Hi, we've had an Aga for 10 years and got very used to it. It was the new "deluxe" type. We've recently replaced it with a newly refurbished "traditional". The oven temp is fine until you start cooking! It dropped to about 140 C during sunday lunch and the yorkshire puddings had no chance! The inbuit thermostat showed it slightly under norm but not drastically bad. The seller and fitter have no explanation. Does anyone else have any thoughts.
Ah, it's a shame Andy Hall's no longer with us - he was the Aga man!
I have a Stanley - not quite the same as an Aga, however...
As I understand it, then newer Agas have a modulating burner, so they could replenish heat lost through the hoptplates quite quickly, whereas the older "traditional" ones had a constant low-burn heat source.
So if you leave the lids open on the hotplates then you'll lose heat stored up in the guts of the cooker, and the oven will cool. It's possible that your older one could compensate for this by upping the burner output. (This is how our Stanley works), but your new one (a refurbished much older model?) can't.
So how do you cook? The "traditional" way is to cook *everything* in the oven - or as much as is practical - so boiling spuds - put less water in the pan, bring it to the boil on the hotplate, then bung it into the oven to finish off, and so on. Of-course you could be doing this already and I'm preaching to the converted :)
And now be prepared for the ensuing holy war by people who simply regard them as a fashion item ;-)
Gordon
If its gas or oil, it should be modulating with a stat.
Star with a slightly higher oven temp and then transfer the roast to the lower part of the roasting ovem and out the puds in the top.
I'm surprised the seller has no knowledge of this as it is a very well known and well documented "feature" of the Aga. Basically an Aga is a crude box with a small fire in it. It is hugely wasteful of fuel (yet a surprising "must have" accessory for members of Friends of the Sod and Greenpeace) as it sheds about 1.25kw per hour doing nothing but only has a marginally greater input capacity which means its only reserve of energy is that stored in the scrap iron surrounding it. Unfortunately, despite what the adverts say, most of that is the wrong side of the vermiculite insulation so doesn't do anything useful (hence the running costs of over £1,000 per year). If you shed heat quickly an Aga doesn't have the capacity to recover so temperatures drop quickly.
The best way of shedding heat is to use the top plates. If one hotplate cover is raised for more than 10 minutes in every hour you are in trouble as the rate of heat loss from the top plate significantly exceeds the heat input to the cooker and the temperature drops.
The normally recommended "solution" if you are expecting to cook a proper meal is firstly to plan on having as many cold dishes as you can. Gazpacho is a popular Aga starter and ice cream an ideal desert.
Secondly, turn the oven heat up a couple of days beforehand to get the carbon emissions going and the temperature up. Finally try to cook the items most likely to turn into carbon as the temperature is on the wane.
Some older Aga books recommend warming your chicken up to room temperature a day or so before as well but these days when people don't expect to be ill after dinner that might be considered to be unwise.
The only long term cure is to invest in a cooker.
More economical than the ranges that preceded it though.
With stew as a main course, presumably.
Which I believe a lot of people with Agas have as well, "just for summer use"
I presume trying to deep-fry on an Aga is not a good idea?
Owain
I find an essential accessory to an aga is a convection microwave.
Agas really are the next step up from a camp fire for cooking.
They are a fashion accessory not something to be used.
it's not just teh oiol and gas versions that modulate wit ha stat. The solid fuel one (which I grew up with) also modulated the burning with a thermostat. It controlled the airflow using a big bimetallic strip.
Robert
A new line of pointless subject types??
"Aga oven cools down during cooking"
"Bears sh*t in the woods"
"Pope is a Catholic"
"Saniflos are A Bad Idea"
:o)
Interesting why you replaced a "new" deluxe with a refurb "traditional"?
Yes. Chuck the useless pile of scrap away and buy a proper cooker.
It can be done, but its hard to get oil temperature much above 100C.
Peter is exaggerating somewhat. We regard our aga as a 8 months in the year heater, a duty for which it is admirably suited and surprisingly efficient, plus the ability to get instant heat for cooking. It also continues to do both functions in the absence of electricity, which is a distinct bonus out here at the end of long overhead lines.
You can retrofit the things with central heating burners which use forced draught..for oil anyway.. at some efficiency gains. But then its noisy and you lose the off-electric capability.
Ours probably costs about £600 a year for the 9-10 months its on. Money that would otherwise be spent on heating anyway.
I don't have issues with the oven cooling down, unless you leave both hot plates open for an hour or two.
Its a completely different animal from a traditional cooker, for sure, needing a totally different approach. Our simmering hob has 4 2p pieces lying on it for slow simmering. Prop the saucepan on those for simmering. Its no harder than turning e.g. a gas hob down to the point of blowing out..
The only things I cant do on it are stir frying, and grilling. Grilling is supposedly possible in the top oven, but I have never tried it. Use the electric aga companion for that. Stir frying in a wok is a bit on the hard side on any electric a well.
Thats about all I cant do on it cooking wise. One does however tend to do things *differently*. I.e. the 'warming' oven at about 90C is a better bet for slow cooking than a pot on the hob. More efficient too.
The top oven is hot - very hot - and roasts very well, but it doesn't DRY like a fan oven does. Thats good for most meats, but not so good for crackling and crispy duck. Those need a bit of attention to open the door and let in fresh air. Fortunately the mass of metal is a lot more than the mass of the air, so it soon heats up again. Unlike a trad fan blown oven, which pumps out inordinate amounts of hot steamy air.
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