New Anova combi oven

[Brian Weekley]

From the top ... I didn’t set a proper target temperature mostly because I have no experience with sous vide. Sad but true! Doing the cook on the green egg I Would normally cook to 180F or thereabouts. I knew that with sous vide I could cook to a lower temperature and still gain the tenderness I wanted by extending the cook time. Initially I thought I would cook to 130F and have a look. That took 32 minutes cooking at 200F and 100% humidity to get to 130. From that point I figured I would reduce both the cooking temperature and humidity to 150F and 80% And let the cook run a scheduled four hours. That worked perfectly. Next ime I think I’ll add a stage to the cook. The target temperature will be 140F. Stage 1 will cook at 200F and 100% for 20 minutes. Stage 2 will run at 140F and 80% for 3:40. I’ll see how that works.

I haven’t baked bread for 40 years but I’ll give it a try at some point. Michi has set some pretty awesome baking standards around here so don’t expect any reports on that from this amateur!

I understand not wanting to buy version 1.0. I like being first off on new things. FWIW I’ve found no “Version 1.0” defects with the oven. I read the supposed deficiencies on the Anova Forum link that Michi provided. My oven shows none of those deficiencies or any other defects for that matter. The only thing that will likely catch people up is connecting the oven to your smart phone and your home wifi. It works fine if you simply follow the instructions. If you don’t by skipping or adding a step you disappear down a rabbit hole and have to erase everything and start over.

The oven runs cooler than I expected. Much cooler than my Breville toaster oven. I have a very small kitchen and I haven’t noticed heat from the oven being an issue.

I hope this answers your questions.

 

[Michi]

I read the supposed deficiencies on the Anova Forum link that Michi provided. My oven shows none of those deficiencies or any other defects for that matter.

Glad to hear it! It is difficult to judge from forum posts about defects how serious a problem is. After all, you don't often get people posting "I just bought the oven and it works flawlessly." Instead, they are much more likely to speak up when something doesn't work as expected.

I'd love to have a steam oven in my kitchen (Anova or otherwise), but space limitations just don't allow it

 

[Brian Weekley]

With your bread baking skills and the apparent benefits from baking bread in steam, I doubt that you will be able to hold off for long Michi.

 

[Uncle Mike]

Thanks for the feedback! Now I’m leaning toward getting one before next summer.

 

[Brian Weekley]

I sure like mine ... I just wish we had a “New Ovens” forum. Today I’m going to try a small thick strip loin steak. I will sous vide it to target then reverse sear in a carbon pan. Hmmmm .... target temperature? That’s going to take some thinking. Normally I’ll like my steaks at 124F on the Thermapen. So, I’m thinking a target temp of 110F, 100% steam and 180F cooking temperature. Dry and fry for colour. Stay tuned!

 

[Brian Weekley]

First steak ...

2hrs @ 110F, 100%Steam ... sear on my favourite cast iron frying pan.

Tasted great ... chicken next time.

 

[daveb]

I jumped on the SV train early, a friend and I were working on temp sensors, cut offs and high end crock pots when Anova announced their first kickstarter for the Anova One. We figured it would cost almost as much to make our own (and we still hadn't containerized the electronics) so we signed up.

Since then I've owned and used the bluetooth models (3), the Nano and the Pro. I use them both at home and at work. I like em.

But like Mike above I'm normally not on the front end of new product development. I like the idea of the Oven and will probably get one once the initial bugs (and there seem to be many) are worked out. A Rationale on my kitchen counter - that makes toast!

 

[Brian Weekley]

Hmmmm, .... I use the Anova Combi Oven every day. Have yet to find a bug. What are the ”many bugs” that I’m missing?

 

[daveb]

Water leaking out. Pans ill fitting. 5 pan racks but only 2 pans supplied - additional not available. Others that I don't recall.

I hope most, including you, are having positive experiences. I'm going to sit on my hands for awhile.

 

[Brian Weekley]

Well ... it’s been over a month since my last report on my Anova Precision Oven. The length of time isn’t reflective of lack of use. I cook with my anova several times each week to the extent that I’ve virtually replaced my conventional oven. The reason for this report ... Christmas dinner. C-19 reduced the numbers around my kitchen table to three this year. Big change ... usually there is nine to twelve seated around the table. We made the decision months ago to do up a prime rib for Christmas dinner rather than the normal turkey. When the Anova Precision Oven arrived I had absolutely no thought that I would trust my Christmas dinner to this untested steam oven. Over the weeks I gained more and more confidence with the oven to the point that I said “here goes ... the Christmas main goes in the steam oven”. Here is a pic of the Christmas prime rib before the cook start.

Wait ... you say ... that doesn’t look like a fresh prime rib ready to go in the oven. You’re right, that’s the prime rib roast after 2 1/2 days sitting uncovered in the refrigerator dry brining. I’m a recent convert to dry brining and I love it. Note that the kosher salt didn’t penetrate the fat cap. After much thought I decided to basically follow the Prime Rib 101 cooking instructions from the Anova site. It called for 100% steam, a 132F cooking temperature using the rear of oven heat, hi convection fan, and a target finishing temperature of 132F for a med rare finish. The cook took 101/2 hours. The final 1.9F took two hours and at that I had to pop up the cooking temperature to 155F to finish the final .9F. I didn’t use the recommended egg white trick to brown the roast as recommended. I simply vented the steam and let the roast sit for 10 minutes at 350F dry while I finished the rest of the sides. Here’s what came out of the oven.

Judge for yourself but the three around the table loved it. A perfect medium rare. A little blood on the carving board, but no blood on the plate. The roast was uniformly cooked and exquisitely tender. The dry brining in the refrigerator created a faux crust which was the preference of those at the dinner table. Next time I’ll try the egg white method.

The conclusion and verdict from the table ... not what you would think. Here’s a couple more pics and an explanation.

A few weeks earlier I dId up a blade roast in the Anova in a 14 hour cook. It was cooked to the medium side of medium rare where I had let the roast cook at the target temperature for about four hours to tenderize. It was just as tender as the prime rib at 1/7 the cost. One at the table preferred the “meaty taste” of the blade roast over the prime rib. The other two of us agreed that the flavour of the blade roast was wonderful but loved the unique taste of the prime rib roast.

Go figure ... at 1/7th the cost it’s going to be cheap blade roasts from here on in at a fraction of the cost.

Thanks Anova!

 

[DT74]

You can always rig up A Dutch oven with a grate on the inside and steam in there

 

[YumYumSauce]

Well ... it’s been over a month since my last report on my Anova Precision Oven. The length of time isn’t reflective of lack of use. I cook with my anova several times each week to the extent that I’ve virtually replaced my conventional oven. The reason for this report ... Christmas dinner. C-19 reduced the numbers around my kitchen table to three this year. Big change ... usually there is nine to twelve seated around the table. We made the decision months ago to do up a prime rib for Christmas dinner rather than the normal turkey. When the Anova Precision Oven arrived I had absolutely no thought that I would trust my Christmas dinner to this untested steam oven. Over the weeks I gained more and more confidence with the oven to the point that I said “here goes ... the Christmas main goes in the steam oven”. Here is a pic of the Christmas prime rib before the cook start.

View attachment 107610

Wait ... you say ... that doesn’t look like a fresh prime rib ready to go in the oven. You’re right, that’s the prime rib roast after 2 1/2 days sitting uncovered in the refrigerator dry brining. I’m a recent convert to dry brining and I love it. Note that the kosher salt didn’t penetrate the fat cap. After much thought I decided to basically follow the Prime Rib 101 cooking instructions from the Anova site. It called for 100% steam, a 132F cooking temperature using the rear of oven heat, hi convection fan, and a target finishing temperature of 132F for a med rare finish. The cook took 101/2 hours. The final 1.9F took two hours and at that I had to pop up the cooking temperature to 155F to finish the final .9F. I didn’t use the recommended egg white trick to brown the roast as recommended. I simply vented the steam and let the roast sit for 10 minutes at 350F dry while I finished the rest of the sides. Here’s what came out of the oven.

View attachment 107611

View attachment 107612

Judge for yourself but the three around the table loved it. A perfect medium rare. A little blood on the carving board, but no blood on the plate. The roast was uniformly cooked and exquisitely tender. The dry brining in the refrigerator created a faux crust which was the preference of those at the dinner table. Next time I’ll try the egg white method.

The conclusion and verdict from the table ... not what you would think. Here’s a couple more pics and an explanation.

View attachment 107614

View attachment 107615

A few weeks earlier I dId up a blade roast in the Anova in a 14 hour cook. It was cooked to the medium side of medium rare where I had let the roast cook at the target temperature for about four hours to tenderize. It was just as tender as the prime rib at 1/7 the cost. One at the table preferred the “meaty taste” of the blade roast over the prime rib. The other two of us agreed that the flavour of the blade roast was wonderful but loved the unique taste of the prime rib roast.

Go figure ... at 1/7th the cost it’s going to be cheap blade roasts from here on in at a fraction of the cost.

Thanks Anova!

Any updates on how its holding up? My sister wanted to get me something nice for my bday. I might just get her to pitch in

 

[Brian Weekley]

I’m even happier with the oven now than I was at first. Lately I have been smoking (brisket, pork shoulder and poultry). I run the smoke on my Green Egg then wrap (in the case of pork and beef) and finish in the Anova Precision Oven. The temperature control is excellent. I generally re-heat food at 185F to a target temp of 145F using sous vide mode and 100% steam. Works much better than either my regular oven or microwave. The software allows me to control and monitor the cook from my iPhone. Software updates … and there has been a couple, take place automatically without issue. I’ve literally stopped using my gas and charcoal grills for steaks. It’s just much more convenient to do a cook using the precision oven followed by a quick sear in a steel pan. I haven’t started baking with it yet but I believe this is where the Precision Oven will really shine. I especially like dry brining and precision cooking small roasts. The results are always tasty, inexpensive and predictable. YMMV, but I’m sold on it.

 

[YumYumSauce]

I’m even happier with the oven now than I was at first. Lately I have been smoking (brisket, pork shoulder and poultry). I run the smoke on my Green Egg then wrap (in the case of pork and beef) and finish in the Anova Precision Oven. The temperature control is excellent. I generally re-heat food at 185F to a target temp of 145F using sous vide mode and 100% steam. Works much better than either my regular oven or microwave. The software allows me to control and monitor the cook from my iPhone. Software updates … and there has been a couple, take place automatically without issue. I’ve literally stopped using my gas and charcoal grills for steaks. It’s just much more convenient to do a cook using the precision oven followed by a quick sear in a steel pan. I haven’t started baking with it yet but I believe this is where the Precision Oven will really shine. I especially like dry brining and precision cooking small roasts. The results are always tasty, inexpensive and predictable. YMMV, but I’m sold on it.

Great to hear, thanks for the super quick reply! Glad to hear theres no issues. Im not much of a baker either but this will make me want to dabble more into it too. Ive used the rationales in the kitchen and really like the precision.

Does it use standard sheet trays or does it have its own weird sizing?

 

[Brian Weekley]

Can’t really say … my sheets work fine … but they may be “non standard” themselves.

 

[YumYumSauce]

Can’t really say … my sheets work fine … but they may be “non standard” themselves.

I'm pretty convinced. Guess I'll find out ha

 

[YumYumSauce]

Well, that was fast. Came in 2 days regular shipping. Does not fit standard half pans. Might not have a chance to properly set it up for a couple days.

 

[Brian Weekley]

Ran into a problem with my precision oven when it refused to connect to my wifi. The oven worked fine but I couldn’t control or monitor it from my iPhone. After exhausting everything I could think of I contacted Anova support. They responded quickly … on a Saturday, no less! We spent a few days going back and forth with no luck. The oven simply couldn’t connect to my home wifi. Strangely, it went from working perfectly to not working at all. Anova agreed to send out a replacement oven. When it arrived, you guessed it ,,. It wouldn’t connect to my home wifi either. Same symptoms, same result. Obviously the oven wasn’t the cause of the problem. I called my internet provider for help. Their answer … “oh yes sir, we’ve encountered quite a few problems since we remotely changed our modem/routers from 2.4ghz to 5ghz”! WHAT … you changed the functioning of my (and everybody else’s) equipment without telling anybody? No problem they said … we can set up a dual network … one on 2.4ghz and another on 5ghz. They did and my oven connected to my wifi easily and resumed working perfectly.

I have to hand out Top Marks to Anova support. They worked on the problem tirelessly and when the problems couldn’t be resolved sent out a new oven … and in the end it wasn’t their problem.

So now all is back to normal.

 

[Brian Weekley]

Having installed my replacement Anova Precision Oven, I looked forward to giving it a first test cook. My local meat emporium had top sirloin tip roasts on sale. The top sirloin tip roasts don’t have the following of Tri Tips but in my experience can give excellent results. I used salt and a basic rub to dry brine the roasts in the refrigerator for a little over a day. Here’s a pic of them ready to go into the oven.

I set the oven to cook in Sous vide mode … 100%steam, at a cooking temperature of 131F and a target temperature of 124F. The cook took about 2 1/2 hours during which time I made up my version of a “Zip sauce”. At the 124F mark the roast was still a bit too rare for my tastes so I reset the target temperature to 129F and cooked for about another hour to achieve that temperature. I finished up the cook by searing the roast at 375F for three or four minutes. After slicing I put the slices into a simmering zip sauce hot tub to reheat the meat before assembling my sandwich. My object to keep the final result as rare as I was still happy with knowing that I would have left overs to reheat. Here is some pics of the final result.

The results were excellent. The sliced meat was velvety smooth and the sauce completely complemented the beefy taste of my roast. To me it’s amazing at what a difference just a few degrees of temperature can make to the final result. Thanks to the Anova, I’ve got it locked in now.

I’m also very happy to have my Precision Oven back working perfectly.

 

[Michi]

“oh yes sir, we’ve encountered quite a few problems since we remotely changed our modem/routers from 2.4ghz to 5ghz”

Your ISP needs their head looked at…

 

[Brian Weekley]

Your ISP needs their head looked at…

No kidding …. And it’s one of the largest ISP’s in Canada. The accumulated grief that they have caused could have been avoided by a simple email notification to their customers. I would never have dreamed that they would be so irresponsible … but I guess that’s the character of modern business.

 

[Michi]

No kidding …. And it’s one of the largest ISP’s in Canada. The accumulated grief that they have caused could have been avoided by a simple email notification to their customers. I would never have dreamed that they would be so irresponsible … but I guess that’s the character of modern business.

I have devices on my network that won't do 5 GHz. What on earth were they thinking?

 

[Brian Weekley]

Beats me but no doubt it involves charging customers more money presumably for higher speeds supported by 5G. There was relatively little difficulty in setting up a parallel 2.4ghz capability which co-exists with the 5ghz network. That’s what I’ve ended up with. A lot of grief would have been avoided had the ISP been up front with the changes rather than proceeding in the dark without notification to their customers. Unfortunately this type of behaviour seems to becoming the norm.

 

[MontezumaBoy]

Sorry if you already talked to this - but what is "cleaning" like after use ... any big issues with moisture / is there a repository in the center for H2O?

Thx,

TjA

 

[Brian Weekley]

Sorry if you already talked to this - but what is "cleaning" like after use ... any big issues with moisture / is there a repository in the center for H2O?

Thx,

TjA

The presence of steam means the cleanup is relatively easy … (a conventional oven cleaned by someone else is easier yet)! No water issues. I was surprised by how little water the sous vide setting uses. Yes, there is a center repository which collects the water.

Hope that helps.

 

[MontezumaBoy]

Thx Brian - FWIW / I am in the final stages of a new kitchen layout and have been going back and forth regarding 2X convection double ovens or having one combi/steam ... when I looked into cleaning them several folks spoke about the water and wiping down after each use ... I'm pretty anal when it comes to cleaning but remembering to clean an oven after each/every cook (especially if cooking for guests at the time) was not something I had really considered. Certainly not liking the idea of "forgetting" to clean a wet oven for 24+ hours ...

Sorry for the segue - thx for you reply / much appreciated.

 

[Brian Weekley]

Thx Brian - FWIW / I am in the final stages of a new kitchen layout and have been going back and forth regarding 2X convection double ovens or having one combi/steam ... when I looked into cleaning them several folks spoke about the water and wiping down after each use ... I'm pretty anal when it comes to cleaning but remembering to clean an oven after each/every cook (especially if cooking for guests at the time) was not something I had really considered. Certainly not liking the idea of "forgetting" to clean a wet oven for 24+ hours ...

Sorry for the segue - thx for you reply / much appreciated.

I’m no expert on Combi ovens. The Anova Precision Oven was recommended to me by a KKF member Chef. I never stepped up to sous vide cooking because honestly I didn’t want to deal with all the paraphernalia that would reside on my kitchen counter. I find cleaning the Anova a breeze … much easier than my conventional oven. The water is not an issue and the oven wipes out easily with the exception of the back wall which has discoloured some. For some the biggest drawback of the Anova will be that it does not take full size trays. For me that’s not an issue. Since acquiring my Precision Oven my conventional oven sits unused. One of my biggest complaints with my conventional ovens was the temperature swings … up to 75F. With the Precision Oven the swings seem to be between 1-3F. Cooking sous vide style has been a revelation to me … without the vacuum bags, water baths and gear associated with the process. Want sous vide … dial in 100% steam and let the oven do the work. Want to cook at 131F to an internal temperature of 131F … just set the temperatures and wait. The supplied temperature probe is, by my testing, as accurate as my Thermapen. Performance as a conventional oven is great. And I’m generally adding steam to most of my cooking. 20% for general roasting, 80% for re-heat. The ability to control the oven from my iPhone is liberating. Initial setup as well as changes to the cook are easy from the iPhone. Multi stage cooks are easy. I also like that the oven sits at countertop. Obviously nothing will suit everybody and YMMV with the Precision Oven, but I know what my choice would be were I laying out a new kitchen. Oh yeah … the price is right too!

 

[Honerabi]

Beats me but no doubt it involves charging customers more money presumably for higher speeds supported by 5G. There was relatively little difficulty in setting up a parallel 2.4ghz capability which co-exists with the 5ghz network. That’s what I’ve ended up with. A lot of grief would have been avoided had the ISP been up front with the changes rather than proceeding in the dark without notification to their customers. Unfortunately this type of behaviour seems to becoming the norm.

Most of the quality routers here in the US have been dual frequency, 2.4 & 5 GHz for a very long time. I try to use the 5GHz whenever possible as it seems to be more reliable. Sounds like it was a management decision to get rid of the 2.4GHz frequency. That sort of logic really put it to Boeing with the 737 Max.
5G and 5Ghz are two completely different things. 5GHz is a frequency that is used by some WIFI systems and 5G simply means fifth generation. A good discussion is @:
https://www.smartaerials.co.uk/blog/is-5g-5ghz-the-same

 

[M1k3]

I try to use the 5GHz whenever possible as it seems to be more reliable.

Generally speaking, less congestion on the 5GHz band VS 2.4GHz. 5GHz also has less range than 2.4GHz.

 

[rickbern]

Bit the bullet and bought one today, stay tuned!

I found this website from oz:

https://steamandbake.com/
That looks okay. Anybody know of any others?