Pro\‘s and Con\‘s of convection ranges

[wonky]

I am just starting to plan my kitchen remodel, and will be purchasing a new stainless steel range and frig. I have never had a convection oven, and really know nothing about them. I have been researching ranges, and reading alot of reviews.

I would appreciate any input, pro or con about this type of baking. I am paying special attention to the reviews that mention either ovens that bake unevenly, or really special attention to reviews that say the ovens bake perfectly.

Do you love the stove you have now, or are you disappointed with certain aspects of it? Would you recommend a certain brand? I am looking also for the biggest oven available, and the largest I have found is a 7.0 cubic foot.

I have decided on Hickory cabinets, and am really excited about them. A local Mennonite craftsman will be building them for me. I still have to make some decisions about the extra's I want, and there are so many. My Kitchen Aid mixer will be built in, and mounted on a pull out platform. Have not made a decision on counter tops. Needless to say, I am so looking forward to working in a beautiful new kitchen.

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[RiversideLen]

I have a standard size GE convection oven. I don't use the convection mode for baking but I do use it for roasting. I love it. Meats come out juicy and it helps with browning. Plus it's faster. It has 2 separate convection modes, one for roasting and one for baking. The baking mode will reduce the selected temp so that you don't have to make that adjustment manually. I don't know how well that particular feature works because, like I said, I don't use convection for baking. The roasting convection mode makes no temp adjustment and that is the way I use it. The oven is roomy. It's electric and the bottom heating element is built in the bottom so it doesn't show, so the oven floor is easy to wipe out. Of course, you can use it without the convection as well. It bakes evenly in the standard mode.

I'd buy it again.

Good luck, Wonky!

[Mike Nolan]

Some (electric) ovens have so many settings I don't know what to call them, and I'm not sure what all those settings do, either. And to make matters more confusing, it isn't often clear what an electric oven does during the preheat cycle. Some will use both the top and bottom elements, which usually means those recipes that have you start in a cold oven and anticipate a relatively slow buildup of heat don't perform as they were designed to work.

Some 'convection' ovens have little more than a small fan to move air around, a commercial convection oven often has multiple fans and possibly even channels to draw air so that it circulates rom multiple directions. That's important because an oven that just blows hot air from the top down can cause strange things to happen to the top of what you're baking (like blowing ingredients off a pizza.)

These days there are some home ovens with steam injection options. I've wondered how often they need to be cleaned, using tap water in them will result in mineral buildup.

[BakerAunt]

My Thermador oven, that I left in Texas, has a convection feature, but I only tried it a couple of times. It did not work well for doing two pizzas at once (back in the days when I used pizza pans). Although it was supposed to allow even temperatures when baking on multiple racks, I did not find that to work very well.

A lot of ranges these days come with the convection. When I get my new one, I may, based on Riverside Len's comments, try the convection setting for roasting meat.

For my new range, I'm still looking at the dual-fuel Thermador four burner, no grill. It is, however, pricy. The place in South Bend that sells Thermadors will also service the ones that they sell--an important consideration.

Wonky: the Hickory cabinets will be lovely. We considered hickory, but in terms of blending with the rest of our very open-concept floor plan, and with the ash flooring we will install, we decided on maple. Ours will be natural wood with a clear sealer. I've decided on quartz for the counter, since it holds up to heat and should never need to be replaced. I've never wanted marble in the kitchen, and our contractor mentioned that it cannot take heat. I was going to go with granite, but it is never clear what the pattern of a large piece would be (which is why they ask you to look at it before they cut it), and I noted that the granite countertops at the place we stayed in Florida had pitted in various places.

I'm curious about what sink you are going to choose. We're looking at composite ones. I know that I want a large one with no divider, but I would like it not to be as long as the ones that seem to be the standard. I'm not doing an apron front, since the detail would be lost in such a narrow kitchen.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

We put Kindred stainless steel sinks (from Canada) in our kitchen and laundry room, they were the deepest ones on the market at the time. A sink should be deep enough that you can get your biggest pot in it, both upright for filling, soaking or an ice bath, and on its side for cleaning.

I have a 24 quart stock pot that fits in the bigger of the two kitchen sinks. (It'd fit even better in the laundry room double sink, but that's too far to carry it.)

[BakerAunt]

The cold water in the kitchen is "raw" water (at my husband's request), so it is not just hard water but has a rather high iron content. Otherwise we might choose a stainless steel sink.

Thanks for the insight, Mike. I'll need to measure some pans to make sure the sink will hold them well.

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