizza dilemma.

I have a wall oven and a speed oven above it.
The oven stack has a 15 inch drawer at the bottom which so I don't have to crawl on the ground to get things out of the oven.

My speed oven is above the convection oven and has a drop down door. I have it at maximum height for me but if I ever sell the house, the new owner needs to be tall.

I think your back will be happiest with the double ovens so you can pick the best oven for your back. My bottom oven is great for my back as 95% of the time, I don't have to bend over to reach the food. The speed oven works for my needs as our family is just the 2 of us but we do entertain. If I had a larger family, I would have gone with 2 ovens.

Steam Oven Query - Love/Hate... why?

schicksal

Comments (8)

Mistman

mjocean

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ChristyMcK

plllog

philwojo99

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a2gemini

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