steam ovens and self cleaning ovens

JuneBow

I am in the process of planning my kitchen and the kitchen designers have talked about self cleaning and steam ovens.
I am wondering if anyone has any views either positive or negative about steam ovens or self cleaning ovens.
I do a lot of cooking so if the features are useful it may be worth it.
TIA

macladd

Hi,

I had an AEG steam oven briefly, hated it, think it is just a gimmick - I had better cooking results without using the steam - all you did was put water into a pull out thing on the front and it went into a built in pan on the bottom of the oven, did not think it improved anything I cooked using the steam setting. The "steam clean" setting was absolutely useless! Spent as much time on my knees with a cloth and detergent after the cycle completed as a normal oven.

I contacted AEG at the time and they were absolutely brilliant and offered to swap it for another oven of my choice. I went for a similar design oven but this time it was pyrolytic cleaning instead of steam. I cannot recommend pyrolytic enough! There are 3 settings - light/medium/heavy soiling, you take out the shelves and side runners, shut the door which then locks, select which cleaning mode you want and press ok. The oven heats up to 500oC. Once complete you wait until the oven cools down then wipe out the tiny amount of white ash thats left on the bottom! Thats it, the oven looks brand new again inside. I use the 1hr cleaning cycle, works every time. The oven also has a ceramic filter built into it somewhere that stops your kitchen smelling when its on its cleaning cycle.

The shelves are non stick coated so are easy to wash and the side runners I just soak in washing up liquid and use a dab of non scratch cream cleaner - 5 min job.

If you really need steam, I've cooked a couple of things in my new oven and just stick a tin in the bottom of the oven and add some water, does the same job!

Go for pyrolytic! You won't regret it!

Hope this helps!

beaker141

macladd wrote: »

Hi,

I had an AEG steam oven briefly, hated it, think it is just a gimmick -

I agree with the "gimmick" on the AEG Steam oven - I've still got mine as well as the pyrolytic oven.

I'm sure "proper" steam ovens are great - after all a lot of commercial kitchens seam to use them, but the AEG one just doesnt seem to do much in my view.

Pyrolytic function is great.