Kitchen appliances chat

What savage puts sharp knives in the dishwasher

Takes me a few minutes to sharpen all my knives every 6 months or so on a bench grinder.

Takes me a few seconds every time I use one with a good steel.

A cutlery drawer would do a lot to protect the blade, but corrosion from heat, salt, detergent, rinse aid, rust on higher carbon steels and similar damage to nice wooden/micarta is best avoided for sure.

To be fair I put the cheap but sharp practically disposable Victorinox tomato and peeling knives in the dishwasher. Not too precious about those.

Really interesting, thanks - wouldn't have thought that about pyrolitic ovens.

Key concern for me is really good, accurate temperature control, but steam / sous vide sounds good too. Will check out those brands and see what looks good

Thanks for the input.

I think we will get this Miele, i'd like the intergrated one, but its 1300eur V this at 949eur for freestanding.

My parents: in the cutlery basket with the point poking up 🤦‍♂️

*Generic IKEA type kitchen knives not high-end stuff. Still lethal if you if you're taking out a pan without due care and attention!

sharp knives

Should not be in the dishwasher you monster

oops, new page - see you've already been castigated

The steam oven we are just about to put into production is designed for mid wall and under bench install.

The only thing i would say is the air which comes out of the exhaust duct can be quite high humidity so you might get a damp crotch if you are also chopping veg above your oven.

The F&P stuff is spec'd to be ±1°C.

I'd assume the competitors are the same at that level, but again it'll come down to how much you spend.

That’s exactly the kind of precision i am looking for… will investigate, cheers!

One thing worth noting for electric ovens: the heating elements will degrade over time. You must budget in for getting them tested and replaced every 24 months or so. Be sure to look into the expected life times of the elements and take it into consideration.

We get ours tested / replaced every 18 months or so to ensure stable and constant temperatures.

Wow - that isn't something I've ever heard of or done.

Maybe this explains why my ovens have always been a bit shit... Will try and check how easy that is to do with whatever we choose!

Replaced every 2 years?

I always believed the average life of a heating element was 5+ years. A quick Google suggests 5 years. A check of the Miele spare parts online suggests 5-10 years.

At least the check is simple: simple multimeter continuity test.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM3tZVcj3-E

I think @Aroogah gets a different test done. Does this chap look gullible enough to buy yet another heating element to replace his fully functioning one?

Tested every 2 years as part of the general service - replaced as necessary. We replaced most of the elements last year, in the 6th year of ownership. And yes a multimeter is how they check it.

What are people cooking that requires +-1 degree accuracy? We have a very good oven, love cooking, but 90% of the time it’s at 180c.

Also, surely the temp is a feedback loop: sensor senses temp, turns element on or off. Even a slightly knackered element should be able to hold the right temperature.

To be fair I’m overdoing the need for accuracy to compensate for having had a rubbish oven until now, but any meats etc which you want to cook low and slow or to set levels of pink-ness could need pretty good temp control.

On how the thermostat works, yeah you’d expect most ovens to work that way but the sensitivity of the sensor and how quickly it turns on/off could make a huge difference - most ovens won’t keep a stable temp but will turn on when it drops more than a certain amount below a set temp, then off at a certain temp above it, right? So in reality your temps go up and down, unless the oven has a cleverer thermostat / heating element that can adjust to keep the temp stable.

Temperature accuracy is only really required for sous vide steam cooking.

As you say though, convection cooking uses a thermistor to sense temperature and then uses either bang bang or PID control to turn various elements on/ off depending on the cooking function chosen.

I’ve also been using an old gas oven for the past four months. I forgot how shit ovens can be. That said, it is a single burner at the bottom so actually quite good for pizzas with a big steel.

What are people cooking that requires +-1 degree accuracy? We have a very good oven, love cooking, but 90% of the time it’s at 180c.

My oven is that accurate, it doesn't matter... The person who wrote the recipe probably didn't have that accurate an oven 🤷

But the accurate ovens are also the high temperature ovens.

Which is good, because then you can make these https://spanishsabores.com/pasteis-de-nata-recipe/

290c! I like that we have full steam, but it does only go up to 230c fan.

Yeah, the Miele ones (at least the ones I was looking at) have an operating range of 30-300'c .

They're +/- 1'c for that full range... but honestly I don't need the precision at all, I only need the ability to get to the upper end of that range.

What is possible with that is really authentic pizza bases, and things like those custard tarts done to perfection.

I haven't cooked any meat in mine so pyrolytic cleaning isn't something I need as much as others may. I have a steam wand thingy but haven't used it because descaling an oven is against my religion (if I want crispy bread I'll just throw a little water into the floor of the oven when it reaches 200'c 🤷).

It's just the temp range I wanted... the rest is all a bit meh to me.

Steam is great for doing an oven full of dumplings for home yum cha. I’ve experimented with steamed porridge on a timer for the morning, and steaming rice in the serving bowls. Looking forward to getting it back out the shed and connected up tbh.

If I was staring from scratch I’d probably get smaller steam oven and separate convection that goes up to 300c. Two ovens seems excessive though.