On 11/27/2022 at 9:13 AM, ElsieD said:I have tried the oven a few times now, and my limited experience has been good except for the time when I made pizza. Operator error was such that my freshly baked pizza decided to stick to my pizza stone and said pizza landed on the lower oven rack. It wasn't pretty.
I do have a couple of questions:
Is there a guideline for how much steam to use and when?
Is there a guidelines for where the rack(s) should be when baking/roasting etc.?
I have been assuming that since this is a convection oven, the temperature needs to be adjusted downwards. I have had mixed results with this. Should I be adjusting it? Only when using the rear fan only?
When do you use the oven with both top and bottom elements on? The skinny little booklet that comes with it doesn't say.
I presume all baking, including pies and cookies are done with only the rear element on?
My only quibble so far with the oven is not the oven itself but with the instruction booklet. I would have liked more/better instructions.
Dear Elsie,
I don't use the APO app (except to cook toast). Everything else I do from the front of the machine; that's because I wanted to understand how the machine works.
I keep notes of my cooks in a Diary (thanks @rotuts)
https://forums.egullet.org/topic/162176-cooking-diary-anova-precision-oven/
There is even a printable form in here which you can print out and keep notes for each type of dish you try.
Print out various guides to convection steam ovens (Cuisinart, Wolf) as well as CSO info from eGullet compiled by @Okanagancook. Read these when making something new. PM me if you want these pdf files.
Keep electronic notes of good ideas and good recipes. I use Evernote. I have quite a few recipes, so you could just ask for what you're curious about . . . 😀 We could start a Greatest Hits collection!
On 11/27/2022 at 9:13 AM, ElsieD said:Is there a guideline for how much steam to use and when?
Someone recently posted they did vegetables at 100% steam. I reheat bread at 10% steam. You're going to get tired of this, but "you'll start to work it out". I'm still learning (lots). Since my oven was replaced, it's now more efficient, so I use lower steam.
On 11/27/2022 at 9:13 AM, ElsieD said:Is there a guidelines for where the rack(s) should be when baking/roasting etc.?
Start 2nd rack from the top, except when you specifically want browning.
On 11/27/2022 at 9:13 AM, ElsieD said:I have been assuming that since this is a convection oven, the temperature needs to be adjusted downwards. I have had mixed results with this. Should I be adjusting it? Only when using the rear fan only?
The idea of adjusting downwards is an attempt to make a convection oven more translatable to a regular oven. The convection steam oven is totally different, so forget adjusting downwards, start a new scale just for this tool.
On 11/27/2022 at 9:13 AM, ElsieD said:When do you use the oven with both top and bottom elements on? The skinny little booklet that comes with it doesn't say.
I mostly use the Rear convection, or Rear convection and Upper broiler. If you actually want browning, sometimes you need to turn the Rear convection off.
On 11/27/2022 at 9:13 AM, ElsieD said:I presume all baking, including pies and cookies are done with only the rear element on?
No idea. @JoNorvelleWalker might know.
Some useful links for the app:
For general browsing for things to cook in the oven, https://oven.anovaculinary.com/
