How long does your oven need to preheat?

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henene4

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Though I currently ain't be doing much real cooking cause I just don't have the drive to, I am using my new oven a lot.

I found my previous oven to be fast in preheating already, but the Miele is the real kicker.

I have preset the oven to use its "Booster" function automatically.
That uses the heater for the convection plus the upper heater for a total of about 3kW of heating power.
The convection heater on this might even be more than 2kW as it glows red hot really quickly.
The manual tells you not to use that for delicate items that brown easily, but with most frozen or ready stuff I haven't found an issue yet.

I can also set a preheat function.
That does the same as the booster, but notifys me about 20C/40F shy of the selected temp to add the food.
Once the door has been opened and I confirmed I added the food it uses only the selected heating function to raise the temperature the last bit.

Regardless, it is fast.

It can get to 150C (300F) in just about 5min.
To 180C (355F) in 7-8min.
200C are reached in just about 10mim spot on.

Since I never researched a lot about US ovens I don't know how fast they are.

What's you experience?
 
Our Neff Slide and Hide takes about 5 minutes if that to preheat (although I’ve not timed it). By the time you have prepared the food to go in it has reached temperature. If you’re being lazy and doing a freezer dinner or pizza, you can add food whilst it’s preheating.

Jon
 
My air fryer oven takes about 5 minutes, then it beeps and all you have to do is push the start button and the timer starts to tick down to shutting off automatically.

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No-boil baked pasta from a cold start for 1 hour:

Old Hotpoint gasser, 10 minutes to 350F.

New Frigidaire electric with covered bottom heating element: 13 minutes, but the results are the same.

 

Next time we spark a frozen pizza, I'll use Quick Preheat (400F per the label).
 
My 59 Westinghouse

Thats in the Laundry room will preheat about twice as fast as my new GE in the kitchen, They both bake perfectly but the new one cycles between bake and broil on preheat, the Westinghouse has the bottom element on full and the broil on half voltage until hot.
 
No preheating on Convection..

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I read somewhere but don't recall where as it was a long time ago that if you are using a convection oven and cooking for more than 10 minutes it was not necessary to preheat the oven.  I normally preheat anyway because it seems like you should, but this particular read said it was not necessary.  It may have been for a particular convection oven I had as I have had a number of them over the years.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">Anyone else ever read this?</span>
 
I bake most of our bread and stopped preheating the oven long ago and found no significant difference at all. I just let the loaves rise in their pans second from the bottom rack about 40 minutes then turn it on to 350 and set the timer for 33 minutes and voila. It's the same concept as a bread machine which doesn't preheat.

Nor do I preheat for any type of casserole or anything in a covered pot..

For cookies and cakes that bake for shorter periods of time then yes I preheat

But overall it's a waste of time and power.
 
The one thing I preheat for most of the time is frozen pizza.
Especially if you leave the pan in the oven it's the best way to get a crispy bottom without a burnt top.
And I like my pizza almost rock solid in terms of crust.

I also preheat with cakes and such just because the workflow allows for it quite easily.

I don't preheat with most other stuff in general.

But interesting to hear.
I guess that US ovens can offset their larger size with the higher power.
 
I had an interesting occurrence after Thanksgiving--I spatchcocked a turkey and cooked it for about 1 hr 20 mins using convection. Worked beautifully--no mess, no stink--great. Except for the next time using the oven (GE Profile Performance) where all the spatters on the broiler elements (which aren't energized using convection) burned off the first time heating the oven. Yecch--nasty!
 
The 56 GE in the Ogden Wonder Kitchen preheats in 5 to 10 minutes depending on how hot you need it to be.  To be fair, the oven cavity is relatively small (the size of the typical apartment-size 24 inch range oven) but for it's day, it was very well-insulated.  The broil element is partially engergized during bake in this oven, too, so that helps. 

 

The 62 Flair oven in St-Liboire seems to need a good 10 minutes to get to a moderate baking temperature and can take nearly 20 to get up to the high temps like 475.  Once heated, though, it does somehow maintain an even and steady baking temperature.  Honestly, I think it bakes some things like cakes and cookies better than the 56 GE! 
 
I think isolation and thermal mass can only somewhat help each other out there.

An oven with a lot of mass will take longer to heat up with the same power input, but if you add something or just open the door it will recover quicker and maintain a more even temp.

I think todays ovens - at least over here - are designed to limit thermal mass to the absolute minimum and make up with pretty good resüonsive controls and high power heating.

Do US ovens run higher power elements?
Our ovens usually have a 1000W lower bake lement and a 2 ring upper element with each the inner and out zones having about 1000W each.

The convection element is around 2000W as well, usually.
 
My oven is on 208v

So it is slow. 0 to 350 in about 10 minutes. But like others I like to stabilize the temp before baking.
The stove top is also 208v (of course) and it is slowwwwwww
 
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