Miele combi steam reheating times vs Gaggenau?

7 years ago

I've been torturing myself trying to decide between the Miele Combi Steam and the Gaggenau Combi Steam, and finally decided to put a deposit on the plumbed Miele. My biggest concern is that I have repeatedly been told that it takes mere minutes to reheat food. Something (like a bowl of oatmeal) that would take 2 minutes in the microwave would take 4-6 in the combi steam. I've been told the same thing by sales people and multiple staff at Miele. I went to a steam oven demonstration at Miele yesterday and brought along a small dish of pasta for them to reheat. I showed up a half hour early and they refused to reheat it but kept telling me it would take mere minutes. They poached eggs in the regular steam oven and said it only takes a minute. After a 5 minute preheat, the eggs were done in a total of 6 minutes, and I started getting excited. Then they put a tray of salmon in the Combi steam and said it would be done in 20 minutes.....we watched the clock and it took the oven 25 minutes to get up to temp before it started the countdown on the salmon. My contractor has a Miele Combi steam and is begging me to include a microwave in our kitchen design because he says it takes 20 minutes to reheat anything from the fridge. Has everyone found this to be the case? How about the Gaggenau combi steam users? How fast does the "regenerate" cycle heat your food? Any advice at all would be appreciated! Also, have the Gaggenau owners found it frustrating to pull out pans loaded with condensation just to have the condensation drip on the floor because of the side-opening door?

Featured Answer

plllog

7 years ago

These are ovens not sci-fi marvels. If you have a cold house and a cold kitchen and a cold oven, it can take a lot time to heat up. Because it's cold. And the oven is only heated when the oven itself is hot, not just the air in the cavity. That's why so many older recipes say to start at 425° F for the first fifteen minutes. They don't really mean it. They mean if you set it to 425° when the preheat light goes off, it's really at 375°, and after fifteen minutes of trying to get back to 425° after you open the door, you're really back at the 375° that you wanted to be cooking at in the first place.

I find that Gaggenau is better about that, though I will still start the oven early to get it good and hot and even. I can't remember if the combi- set up has an option to have fast preheat or not. I don't like it because I do cold start baking. My six year old combi- takes about 15 minutes to get fully to heat for regenerate if it's starting from dead cold. That's in a mild climate and warm, by most people's standards, kitchen. If it's been used within the previous 24 hours, it's more like 10. If there's a fast preheat option, and you have it enabled, it could be five, for all I know, but I doubt it could be less than that just on a logical basis. Once the oven is hot, regenerate takes about 10 minutes for a full plate of food.

So, here's the thing--I would never use it to reheat a bowl of oatmeal or a small dish of pasta. Those are things that do really well in the microwave, and only take two minutes.

What microwaves do best (I'm assuming a really good microwave here--some cheapies can't really do any of this well) is heat a single, compact item. That is, warm a sandwich, melt cheese or butter, warm up a single piece of meat, a potato, a dish of cereal or pasta or soup or stew. What a microwave can't do is heat up a composed plate evenly or well--or even one of those frozen dinners that are supposed to be microwavable. What it doesn't do well is heat up a casserole dish of whatever, or several portions of food, or several different foods at once.

What the regenerate cycle on the combi-steam (or approximations thereof) does best is warm up a plate or two of food, like the supper that went cold because an important call came in just as you were starting to eat. Or leftovers. Meat, starch, vegetables, all on one plate, all being warmed through gently without any drying, petrification, overcooking, or any of the other issues that come with it. Better than if it were kept in a warming drawer--the food tastes fresher.

What the combi-steam also does well is heat up multiple sandwiches, or pieces of meat, or whatever. Things the microwave might do well on one of but can't possibly hope to do four of evenly and well.

When you look at it that way, heat up times really don't matter.

If the only difference to you between the two makers is this factor, I'd start by seeing what the companies say about heating times. Do they have accelerated oven heating? Also take your best kitchen thermometers to showrooms where they have them working, and test the before temperatures of the oven walls and air, time the heating, and check the after temperatures. I would guess that they're probably about the same, unless one has accelerated preheating and the other doesn't.

Comments (9)

Chanop
7 years ago
25 minutes coming up to temp sounds really weird, even for a normal steam oven. Miele steam oven cavity is a fair bit smaller than their XL combi. I do recall from demo that it heats up faster than a combi for quite a fair ba For steaming in 6805/6800, it usually takes within 7 minutes to reach 100˚C from room temp oven. For Fan Plus/Convection mode, it should take less than 7 minutes to reach 160˚C-180˚C and about 10 minutes to reach 225˚C, its maximum temperature.

Reheating food from the fridge should take 10-15 minutes depending on your preference when using Reheat program which counts the time as soon as the program start so it should be about 5 - 6 minutes to reach 120˚C-140˚C and keep the temperature till time is up.
lonepalm77 thanked Chanop
lonepalm77
Original Author
7 years ago
Thank you! Do you have a Miele combi steam?
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dbabrams
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
I have a Miele combi, I usually set it for 20 minutes at 170F/70% humidity, I like my food hot. It takes longer than a microwave, but things don't get over cooked and dry.
lonepalm77 thanked dbabrams
ILoveRed
7 years ago
I've had the Gagg for 11 yrs. Plumbed with drain.

ive never timed the pre-heat. But it's lightening fast. Mere minutes.

A plate or two of food or a plate of pizza takes about 10 minutes. If I'm reheating a plate of food with a big portion of meat, I usually cut the meat into smaller pieces...still about 10 minutes.

I always use the condense feature before I open the door, so that the steam is abated. The oven is flooded with water and little steam escapes. I rarely wipe drips off the floor.

my oven is on the fritz for the first time ever and I will need a service call. Service is 100 miles away. Building again and will do another combi. Wolf is easy to service here. Definitely no Miele service or even close. So Miele is ruled out. So, I'm watching these threads closely to decide which brand of combi to put in the new house. Love the Gagg but looking at Wolf because of close service and half the $$$.
lonepalm77 thanked ILoveRed
Chanop
7 years ago
Yes lonepalm77, I have 6805 and usually reheat more than one plate/dish in one go for a meal. Usually I use 15 minutes for 130˚C 60% humidity for the whole meal reheat of mixed vegetable, rice, grain, pasta, meat etc, and that's plenty hot. For a combi, if you use the right type of dish/plate, a lot of food can be packed on to racks to be reheated at the same time.

For some dishes I might reheat separately, e.g. a steak is best reheated using around 50-60˚C setting for a longer time to keep internal from being cooked again. Some fish and seafood dish may be best reheated using steam set at 80˚C. However, these will be up to user's preference, not a rule.
lonepalm77 thanked Chanop
plllog
7 years ago
I should clarify, that when I said one or two plates of food reheating in the combi-steam, above, I meant per rack. If the food isn't tall, you can probably fit half a dozen dinner plates in the Gaggenau, and maybe even two more.
lonepalm77 thanked plllog
lonepalm77
Original Author
7 years ago
Thank you to everyone for contributing great information and advice! It has all been really helpful. I was really hoping to ditch the MW, but I can see where we might run into some hiccups if we do. Even tonight when I made dinner for a group, I forgot to reheat the rice pilaf and set it on the table.....so I popped it in MW for a few minutes and brought it to the table when I realized my mistake. If we didn't have a MW in the new kitchen, we wouldn't have been able to do that! Not that it would have been a tragedy without it, but I'm sure I'll run into many little things! I need to revisit the Gagg oven and see it in action.
JJ Mekai
2 years ago
ILoveRed, which oven(s) did you end up getting for your new build? Are you happy with your choice?

Miele combi steam reheating times vs Gaggenau?

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Chanop

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Miele combi steam reheating times vs Gaggenau?

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Chanop

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Chanop

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