Trying to figure out the gas oven....
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I have a cheapo instant read thermometer that @Steve-Miller recommended. It was $10 or so bucks and seems to work fine. The ThermoWorks version is like$100. I'm not that good a cook.
You could get something from the grocery store like the chocolate chip cookies in the tube to bake as an experiment. Or something else that you're familiar with, so if it bakes really fast or takes forever, you'll have an idea of whether the oven runs true to temp.
Umm, yeah, we are not "$100 thermometer" cooks either!
@wtg said in Trying to figure out the gas oven....:
Or something else that you're familiar with, so if it bakes really fast or takes forever, you'll have an idea of whether the oven runs true to temp.
Ooh, good idea!
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Iād set the thing to 325 or whatever temp you normally use and bake as normal. There really isnāt any difference except the gas oven is cheaper to run. Do check the actual temp, ignore which burners ignite.
The wet heat vs dry heat thing is nonsense. The convection feature will save time if youāre coking something that takes a long time - like a roast. I doubt most people use it.
I like the idea of a test run with something like pre made cookie dough. Maybe put samples in various places to see if you have hot/cold spots, and then see if the convection fan evens things out.
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@Steve-Miller thank you! This is very helpful! Esp re not worrying about the dry heat/wet heat thing.
Mr SK likes the idea of a test run with pre made dough. And if they come out ok, we can serve those on Sunday along with what he makes. If they donāt come out ok, we will learn something!
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Back when Consumer Reports actually tested things, they did an article on ranges. I remember they tested how even the ovens were by covering the rack with white bread slices and evaluating the shades of the resulting toast.
Might be overkill but it would be interesting to try.
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They did that in one of the videos I watched yesterday. Iāll pay attention if I make garlic bread sometime.
Today weāre going to buy some premade cookie dough and test it. The cookies should give us an idea of whether one side of the oven cooks tater than the other.
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Not sure if this applies to gas ovens too, but I notice that on electric ovens, when using the ābakeā function, usually both the upper and the lower elements heat up during pre-heating, and the upper element will shutdown after the target temperature is reached.
The one time you want to be mindful of which heating element/burner heats up is when youāre following instructions that tell you to heat something ācovered,ā and the ācoverā maybe made of material that cannot withstand direct high heat. I found out the unpleasant way that āpre-heatingā instructions need to be observed because during pre-heating the heat also comes from the upper element and the direct heat from above ruined the ācoverā and the food underneath it. Silly me!
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I really like convection. It speeds up the cooking process. But I know itās not supposed to be good for baking.
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I really like convection. It speeds up the cooking process. But I know itās not supposed to be good for baking.
@Quirt-Evans I think if you take the time to learn about it you may find itās great for baking.
But it will take quite an investment in time.
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I read and watch a fair bit online about convection when I first started this thread. One bit of advice with convection for baking was to only use the convection fan when the recipe called for it, bc otherwise you might end up with the top burned. Another video said thst European ovens almost always have convection fans, so the recipes are all written with convection in mind, whereas they're less common in the US, so recipes donāt expect the baker to use one and are written accordingly.
One other video I watched was about baking.. not a pie but something like it, a pastry where you fold the dough up around a fruit thing that has a lot of moisture. (Canāt remember what it was called). Anyway, she said that at the very end of the baking cycle, she turned on the convection fan to make the top crispy and give it a bit more color. That was interesting.
They all made baking look so easily, btw, but I know the truth!
