Which combi-steam oven is easiest to clean? Wolf or Miele?
Kreative Touch
8 years ago
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Combi steam ovens - Miele vs Wolf
Comments (5)Thank you ALL for your input. I met the installer yesterday, and it seems that I'll need to do that oversized stainless drawer front on the drawer beneath the ovens in order to make the combi over conventional set-up work. The drawer front will need to be about 13" high, but I think it will look good... like a warming drawer or microwave drawer... especially as I can order the matching Miele or Wolf handle for it. Do you think that sounds like a decent aesthetic solution? If I go with the combi/oven as opposed to double ovens, the installer mentioned one more thing. Wolf does have the name recognition over Miele, and I will likely be selling my home in 3 - 4 years... so resale is a consideration. What do you think on that? Frankly, I think I prefer the Miele at this point (especially after your comments). However, the preference isn't strong. Also, plumbed vs not.... I really don't like the idea of a water line behind the oven that can get gunked up and is essentially just one more thing to go wrong. I don't see a disadvantage to unplumbed other than having to fill the reservoir, which is no big deal at all to me. Am I missing something? Here is a pic of my current ovens and the drawer beneath so you can get a feel for my issue. As I said, that cutout is too large, so I'll need to put a small piece of trim beneath the new convection oven and make that bottom drawer front 30" wide and about 13" tall....See MoreMiele Combi Steam vs. Wolf Steam
Comments (9)I have a Wolf CSO and, if I had to do it over again, I would give Miele a much closer look than I did the first time around. According to the Yale appliance blog, Miele makes 97% of their parts in-house, and it's the least-serviced brand they have. The Wolf CSO, on the other hand, is a re-branded V-Zug (a European brand) oven. If you're thinking of getting the Wolf in the "Professional" trim (as shown in your mockup), be aware that the hinges are not strong enough to support the weight of the bar on the door. Wolf advises that, after use, you leave the door partially open in the "at rest" position to let the oven cool down. If you try this, the door will fall completely open with a fair amount of force. The problem, according to a Wolf repairman, is that the bar adds too much weight to the door. Wolf doesn't consider this to be a defect though, as you can fiddle with the door and find a spot where it will stay partially open. The Miele unit is plumbed, while Wolf has a removable water container. It isn't hard to refill the Wolf container, but my oven often says it needs to be refilled once it gets down below about 1/2 full. The oven won't give you this error message though, unless the oven is running in steam mode. When this happens on my oven, it won't even recognize that I've refilled the water, and I have to shut the oven off completely (once I even had to flip the breaker) to get the oven to recognize that it has water. It's annoying at best, and can create problems if you need to get steam into the oven early in the cooking process (like when you're baking a loaf of bread). Of course I can't replicate this problem in front of a repairperson, so the problem hasn't been fixed. It's interesting that a rep at the local Wolf design center told me that Wolf had studied the CSO market extensively and decided not to make a plumbed model, because 90% of the problems encountered are with the plumbing. Aside from that statement being complete BS, 90% of the problems I have with my Wolf are with the water tray. Wolf tells you to start cooking all of your dishes in a cold oven, as it heats up quickly. I think the real reason they tell you this, is because the oven won't produce steam once the temperature gets over 212 degrees. So if you're an experienced bread baker and want to bake bread in a preheated oven while injecting steam, be aware that you can't do this on a Wolf. I started another post on this subject in the Appliance Forum, and my understanding is that the Miele CSO will inject steam into a preheated oven. This isn't to say that you can't make a decent loaf of bread in the Wolf, but it won't give you the amount of control that an experienced baker typically wants. Another issue is that, if you are cooking something with steam at a temperature over 212 and open the door to check on your dish (like when you're reheating something), most of the steam will come out and the oven won't put new steam in. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as my experience is that too much steam can make a dish too soggy. Always be careful to protect your hands when opening an oven with steam, as you can get burned very easily. Aside from the steam, a big advantage to having a CSO is that it heats up very quickly and is much more convenient than a full-size oven when making a quick meal. In this respect, the lack of a broiler on the Wolf is a definite disadvantage. Wolf has a "Convection Humid" mode for their oven, which I find is nice for cooking dishes like lasagna and macaroni & cheese. Many newer traditional ovens now vent any steam because of their sensitive electronics, so I find it convenient to have this cooking mode available. I don't know whether Miele has this cooking mode as well, but I assume they do. When used as a traditional oven, the Wolf CSO heats up air and blows it into the oven cavity, unlike a traditional convection oven which heats up the oven cavity and then redistributes the air. This seemed a bit weird to me at first, as the oven cavity is completely cool almost immediately after cooking, even though the heating element (wherever it is) is hot and needs time to cool off. When cooking something that sticks up in front of the convection fan (like a roast or a loaf of bread), I generally turn it around half way through, to avoid overcooking one side. Aside from this, the Wolf seems to take a bit longer to cook most dishes than a traditional oven (though this is more than offset by the quicker time to heat up). Wolf has a number of pre-programmed cooking modes under their "Gourmet" and "Recipe" menus. They'll send you a book with recipes for one or two of these menus, but other than that, you're on your own in terms of figuring out what they do and how to use them. For example, there's a pre-programmed Slow Roast mode, which does a very nice job of roasting a beef tenderloin and having it ready to eat (including resting time) exactly when you want it. There are several other types of meat that can be cooked in this way, but what if I want to make a Strip Roast (which isn't one of the choices)? Do I just program it for Top Round and hope it comes out the same? There's all kinds of pre-programmed modes (e.g. soufflés or beef stroganoff), but absolutely no information on what the oven does in these modes. Maybe it's me, but I want to know what the oven is going to do before I just let its computer take over. In many cases, there's a small pool of water in the bottom of the Wolf after using one of the steam modes. Wiping this up with a paper towel is generally enough to keep the bottom clean. The sides and back are a lot more difficult to clean though. Wolf says to run the oven with steam at a certain temperature for a certain length of time, and then everything should wipe off. This hasn't been the case with my oven, which has lots of little brown spots on the back and sides, that I can't seem to get off. The Wolf CSO comes with one solid and one perforated pan that fit into the slots on the side of the oven. A rep at my local design center told me to be sure to buy some "half size" pans as well, so I could steam 2 different dishes at once. The clear impression was that these "half-size" pans take up the whole width of the oven and fit into the racks as well. After spending $250 to buy 2 of the "half-size" perforated pans, I discovered that they're nothing more than small perforated pans that you could buy in any restaurant supply store for $10 or $15 apiece. They aren't the full width of the oven, and certainly don't fit into the side slots. Of course, they won't take the pans back, because I had already opened them at this point. I get the feeling that Wolf spends more money on promoting their brand, while Miele spends more on engineering. Wolf has a number of design centers around the country where smartly dressed people will wax enthusiastic about their products. They also hold cooking demonstrations where chefs will show you how to prepare dishes to impress your guests. Overall, my impression is that Miele gives you a lot more control over the cooking process than Wolf. That's not to say that the Wolf doesn't do its job well, but it often doesn't tell you what it's doing, and you have to come up with own methods if you want to tweak the process. It reminds me a bit of a story I read once about the difference between Boeing and Airbus. Both planes have lots of computerized controls, that do most of the work of flying. The difference is that Boeing always gives ultimate control to the pilot, while Airbus leaves that control with the computer. So in certain situations Airbus pilots need to learn how to trick the computer into doing what they want the plane to do. From what I've seen and read, Wolf is more of an Airbus, and Miele is more of a Boeing....See MoreMiele Combi-Steam oven, Coffee system, Speed Oven installed vertically
Comments (8)First of, congratulations on your good deals for these three units. They will serve you well. For ventilation and wiring purpose, you will need a gap at the back of the shelf behind unit. For combi steam oven, this is where the oven sucks in the air in. It will vent warm air to the front underneath fascia. So following diagram #1 looks fine. For the sentence "The cabinet housing must not have a back panel fitted behind the installation niche", this must be from a newer manual of the combi steam oven. For example, see newer 6805 manual vs older 6805 manual. In a version that I have it uses "Make sure there is no back wall behind the building-in recess" which means that there should not be a cabinet back wall right at the cut out area. See picture for air intake in combi steam manual in installation section. In terms of installation each is 18" tall, just need to be arranged such that coffee machine is not too tall, and speed oven not too low. Perhaps somewhere where the bottom of the combi steam oven is a little bit below bench top level. A combi venting warm air at the front is not an issue for comfort. I have only combi steam oven in my kitchen and its bottom is at the bench top level which is very convenience, but that would put coffee machine a little too high up, if it is going to be on top. Here is an image from mile-vs-wolf-steam-oven thread. Found a funny image on the web of Miele ovens, noted the coffee machine location....See MoreMiele Combi Steam Oven, Convection Oven and Hard Water
Comments (7)The way I understand things, hard water is bad, because it leaves deposits. Contaminated water is bad, because the contaminants can clog things. Demineralized water (distilled or reverse-osmosis) is bad, because complete lack of minerals makes water more prone to corroding metals. And acidic or alkaline water is similarly bad. So, ideally, you supply soft clean tap water. Where that isn't available, an ion-exchange water softener can remove hardness without removing total amount of minerals. And a carbon or particle filter can remove contaminants, if applicable. These restrictions are true for all kitchen appliances regardless of brand. So, switching from Miele to Wolf just because the wording in their manual is different doesn't actually buy you more reliability. Switching from plumbed to supplying suitable (!) bottled water would help though. And you can do that with either brand. And installing appropriate point-of-use water treatment would work just as well....See MoreChanop
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