I hate electronics and avoid them when I can. We have a 36" Blue Star range (virtually electronics-free) and a 24" Miele speed oven (the one with the knobs although it does have unavoidable electronics) installed undercounter. I love, love, love this combination. It gives me one electric oven and one gas oven. The BS has totally changed my cooking. Not only am I enjoying it more than ever, but there are things that I can do that I never would have even tried before. Almost anything that breaks can be fixed by our handyman. I use the Miele speed oven constantly, for microwaving or as a conventional oven and on the combination setting to roast a chicken faster. I don't use the BS range oven as much because it takes longer to heat up.

People seem to really like the GE Advantium 240, but not so much the lower-powered one. I couldn't get it because it can't be installed undercounter.

We are putting in the exact same appliances as nycbluedevil. We're remodeling, have lived in our house for over 20 yrs and plan to live here another 20+. I like having a range, b/c the oven is accessible from a wheelchair. We have a friend in a wheelchair and she has no problem using her range's oven, which is what I'm basing this belief on btw. I don't know if a double oven works well for people in a wheelchair (she doesn't have them). And we're used to having a range so stayed with that. You should also look into various universal design elements to incorporate into your house since you plan to stay there a long time. We've tried to be conscious of UD elements as we drew up plans for our remodel (aisle widths, entry access etc...), and when we had a choice of say an ADA height toilet or not, or door knobs vs lever handles for example.

Another with a BS and a Miele Speedoven. We've got the 30" RNB and 6700 Speedoven. We just got the speedoven installed last week. Have had the BS for a little more than a month.

Love the BS. The oven, even in the 30", does take quite a while to heat up, so I'm looking forward to using the Miele oven more. Love the burners but I'm going to look into moving the elements around to get a 15k in front as the big ones are a bit too beefy for most things I do (but DH's stirfries are awesome).

It's going to take me some time to figure out the speedoven controls and it's a bit smaller inside than I'd thought, so it'll take a little to figure out what I cook in what.

Oh wow this seems to be a popular combination. So I'll ask, how do you like baking with gas? I love cooking with gas but have always been disappointed with baking with gas (slow to fully warm, and items coming out flat due to high temp swings) but then again we've never had a high quality gas oven. Would you do duel fuel if given the chance?

Also on the miele- does the 24" interior feel constricting? I wish it came in a 30" instead of a 24" and then trim it out to a 30". What about ease of use, are all the presets annoying or can you override the scrolling? And lastly (sorry but not many people in my area even carry one much less have people who have used them) how difficult is it to keep clean? Read quite a few posts on people hating how dirty it gets and how difficult it is to keep clean.

Loving all this input and advice!

Oh and malbacat thanks for the insight on the range vs wall oven. And we have tried to use ud when possible at least for the main living areas of the house!

I can't comment on electric ovens b/c I haven't had one since I actually started baking. I've had a Viking gas range for the last 15+ yrs and I've never had a problem with baked goods. I bake bread, cookies, soufflés, cupcakes fairly regularly and they all turn out quite good. And roasting and broiling are fantastic too. I've read that big time bakers prefer the evenness of an electric oven, so if you are, maybe you should consider dual fuel. I wouldn't say I'm a serious baker. I bake regularly and like I said things come out tasting great but for those who take their craft more seriously maybe electric is the way to go. My Viking had some temp swings but not that big. I don't know about my future BS or Miele ovens re: temp swings. I won't have them till Dec.

The BS is definitely slow to warm, but I imagine I'll get used to that. When I've made bread, the last rise is an hour-ish and I put the dutch oven in and turn it on about when that starts. It's got convection, which I haven't thought to use, but that should help with even-ness. It definitely cooks hotter towards the front than the back without convection. I have kept my 'spin things half way through' habit that I had from my old oven.

The interior on the Miele does feel constricting. I was pretty sure neither of my cast iron dutch ovens would fit in with the lid on (the way I've been baking bread) and this finally made me go check for sure. Nope. With the metal rack in the bottom position, only a little more than 5.5"h clearance. I want to get a smaller dutch oven, glad I now have that measurement to use to shop with.

I've used the Masterchef once so far. The first thing I baked just to get a feel for it and see how one of it's programs was, was a box of cornbread muffins. The program cooked them well. The hardest thing was deciding if cornbread muffins are dense or light (or something like that). So I'm sure there will be other questions like that. It might be answered in the manual, but I didn't have much of a vested interest in the muffins, I just wanted to bake something.

I've baked some chicken breasts, warmed up some desserts, broiled some nachos and used the microwave many times. All pretty easy. I've waffled as to how I want the main screen to come up. You do have choices.

Since DH is still afraid of it, it's still clean. :)

I don't know if it's a fluke or not, but FYI mine came with the metal rack and two glass tray/racks (identical). The installers said they'd not seen that before. Maybe that's new with the new models? Maybe it's because it's the higher level (and I'm thinking they may not have installed a lot of those in the area.) But I hear they can break easily enough and they seem sort of fragile, so I'm happy to have a spare. But switching between the metal and glass, probably my least favorite part. Next time I broil nachos, I'll probably do it in the BS even if it's overkill and I have to watch them like a hawk.

Cla_quail, any reason you'll broil in the bs over the miele? It does have a broiler doesn't it? Thanks also for the height measurement too, that does seen small since the units only 24" wide. How's the surface texture? I've heard many c/o the bumpiness which I guess makes it more difficult to clean?

What about other speed ovens? I know there's a big following of the advantiums but our appliance guy said you have to leave the turn table in and that's how it bakes...is this true?

Anyone have or have used the electrolux or Bosch that wants to comment?

First thing, to me, is how many cooks are in the kitchen at the same time?

Both my wife and I are in the kitchen "doing our thing" at the same time.
We had a range before, and one of us would have to "step aside" while the other used the oven or the cooktop part of the range. That was not convenient for either of us, soooo~~~When I redesigned the kitchen back in 2006 we went with separate wall oven, speed oven and induction cooktop.

We find this arrangement very handy for the way we prepare meals.

As far as the Electrolux Speed oven goes, We love it!!!
It has been trouble free , all these years, (since 2006).
It is our most used appliance. We use it for most everything except broiling,
(it does not have an uncovered heating element above) so it can NOT broil.
No biggie to us, as we like to broil outside, alto we could use the regular Elux oven for that.

We use the speed oven a lot for both microwaving and "Speed Cooking".
It bakes potatoes in 14 minutes, (including preheat), instead of 45 minutes to an hour, like a regular oven would take.

It also convection bakes ,like a regular convection oven.
It "Grills",I use that to make toasts~~~~toast comes out great alto it does have to be flipped and the speed oven has to "preheat" for a couple of minutes when using the "Grill Mode".

The turntable must be used for Microwaving and Speed Cooking as the microwaves must be distributed evenly about the food, when microwaved or speed cooked.

One can remove the turntable for convection baking, grilling or any type of baking where microwaving is not used.

There have been posts where folks have said that they got the very best chicken they ever had using the "Speed Cook Method", ~~~~but~~~~it will make a "Mess of your speed oven", alto having a stainless steel interior, it "May be" easier to clean than the Miele oven, which has a different type of interior and we have seen complaints of the difficulties of cleaning some of the Miele Speed ovens.

I have speed cooked turkey thighs, and breasts in the speed oven, fish,
stuffed pork chops and all have come out great. I haven't done a whole chicken, so I can't tell you about that or the fun one might have cleaning the speed oven afterwards.

We like the fact that the Speed oven is "Totally Automatic".
Just chose what you want to speed cook and it does all the rest~~~~sets preheat time, speed cooking time and temperature, ratio of convection baking to microwaving, etc.
It even tells you when to put the item into the oven and when it is finished, (timed out),
it allows you to check the item for doneness, or correct internal temp, and allows you to add more time if needed~~sure great for folks our age, (70's).

If you read reviews on the Miele Speed ovens you see that
there is a bit of "Trial and error",
until the best parameters are set up for "X or Y" dish
that's just something I don't wanna fool with!

HTH's!!

Gary

Dodge59 - Which control panel does your Electrolux have? Also, is there a way to override all the presets? Can you use it like a standard micro and just input time and power? What about as a standard convection? I don't mind a lot of presets for the "speed cook" as I have no idea how to use it, but think it would be a nuisance for standard functions. Also any chance there's a self clean (Hey a girl can dream right)? Any words on the blue porcelain chipping issues? I hadn't really heard Elec with that issue but wasn't sure... Sorry for all the questions!

And I apologize for asking all the questions and not answering...

I have lots of "help" when I am in the kitchen as we have 3 small children who like to help. But any given day when I'm cooking a big meal there are several helping hands thankfully. So I like the advice of separating so as to be less in each others way. With the small kids I was leaning also towards a cooktop instead of a rangetop to keep the knobs from being played with and hopefully keep LP smell out of the house!

I have the wavetouch control.

The speed oven defaults to the microwave mode. You just enter the time, and push start, or if you want less than full power you just hit the "power button" and set the power to what you want, alto I always use full power. (IE), it acts just like most Microwave only appliances. It has defrost, popcorn buttons too, and the defrost gives you step by step procedure on its white readout display~~~~~turn item, etc etc.

Only the speed cook and "recipe functions" are presets.

For convection bake, Bake, and roast You choose the temp and time. There are 10 choices for temps, ranging from 100F (bread proofing)?, to a high of 450F. At the higher temps the choices are in 25F degree increments, (IE 400, 425, 450.

Hope that answers all your questions about the speed oven.

As far as Electrolux's regular oven, we saw some early reports of enamel chipping, (3 or 4 as I recall), but I think that was around 2010-2011, alto I believe wekick may have had a failure later than that, and the oven was able to be repaired.

I have only self cleaned my regular Elux oven once , since we've had it, and no the Speed oven does not offer self cleaning.

I read many post about problems with ovens after self cleaning, and ours just does not get that dirty. It does have a removable bottom, (no longer offered in newer models) that is easily removed and cleaned

Also in Calif we have a very greedy Electric company, (recall a few years ago, when they staged a "Phony Electric Shortage" and some of them "supposedly went to jail"??? Any way I'm not about to give them the money it takes to self clean my oven~~~it really doesn't take much effort "on our part" to keep it clean, ourselves.

Gary

Gary, what model do you have? I think the idea of a remove able bottom is ingenious! I wonder why they stopped doing that since I've read a lot of brands have problems with the motherboards after using the self clean.

Anyone able to comment on their miele speed cook or advantiums?

>Gary, what model do you have? I think the idea of a remove able bottom is ingenious! I wonder why they stopped doing that since I've read a lot of brands have problems with the motherboards after using the self clean.

What does a removable bottom have to do with the motherboard failing during self clean?

I want a double oven,but I am short and when I open the top oven, I can invision myself burning my arms and chest. Viking has come out with a french door upper oven which I love, it fits my short frame. I had a viking 48 " range for 13 years with no problems, however, when I recently visited three appliance stores, I was warned to stay away from Viking because the product and service has gone down dramatically. Each place did sell Vikings, but told me of other options they would recommend. Viking was purchased by Middleby corp, last year which is a respected company. I was wondering if the new company has made positive improvements in the new product line and if service has improved. Any information about reliability on recent purchases (last year) of the Viking wall ovens and if service was required to fix any problems with the ovens.

The removable bottom makes the oven easier to clean, and hence less often one would have to use the self clean.

I just remove the bottom, let it soak for a while in the sink and with a minimum amout of scrubbing, it looks good as new.

Electrolux had some "early on Problems" (probably around 2009) with thermal fuses blowing on the ovens during self clean, but as I recall, all that was needed was a washer installed around the thermal switch and that solved the problem.

It was pretty rare for an Elux oven to actually "fry a board", usually the fuse just tripped, but of course there is always one or two that did fry a board.

Wofl's new "m" series ovens will have the removable bottom, alto not so much for making it easier to clean, (without self clean), but to eliminate the stress points where the porcelain "Usually cracked", plus if the porcelain chips on the removable bottom, it is an easy fix, alto I've had no chipping problems with the bottom, or any other part of the oven for that matter.

Sorry about the confusion "HV" but we had a bit if "Multiplexing" going on in the conversation, and not "everybody" can deal with 2 topics at once!

Gary

Hvtech I was simply saying that I felt if more companies had a removable bottom tray people would possibly use the self clean function less and there could be fewer motherboard failures.