We are building a house, and in addition to a regular oven we are looking at convection steam ovens. I was wondering if anyone here has had any experience making good, crunchy, European style bread in a steam oven. Right now, I am using the cast iron dutch oven method to generate steam, but the idea of just letting the oven do the work intrigues me. I’m also interested in any suggestions on which brand of steam oven to purchase, etc.
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I bought a Cuisinart Convection Steam Oven maybe 2 years ago. I have baked in it but it is really too small to be very useful. I bought a bread stone for it. The steam works great, but you can only make a very small loaf and the top tends to burn (I have to put a piece of aluminum foil on top). Then in December I had installed a 30” Miele dual fuel range with their moisture plus steam program. It is very pricey, particularly when you add in the cost of installing the water, electric, and gas lines, but I love it. We have had a problem in that the bursts of steam, which are supposed to last 5-8 minutes, are only lasting about 2 minutes. Even so I am getting good oven spring and someone is coming to fix it tomorrow. Don’t expect the quantity of steam that you would get in a commercial deck oven though. Still, I love it and would recommend it.
Thanks for the response, that is very interesting as I am now leaning towards the Miele as well. Can you manually tell the Miele to insert steam, such as the start of the bake, and then no steam to finish? I’m curious as to how well it does as a baker.
I have heard great things about all the other MIele functions (including sous vide) and when I used a steam oven in a European rental it made the crispiest juicy roast chicken (its counterintuitive, but steam seems to make a crispier bird). Anyway, I am also now trending towards the (pricey) plumbed Miele
Well, the steam function on my Miele oven yhas now been fixed. It turned out that when the range was installed they managed to crimp the water line. I’m still not convinced it is working at 100%, as I’m now getting four minutes of steam instead of the 5-8 minutes I’m supposed to get. I may well have the repairman come out again (under warranty). Anyway, you get one to three bursts of steam, depending on your choice, which are released manually when you want them. Alternatively you can do one automatic burst of steam, which is supposed to happen at the start of the bake, but I haven’t tried this. The moisture plus program defaults to convection, with a maximum temperature of 475°F, but you can turn the convection off, which allows you to turn the temperature up to 525°F. With gas ovens they recommend not using convection when baking with steam as the steam gets vented out. However, since this is an electric oven that does not vent out the steam, I just leave the convection on. What I have been doing, which gives me a nice dark (but not too dark) bake is as follows. First I preheat the oven, with a baking stone inside, without convection, to 500°F for an hour. Then I switch to the moisture plus program at 475°F (with convection), with 2 or 3 manual bursts of steam. I put all my loaves in the oven and then start the first burst. When that is completed I start another burst. After 10 minutes I turn the temperature down to 425°F (still with convection) and I continue baking until the internal temperature of my loaves is at least 208°F. If for some reason you want more than three bursts of steam you can simply restart the program. So, in short, yes, you can manually steam at whatever point you want. By the way, if you go to the Miele website you can find the manual for the range, which will give you lots of info about how the range works (but doesn’t answer all my questions). You can also call Miele to ask questions. If they don’t have the answers they will get back to you. : )
Excellent information, I am going to watch my contractor like a hawk. And also great to hear a real life experience making bread. I did read the manual, and all the YouTube’s deal with food and steaming not so much bread, so it was great to have someone walk me through a real bake. Good tips too. Thanks so much it’s exaclty what I needed. (Now lets see some pics! LOL)
I’ve posted some pics of the oven and the bread it has produced on Instagram (look for woodward7053). : )
Just saw that — it looks like it works better than I had expected… Nice bread!
@mcw.mark : Those messages were from last year… Has anything gotten better or worse since then?
@bengoshi : What did you finally decide? Which brand / model did you go with? Did it live up to expectations? It’s my turn to make the leap of faith. I am about to select the appliances for a massive kitchen remodel, and I have always dreamed of a steam injection oven. Please share your experiences!
Thanks.
Overall I’m quite happy with my Miele dual fuel range. The cooktop has been very problematic, but it turns out that that was mostly because a Miele subcontractor screwed it up by breaking two of the screws holding down the burner heads, creating holes that didn’t belong there. Once Miele sent out one of their own techs to replace pretty much the entire top of the range it started behaving properly. As for the oven, I love it. The steam is not at all obvious, but it works. I’ve been baking recently at lower temperatures (3 minutes at 400°, then turning the temperature down to 375°, with convection and 3 bursts of steam), which seems to do a better job of getting my bread up to the internal temperature I want (208°F for wheat) without overcooking the exterior. Would I recommend the range? Yes, but it hasn’t been an unqualified success.