I have the Wolf Pro M DO with the red knobs. In my dreams I would love the steam convection oven, but I did not want to push my DH that far. I love the oven so far, I just made pork chops tonight. Seared on the range top and baked in the oven. they were perfect. Good luck with your choice.

Thanks Kalapointer. What were your husband's objections to the steam oven? How do you think the steam oven would look stacked over the M Series (with red knobs)?

Push, Grunt, Shove~~~~etc, OK got it, Here Tiz

Gary

Ah, Gary! How nice to have a man do the heavy lifting!

I think they did a great job of making the stack look good, especially the steam and M. The only issue I'd have with the red knobs is it looks a little like a storybook picture of a chubby burgher with suspender buttons and a big belt buckle. If you don't see that, or any similar picture, go for it! Otherwise, get the steel. Don't miss out on a steam oven if your only issue is looks.

Re the steam oven, you have it down exactly. You can do everything you can do in a steam oven using conventional equipment, but the steam oven makes things easier. There is a little learning with the steam oven. Make sure your wife has a reference chart or book for temperatures and settings. It's not hard to generalize to everything else. I think it was 2-3 months of not cooking all the time for me to become comfortable with my Gaggenau.

Here's one with the Red Knobs.

Click this link so see the web-site where I got the picture.

http://lisamendedesign.blogspot.com/2014/01/whats-new-at-subzero-wolf.html

Gary

Thanks Gary & Pillog. To my eye, it does look a bit clunky with the red knobs down below. Stainless fades in better, but my wife doesn't like them. Maybe black would look okay. Overall, I think the Transitional series would have a more seamless look, but my wife wants the knobs (she wants the menus to be as simple as possible). Function trumps form though, so I think we'll go for it.

One other question: if you're cooking something with steam and want to check on it, do you just open the door and let all of the steam come out?

I really like the stainless knobs....which surprises me, because I thought I'd prefer both the red and black. Does anyone have a pic of the M series with black knobs? Also, does anyone know if you can still customize the bezel with the new series? I'd considered the gold bezel with the black knob. Still love the red, but I don't think it would fit as well in my kitchen plan.

I should add that before going to the demo, my wife thought that a steam oven would be a waste of money. Now she's indifferent between the two options. My sense is that once she starts cooking with it, she'll find it indispensable. In any event, I highly recommend a trip to the Wolf showroom for anyone contemplating a purchase. The salesman at our appliance store was good, but he didn't have anywhere near the depth of knowledge of the Wolf people.

One other tidbit of information: I asked if Wolf planned to come out with a plumbed-in version in the future, and the rep said no. He said that Wolf had studied steam ovens extensively before creating this one, and that 90% of all problems people had were with the plumbing (lines gunking up, connections leaking, etc.). I'm not sure if this is true or just a subtle way to declare that their brand is superior to the competition, but I thought it kind of made sense.

OOH I like the black knobs in that kitchen.
Greasetrap - I replaced my E series DO due to chipping enamel, so I had to pay extra for upgrading to the M double oven. If I went with a stack with the convection steam oven it would have been even more $$ for the upgrade and I didn't want to pay that. Also my cabinets would need more modifications made to them to fit a stack.

Thanks Gary. I actually like the look with black.

My Pleasure

Gary

Agreed on the black. It looks punchy without the silly associations.

Greasetrap, yes, I think your wife will like the steam once she learns to use it. Having to deal with the tank does make it less convenient, so part of it depends on how she feels about carrying water (esp. if you're not around to help), attending to appliances, etc.

Re tending things in the steam oven, the biggest thing is that you learn not to. If you do need to, you take out the pan, and close the oven. Yes, you let out the steam, but it rebuilds pretty quickly, at least in my Gaggenau. There may be other differences in using the Wolf, as well, but generally things don't need to be stirred, rotated and turned over nearly as much with just convection heat and steam. And one lets the steam do the basting. Results are best in the sheet pans that the oven comes with (and similar). Blanching green beans is dead easy, but I do take the time to lay them out neatly. One or two more that don't fit are okay half on top of others, but basically, I keep them in one flat layer.

Same thing with a chicken. If I want to do a whole roast, I remove the spine and flatten it. That way only the inside and backs of legs face down. I also like to elevated it on a bed of root vegetables so it's above the sides of the pan. If I didn't want the veg, I'd use a rolled edge sheet pan instead of a sided one. Being above the pan helps the skin be nice and crispy and the hot air gets to the bottom more easily.

Thanks for posting the black knobs, Gary!

The water receptacle on the Wolf Steam oven is a piece of cake to refill.

The red knobs don't look as good as the stainless or black ones. The black knobs look great! Thanks for posting the photo of the stack up as it is exactly what I plan on doing in my kitchen.

I installed an E-Series Wolf Combi oven over a GE electric wall oven when I did my remodel (pics/reveal coming soon I hope). The Combi oven was a no-brainer for my husband and me (more on that below), but I wanted to add that I debated the Wolf electric wall oven. I ended up going with a GE because the Wolfs (Wolves?) have such a terrible reputation with the blue porcelain flaking off at high temperatures, and Wolf hasn't been able to address the problem effectively.

But to answer your is-it-worth-it question, the Combi oven is WONDERFUL. When I want to cook something, I pull out their handy quick-reference card and see what they suggest for whatever it is I'm cooking. We use the steam setting to "hardboil" or "softboil" eggs (or simply steam a cracked egg on a tray, sunny side up), or steam sweet potatoes. It makes wonderful bread on the Auto Steam Bake setting. I use it for plain convection more than I use my big oven because it heats up so quickly. It's amazing, and I can't recommend it enough. You don't need to change your whole way of cooking because you'll also have your regular oven, but I think you'll find you use the Combi more and more.

Anyway, here's how they look in case you're curious (excuse the open drawers/doors):

P.S. Filling the water reservoir is easy peasy --- it's a small container, so not hard to carry, and it has a lid of sorts, so there's no splashing. I don't feel like I have to do it that often, and I use steam a lot!