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ilaine_gw

Convection if you never bake?

ilaine
8 years ago

We never, never bake. Celiac, diabetes, nothing we can eat or want to eat. So the wonders of baking cookies with convection means nothing to me.

Mostly we use the oven for braising in a dutch oven, or roasting vegetables. Once in a while, we might roast a beef, and, once a year, a turkey. We do braise a lot in the cooler months.

So, given our oven use, is there any good reason to plunk down the extra bucks for convection?

Comments (28)

  • dbabrams
    8 years ago

    It's not just for baking. If you were heating up two sheet pans of appetizers for example, convection would help make them all come out similarly without having to rotate the baking sheets.

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  • xedos
    8 years ago

    In your situation , prob. not. The only reason would be if you were looking for a very sleek modern design which would require a European oven and those are hard to come by without convection.

  • wekick
    8 years ago

    I probably would miss it more for roasting than baking

    I would be more inclined to get it if I were buying an electric oven and less inclined to get it if I were getting a gas oven as there is more movement of air through it anyway which is good for roasting

    We have very strict GF family members and people who have to follow very low carb diets but I bake/roast a lot of things because of these diets. If you feel that your cooking patterns are fixed though you might be better off without it I know several proficient cooks who have it and don't use it, mostly because they don't understand it and it does involve a learning curve for the convection part and it you get something more involved for using various cooking modes.





  • plllog
    8 years ago

    If convection is going to cost you "extra bucks" it sounds like the savings would be worth it for you. For most people it isn't. The important thing that convection does more than anything else, however, is even out the temperature in the oven. At the very high end, where the ovens are designed to be very even, convection is a feature for specific kinds of dishes and other things are done without. With more normally priced ovens, however, the convection will do a lot to make it work better. OTOH, Granny never had convection, and had to rearrange stuff in the oven, partly through cooking, to get it to come out evenly. That works too.

    Before you give up on whole classes of good food, please visit the Cooking Forum. There are people there who cook for all kinds of different health issues and they can help you find Celiac and Diabetes friendly recipes.

  • jwvideo
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    I think of braising as roasting in a covered pan using relatively little liquid. For that, convection will mostly be irrelevant unless you get a stove with a wildly uneven oven in which you braise food in very thin pans.

    For that, as plllog says, convection can really help even out the oven heating and, thus, the cooking.

    OTOH, for roasting -- mainly roasting veggies, as you say, --- convection could be a useful convenience. I second what wekicj said. Besides helping even out the oven heat, it also increases the speed of roasting and helps dry out the surfaces of the food. Both those contribute to browning. This will be a bigger deal with the longer roasting times for meat and poultry, but also, depending on the quantities of vegetables being roasted how long you roast them and how deep a browning you want, convection can offer a some convenience making that process a bit faster and a little easier.

    Another convection convenience is that it can speed up oven pre-heating. Maybe takes 15 minutes instead of 20 (don't believe the pre-heat signals, btw, those just for advertising bragging rights and are not accurate.)

    Just out of curiosity, what ranges are you looking at and how much do you figure on saving if you skip convection? I ask because convection options seem to be turning up even in some of the lower-priced range choices these days. A few months ago. I saw a $500 coil-burner Frigidaire range with a convection option on sale at Lowe's.

  • plllog
    8 years ago

    I agree with JW's definition of braising. I do braise a lot, with convection. It isn't necessary at all, but I like what it does. :)

    I don't entirely agree about the roasting. What JW said isn't wrong, but isn't the whole story. You actually get better crisping in a moist environment, but the fan does whisk away excess moisture faster, and browning comes from temperature. You could raise the temperature to increase the browning, instead. I think the evenness that you get from roasting with convection will have a greater effect on your results.

  • ilaine
    Original Author
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    jwvideo, I haven't committed yet, at the moment contemplating two GE single wall ovens under the counter, with a GE 36 inch induction cooktop above. Far from making up my mind, but the difference between the white 30 inch without convection and the white 30 inch with convection is exactly $500. In the context of all the money we will be spending on a complete, almost from scratch remodel, $500 is a drop in the bucket, but $500 is $500. I could get one conventional and one convection and save $1000, but if convection is all that, then why scrimp on $1000? See what I mean?

  • sjhockeyfan325
    8 years ago

    Are you mixing apples and oranges -convection and induction?

  • wekick
    8 years ago

    "Plllog

    I don't entirely agree about the roasting. What JW said isn't wrong, but isn't the whole story. You actually get better crisping"

    This would only apply if you are talking about baking starchy things like bread or potatoes that might benefit from starch gelatinization in crust formation. An initial period of a moist environment will promote that. That is why steam is beneficial for bread baking and why the two step frying recipe is used in making French fries.

    You eventually have to have a dry environment to superficially dehydrate what you are baking. It is the dehydration that makes things crispy. You do not have starch gelatinization with meat or non starchy vegetables so don't need any moisture for those items for crispiness, just the drying for superficial dehydration.

    Browning is the result of the Maillard reaction. This reaction produces water and is inhibited if moisture is present. If you have any moistness at any time in roasting meat, it will inhibit browning and crispness. This would be the case with non starchy vegetables. Dryness and increased temperature will both increase browning.

    Convection does even the heat out in the oven but also the radiant heat from the walls of the oven is just as important. The convection fan in theory becomes more important if you are baking multiple racks because some of the racks are blocked from radiant heat by racks above and below. The third element is meant to boost the heat circulating. This seems to be the tricky part and some ovens using that third element only actually get hot spots where what you are cooking directly faces the air flow with more intense heat and faster air flow.

    One thing some people do not like about convection is that it does take up part of the usable space in the back of the oven. Some companies try to mitigate the perception of this by placing a flat wall in front of the fan hoping you won't notice, so look at the racks both size and placement to see how much usable space you have.


  • ilaine
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    hockeyfan, is there a problem with having a convection oven and an induction cooktop?

  • sjhockeyfan325
    8 years ago

    No problem, it's just that you were talking about the cost being higher for convection, and then all the discussion was about convection, until your last post, which suddently turned to talking about induction (which definitely does cost more than regular electric).

  • cpartist
    8 years ago

    Yes you were asking about convection ovens and then said the difference in cost was between a regular oven and an induction. Was that just a typo? I know I've made typos like that. It all gets confusing after a while.

  • ilaine
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Whoopsie, typo, multi tasking, edited, thanks.

  • plllog
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Wekick,

    A moist environment also serves for crispness on roasts, whether skin on birds or crust on meat. Also good for drying and browning eggplant, tomatoes, etc., which, I guess are fruits, and for making crisp kale, though I haven't done it at a high enough temperature to brown. I've certainly found this to be true on my own cooking, and it's the reasoning people used to put behind buying gas ovens for roasts before the technology changed and switched the relative moisture and dryness of electric vs. gas. I'm sure you're right about the starches/sugars, and that's probably what's happening in the meats, too, but it's the temperature that's the big issue for browning and it happens fine in a moist oven. I just know it works. I agree that there's some dehydration going on with convection, and that it's useful, but it's not the end of the story.

    Thanks for the info about the hot spots created by the third element in some ovens. I didn't know that, and it's an important consideration.

    I think Cpartist and Sjhockeyfan are referring to "the difference between the white 30 inch without induction and the white 30 inch with induction is exactly $500". To me, clearly that's a slip and was meant to refer to ovens and say "convection". Convection ovens, or non-convection ovens, to go under the induction, which was a given. But not nearly so clear if you don't think in pictures. :)

  • lilacinjust
    8 years ago

    I was surprised at how disappointed I was with baking with convection. However, I love it for roasting.

  • hvtech42
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    technology changed and switched the relative moisture and dryness of electric vs. gas

    Huh? Gas ovens have always been a dryer heat than electric because of the higher air exchange.

    I have a steam assist oven and have played around a bit with the fan and moisture settings during roasting. I've found that adding the fan makes a noticeable improvement with crisping/browning, as well as moisture retention. A little bit counter intuitive that convection seems to give a moister roast, since it's a drying heat, but makes sense if you think about it. On the other hand, I've found that adding moisture while roasting doesn't really help with browning, nor does it lead to the meat coming out more moist. I remember when Capital came out with a "Moist Roast" feature in their electric ovens, people here called them out on it and they changed the name to "Moist Assist".

    I also found that adding moisture helped get crisp crusts on bread, which confirms what wekick said about starch gelatinization.

  • wekick
    8 years ago

    Pilllog

    "A moist environment also serves for crispness on roasts, whether skin on birds or crust on meat. Also good for drying and browning eggplant, tomatoes, etc., which, I guess are fruits, and for making crisp kale, though I haven't done it at a high enough temperature to brown. I've certainly found this to be true on my own cooking, and it's the reasoning people used to put behind buying gas ovens for roasts before the technology changed and switched the relative moisture and dryness of electric vs. gas."

    Your observations are right and gas ovens produce these results but not because they are moist. You have two contradictory terms here. Moist cannot beget drying. If that were true we could superficially "dry" by submerging the food in water. There would be no need for deep fat fryers.

    Gas ovens have not really changed in respect to humidity. People used to assume that because combustion of natural gas liberated moisture-->CH4[g] + 2 O2[g] -> CO2[g] + 2 H2O[g] + energy


    that a gas oven cooking chamber was moist heat. You can find this written in many cookbooks. They did not look at the whole picture. Gas ovens require more ventilation so once it heats up and the air starts moving, the products of combustion including water as well as some of the heat are ventilated out.

    "but it's the temperature that's the big issue for browning and it happens fine in a moist oven"

    In the oven,increased temperature will accelerate the Maillard reaction. Here is the interesting thing, though. Moisture keeps the temperature from rising. A moist surface keeps evaporating water, which is cooling and keeps the temp about 212F. Increased humidity in the cooking chamber slows the process of that evaporation. This is further anecdotal evidence for the low humidity in a gas oven.

    I don't have the book so can't quote exactly, but Modernist Cuisine is of the opinion that the drying effect of convection is the most important effect. This would most likely depend on the fan speed.

    I think that people attribute moister meat to meat cooked in gas or convection because they brown faster and are more likely to be perceived as "done" before they are over cooked. The internal moisture is determined by the end temperature. With all of the types of instant read thermometers now, you can be notified when your meat reaches 147F or any temperature you want.

    The website "Amazing Ribs" is a great site for meat science.

    "mimipadv

    I was surprised at how disappointed I was with baking with convection. However, I love it for roasting."

    It does benefit some baking and sometimes I just use it part of the time. It is helpful to me to be able to use the fan at low speed and many ovens do not have this option.




  • cpartist
    8 years ago

    Ok so if the extent of my cooking in the oven is to cook a turkey once a year and maybe a whole chicken 2x, bake oven fried chicken, bake fish, and cook a pot roast in a dutch oven, do I need and/or want convection

    And if my baking consisted of creating a couple of pies, cakes and some cookies, again do I need and/or want convection?

    (Most of my cooking is done on my cooktop, and we'll be finally getting an outdoor grill!)

  • ilaine
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    cpartist, to me, the question becomes, what would convection let me do that I can't do now with a regular oven? Wondering about broiling. We never broil because our broiler is no good, but if we had a better broiler, we would probably broil more. Is convection broiling superior to oven broiling with a good quality oven?

  • wekick
    8 years ago

    The turkey, chicken, oven fried chicken, baked fish would benefit.

    Multiful racks of cookies may benefit. Single or even double not as much.

    Pies need the most heat from the bottom so I don't think you would benefit there. Most recipes for cakes are based on heat from the bottom and the drying of the convection can cause the cake to set too soon.

  • wekick
    8 years ago

    Ilaine,

    if you use convection with broiling, it kind of works against the broiler with the three brands of ovens that I have had. The marketing says that it is supposed to be good for broiling fish but the air movement seems to cook the fish before it browns. Maybe someone else has had a better experience.

  • plllog
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Crispest chicken skin -- vegetables underneath, inc. onions (i.e., wet), steam oven, 60% humidity, 360" convection heat only. Crisp turkey skin -- bottle of wine in the bottom of the high sided roaster pot (overgrown dutch oven), foil tent on top, 325°-350° convection bake or straight bake. Rolled roast, on rack above herbs and wine, firm and crusty outside, tender inside.

    I believe you, Wekick, about the gas oven. My old gas oven was so bad I didn't learn anything general from it. The rest I've picked up from books, and people here and all, and the received wisdom was that old gas ovens were moister and newer ones are dryer then electric. I think that was more about the venting, however, than the combustion. People used to say that it was the combustion, but my bad old oven never seemed to support that, whereas the venting made sense. It's not that I think Modernist don't know their science. I just know what works for me. You might be able to figure out how that applies to what you've said about the whys and wherefores, but for now, I'm going with moist air (but not 100% wet) makes for crisp roasts.

    Ilaine, I have a tiptop of the line oven with a really good broiler, and it's the quality of the broiler that matters most. I do use convection when broiling meat. I'm actually not trying to get my broiled meats crusty. I think crusty/crisp is good for a big roast, but want flat red meat cuts to be caramelized but tender. Those go in bare, on convection broil, and come out perfect. I don't cook fish (allergic) and don't care for broiling poultry. I do use the broiler on things like eggplant, however. There are things I use the broiler without convection for, but I can't think of what just now. If you have a good grill, however, it doesn't make sense to bother too much about the broiler. Getting a top notch broiler is going to be a much bigger jump in price.

    Pies with convection is an oven by oven thing. If you're talking double crust fruit pie, in general, depending on the oven, no convection is a good choice because you want the bottom crust to get cooked--keeping the top from getting over browned while that happens is important, and you wouldn't want to even out the temperature. Just bottom heat. A lot of people also do bottom rack, and start high to get a shock of heat to the bottom while the top is still cold, then turn down the temperature.

    Eggy things don't always like convection either. Like souffle.

  • wekick
    8 years ago

    60% humidity still allows for plenty of evaporation especially if you are using convection and the temperature is 350F. if your oven has the ability to keep the humidity at 60%, it might even be venting excess water out.

    I cook a turkey in a similar way and even with that increased humidity the turkey browns because you have a smaller amount of drying over the longer time the turkey is in the oven. It is about the ability to balance the amount of drying and heat to control the rate of browning. One of the tricks used in Thanksgiving photo layouts is to brown the turkey very quickly without actually cooking the turkey. This leaves the turkey very plump looking but also very brown.

    If you google the Maillard reaction, all the science behind it is laid out especially the relationship with water.

  • sjhockeyfan325
    8 years ago

    Pillog, doesn't using the broiler on convection splatter things around the oven? I've always been afraid to use convection broil for that reason.

  • kalapointer
    8 years ago

    Wekick, I always use convection when I bake my pies. The fat in the crust melts faster and the steam escapes making the crust flakier. The bottom heat is on when using convection so the bottom crust is not soggy. I start with a hot oven and then turn the temperature down half way through. I think the heat is more even by using convection. Just my $0.02

  • wekick
    8 years ago

    Since I switched to a convection oven, my crusts did not get as done and brown using convection bake, so I went back to no convection and they get done. It might depend on the oven, the bakeware or how the elements rotate and what mode you use for baking. Also rack position. I had one recipe I have made for years and the bottom crust did not cook at all.

  • plllog
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Wekick, I believe you. But for an oven, that's moist rather than dry. The crispy doesn't work, at least for me, on dry without the steam source. I get what you're saying about it being dry enough for the Maillard reaction, however. Maybe it requires that it not dry too fast?

    SJHF, I dunno. It probably does. Even without convection, there's going to be spatter if the meat is moist and has any fat. It doesn't bother me. I wipe out the oven with a little soapy water, and when it looks (or smells, but this oven doesn't smell) dirty, I run the self clean. Lasagna spatters too. I don't keep kosher, so I don't worry about what's behind the fan wall. So long as it doesn't fling lamb chop sweat on my cake, I don't care. I have too much that's too important to worry about.

    Does it make a disgusting mess? No. Rotisserie makes a disgusting mess. I have newer, better ways to accomplish the same thing, and just getting the contraption in and out just isn't worth it for most things. That's one of the things convection does for you. All around heat. OTOH, even the old, bad bad gas oven cooked a great beer can chicken.

    Kalapointer and Wekick, I think it's the individual ovens, for sure. I've met ovens that just wouldn't make pie. And other ovens with no outstanding features that made great pie. And each oven makes pie so differently. It always amazes me that cake is supposedly so delicate, but it works just about any old way, and pie is so persnickety.

    Iliane, you have to learn to use your new ovens, anyway. Just by them being new, and not exactly the same as your old one, there's a learning curve. If the $500-1000 are more meaningful to you elsewhere, you'll be fine without convection in one or more ovens. It goes back to what I said before--you may have to learn the quirks of your ovens and attend to what's inside more, but I've baked in a covered pot on gas ring. Any oven is a luxury in comparison.