Convection Vs Standard Ovens

DonH50

Member Sponsor & WBF Technical Expert
Jun 22, 2010
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We have convection and it does help. Keeps cooking time about the same as "low altitude" for the same temperature. The difference is not as large as we expected, however. I suspect it tries things out a bit more but have not performed any controlled tests (I am not the cook in our house, for good reason!) Be interesting to hear Keith's take.
 

treitz3

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Dec 25, 2011
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The tube lair in beautiful Rock Hill, SC
All I know is that I have not once duplicated the skin of a potato from a convection out of a regular oven. One thing I have noticed was less "hot/cold spots" with the convection ovens. I'll be following this thread with great interest because this is one of the things that I would like to upgrade the kitchen too.

Tom
 

rockitman

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Sep 20, 2011
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I rarely use anything but convection...both baking and roasting. i suppose some types of pastry are better conventionally baked.
 

AudGuy

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Oct 3, 2012
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Convection cooking is somewhat different from normal cooking, and similarly cooking in an electric oven is different from cooking in a gas oven. While its' true that both are ovens and will regulate the heat to whatever is set on the thermostat (dial) in actuality, depending on what you are cooking each will produce considerably different results. For instance, gas creates a typically wetter heat, that is there is water vapor present in the gas and it will create a higher humidity environment. Some things that we would cook will benefit from this higher humidity and other things will suffer. Similarly, an electric oven is much drier and results will again vary so we must take these factors into consideration when cooking in either oven.

Examples of each would include: meats and casseroles would tend to like the damper oven where baked goods tend to like the drier oven. I am generalizing but trying indicate some trends.

Further to this is the question about convection ovens: think of a convection oven as a normal oven with a fan inside that moves the hot air around. This process will tend to make an oven "drier" and cooking results will trend towards the drier type. This can hasten (speed up) the cooking time and for this, convection ovens are used quite heavily in industry. But considerations must be taken when using this technique. Sometimes we don't want things to become too dry and so we need to balance time results with quality results. Sort of like deciding if a certain priced product is qualified to sell at the price charged for it.

Convection cooking is just another form of cooking and whole books have been written to assist the person attempting to learn how these things work.
As a rule of thumb, if nothing else a convection oven will cook more quickly than a non-convection oven, at the risk of drying things out somewhat.

Hope this helps some ...
 

Keith_W

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Mar 31, 2012
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Hi Steve, as has already been mentioned, a convection oven is simply a normal oven with a fan in it. It allows you to cook using a lower temperature setting, and cook faster. It is the reason why which is interesting.

I should probably introduce the concept of dry and wet bulb temperatures. If you place a thermometer in an oven, and it registers (say) 150C (302F), that is the dry bulb temperature. The setting that you have on your oven only controls the dry bulb temperature. However, if you wrap the bulb of the thermometer in wet cloth and put that in the oven, it will register a different temperature. The temperature of the water in the cloth can never exceed its boiling point of 100C (212F), so it will register a much lower temperature. This is the so-called "wet bulb" temperature, and is effectively what temperature your food is exposed to, and is cooking at. Your food will NEVER exceed 100C/212F until all the water is driven off, but I don't recommend cooking food that long ;) One thing to note though: the wet bulb temperature will be different if you turn the fan on, as opposed to fan off.

The reason why - a roast in the oven will have a layer of cooler air around it called the boundary layer. This air is cooler because it is cooled by evaporation from the roast. This effectively insulates the roast from heat. The fan removes the boundary layer and increases the wet bulb temperature. This is why food cooks faster in a convection oven.

Incidentally, it is possible to calculate the humidity of the oven if you know the difference between dry and wet bulb temperatures. This is how Kombi ovens (with an adjustable humidity control) work.

As for what time setting to use ... don't use a time setting. Get yourself a probe thermometer like a Maverick ET-732 and cook to temperature. As for what temp setting to use, you should think of the "delta-T" - the temperature gradient between food and oven. A low delta-T (i.e. lower temp setting on the oven) takes longer to cook your food, but will give you a larger window of opportunity to remove your food before it overcooks. The downside is that a low delta-T does not provide much browning, and is more likely to dehydrate your food if you are cooking something thin.
 

Garth

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Feb 23, 2014
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I just use a 4 oven AGA inside out side I use a Big Green Egg you want a better life buy a AGA
 

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