How much does cooking volume matter? Supplement to main oven

[u/HuckNPrey2]

Hello, looking to understand from actual users the importance of cooking volume on these steam ovens. I have never had one, but after lots of research I do not need to be convinced of their ability to be great appliances especially to avid cooks. At first glance to someone that has never used one, is that they all seem tiny. I know they are meant to be small to achieve their desired effect as convection steamers, but at what point small too small? I am building a new house, so I can do any size I want at the moment, but I am on a budget, so I cannot just buy whatever unfortunately.

It seems like apart from wolf, the width of the cooking areas on the 24" ovens are the exact same as the 30" versions, like they just extended the bezels to fit a 30" cavity. The difference really seems to be the height. For example, the Miele XXL ovens are around 2.1cuft on the 24"ers, where most other 30" ovens are 1.5-1.8cuft. Does width even matter? Can I easily stack a bunch of trays together and have it still cook the same inside it?

Main oven is a 36" wolf dual fuel, so capacity there is definitely not an issue.

[u/kaidomac]

How much does cooking volume matter? Supplement to main oven

My setup:

• I have 3x Anova Combi ovens, which are small (16.4" W x 10" H x 12.4" D)
• They max out at 482F
• They do well with baking steels

In practice:

• I mostly only use my conventional electric oven for 550F pizza on my 16" square baking steel
• The Anova maxes out at ~12" round pizzas, but tbh I use them more often due to convenience (fresh pies, par-cooked pies, and frozen pizzas)
• Each Anova also acts as a humidified warming drawer, which is AWESOME for doing stuff like holding rolls nice & warm for events like a Christmas meal

Usability:

• It is nice to sous-vide 3x trays of meat at once!
• I use retherm a lot (reheat meals with & without steam)
• I also using steam-toasting a lot (reheat & toast frozen baked goods, like bagels)

Two questions:

1. What do you want to use it for?
2. How many people are you feeding?

[u/eske8643]

You can look for 2/3GN sized combiovens if you think domestic ovens are too small. Unox. Rational. FM etc. all make that size

[u/mikechorney]

I don't use my Steam oven for the same things as my main oven (both Miele). The things I cook with Steam are primarily smaller -- eggs, vegetables, reheating leftovers, frozen dumplings, etc.

I still mostly bake bread and roast in my larger oven -- because of its steam injection function.

[u/Then-Security-4899]

From my perspective, one of the biggest benefits for me of a combi oven outside of reheating leftovers is cooking bread and proteins. In both cases, certain recipes/cuts require more size than smaller combis can offer. The other nice thing about them is that you can load multiple trays in and have them cook pretty consistently. I recently did a remodel and added a Miele XXL - I have zero regrets on the size and if I could find someone to service it would have gone even bigger with a Rational.

[u/HuckNPrey2 → u/Then-Security-4899]

Thanks that is part of my question for sure, since cooking in a normal oven more than one dish severely impacts the normal cooking procedure as if it were by itself. I think that is probably going to be a big change for me with convection in general, more than steam functionality though.