Rayburn efficiency?

[Chris Bacon]

That, flying in the face of reality as shown by replies here, and other *real world* experience, he's right, and everyone else is wrong?

There's none so blind as those that *will not* see.

[Chris Bacon]

Coming from you with your arguments, that's a bit rich.

Neither do they use commercial versions of Agas/Rayburns, do they.

You mean B&Bs.

[Andy Hall]

Very simply that the rate of heat production is important because at low rate it is usable for space heating, whereas at a high rate it may well not be.

[Andy Hall]

No it isn't. My points are perfectly sound. If you don't wish or are unable to think laterally, then there is little I can do about that.

Of course not. I didn't say that a storage cooker was appropriate for large commercial scale cooking. Your argument is equivalent to suggesting that a car is of no use because it can't reasonably be used to stock a supermarket.

No I mean what I wrote.

[Mary Fisher]

Oh I disagree with that! I'm very satisfied with mine, it gives consistently better, more reliable results than any gas cooker I've ever had.

The temperature range on mine hasn't been found wanting for any of my demands on it. And I'm very demanding.

Eh?

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

That's a very silly thing to say.

[Peter Parry]

Just what's really needed between June and September.

The cooking technique is exactly the same as any other oven/hob. The deficiencies of the Aga hotplates and the total lack of control over their temperature means things you would normally do on a hob you have no choice but to do in an oven. You can do exactly the same in any other oven.

Ultimately every conventional oven, no matter what its insulation, sheds all its heat into the room it is in. The Aga is somewhat different in that it puts some of its heat out of the chimney to heat the world and dumps the remaining heat out into the room 24/7 whether or not it is needed.

I'm not sure how you call control from 40 deg to 240deg "limiting the range of temperature available" but its a greater range and more controllable than an Aga. As for drying food out badly - mine doesn't at all. It is no different in that respect from an Aga, and I used one of those dreadful things for a couple of years.

You are able to use the hob more, you don't have to.

Not unless you are trying to process a horse all at once. I'm not sure what you would cook which requires all four burners on full power continuously for 3 hours but it wouldn't be a meal most people would recognise. If I'm cooking a fairly formal meal for 6 people it will take about 4-5kW/hr, a normal evening meal closer to 1-3kW/hr

In the summer I frequently open the windows, in the winter never. For the times of the year when the heating is on it is never necessary to open a window when cooking.

I really want a 1kW fire burning non stop in the kitchen all through the summer.

If I want to heat a house I'll buy an efficient heater I can control. Buying an inefficient heater with no control makes no sense. THere may be social reasons for buying an Aga, there are neither culinary nor efficiency ones.

[Andy Hall]

Do you actually have an Aga, or have you ever used or lived in a house with one? If you haven't, then how would you be in a position to comment either way?

I have made the point, and so did TNP, that an Aga can contribute usefully to the space heating of the house. In that respect, when one takes the broad view, rather than the narrow one that you have, it is an efficient way of providing some of the space heating.

I also pointed out, that IME, it is a great way to cook once you learn the techniques. I found that pretty easy, not everybody does.

Some people feel that they can only cook on a gas flame that they can turn up and down because that is the only way they can control what's going on. For them, that may be the case, but it certainly is not the only way to do so.

Quite.

[Steve Firth]

And also the only advantage that Aga users can think of. It's also a downright load of old bollocks since I get better toast out of a toaster.

You pull that one every time I cxriticise Agas. I've owned both Agas and Rayburns. I've also removed them for the inefficient pointless piles of crap they are.

And very limited. No decent progessional chef uses and Aga. The ovens are too small, and the temperature is never right.

Aga owners cook in a particular way, the food they produce is shit but they are used to eating it.

[Steve Firth]

Name one.

[Andy Hall]

I wan't really comparing with conventional gas cookers though.

The (Neff) one that we had certainly did.

[Andy Hall]

It can be. We found this last year that there were very few days when a low level of background heating wasn't appreciated.

No it isn't. The ovens are used for many more things with the Aga because of the versatility and range of temperatures available.

Certainly not. It is not the temperature of the plates themselves that actually matters (although there are two plates), but the rate of heat transfer to the pans. The plates are substantially larger, and one can easily fit pans partly on or partly off them. Therefore, one can have a greater range of control with more pans than can be achieved on a typical 4 burner hob. This is evidenced by how easy it is to prepare things involving very gentle heating such as sauces and anything where very gentle simmering of milk without risk of boiling over is needed. Moreover, there is a warming area which is ideal for melting chocolate or butter. There is no messing around with basins in pans of water.

The trouble is that you can't because you don't have the wide ranges of temperature available at the same time.

It actually releases extremely little heat through the flue. If I go into the loft, the flue from mine is barely warm to the touch.

In terms of space heating, for almost all of the year, having 700W or so of heat released into the house as background warmth is beneficial. I run the CH with night setback anyway, so this fits very well.

Very easily. I can have that range of temperatures continuously available and they are used for cooking different things at different speeds simultaneously. The control comes about from moving the items to where you want them and how quickly you want the end result. In a fan oven, there is little or no range of temperature at a point in time, so much less flexibility. Either things have to be cooked sequentially with the temperature varied to suit, or carefully timed so that they are not finished too early or too late.

With the Aga, I have flexibility of temperature, of timing and of position, and I also have places to maintain finished things without deterioration if they do happen to finish early, which is rare

I can appreciate that some people have difficulty with this technique and perhaps never master it. Neother of us had any difficulty at all.

Then you are very lucky. Mine certainly did, and it's rather obvious when one considers the effect of blowing air over things.

You must have had difficulty with use, because we found a huge benefit in this respect.

With a limited range of simultaneous temperatures and reading from most recipe books, that is fairly inevitable.

In a well insulated kitchen, it doesn't take very long for the release of 10kW to heat it to the mid 30s - certainly not 3hrs.

With the Aga, we seldom find it necessary to open the windows at all from the perspective of losing some heat. Use of the ovens means that the extractor doesn't get a lot of use either

Do you?

Personally, I like the 700W or so of background heat in the evenings because my kitchen is partly shaded and faces north.

Really this perspective is all about control. In general, I like to be in control of things as well. However, I also look at issues laterally.

The first point is that a gas Aga with a conventional flue is very efficient for space heating because almost all the heat is released within the insulated envelope of the house. That is my definition of efficiency for this purpose, although I can understand that for some people "efficient" means something that can be immediately controlled.

The second point is that for virtually all of the year, I calculated and found in practice, that 700W or more of heat is needed to maintain the house at the temperatures that I would like. It is therefore completely sensible and reasonable for that to be provided by the Aga and supplemented with the CH system, which is able to modulate to very low levels or off entirely. In fact there are very few evenings through the year when the CH doesn't come on at very low level - at the bottom end, the radiators may only warm to 40 degrees or so.

I can understand that some people have difficulty with learning how to use an Aga properly, or may have had experience of an old or badly adjusted one. Equally, I can understand if they are uncomfortable with the notion of something that they can't instantly control on or off.

However, my experience is that they work well, contribute usefully to space heating and produce excellent cooking results.

[Andy Hall]

Actually, I could mention a whole range of food where the results are better than from a hob and oven.

Possibly for you that's true. At least with a toaster you only have to put in the bread and press the button. On an Aga you do need to warm the toasting grid first and check the toast periodically.

I can only speak from experience and from that of others.

Presumably because you didn't have properly set up ones or were unable to deal with the cooking methods - not that difficult for most owners.

In a commercial environment, obviously not. As I pointed out earlier, supermarkets aren't stocked using a fleet of cars either.

In fact, the volume of the ovens is quite large, and the continuously available temperatures range over more than 200 degrees.

Perhaps yours needed servicing?

Well, my dinner guests would disagree with you.

Perhaps you produced shit when you had an Aga because you didn't take the time and trouble to learn how to use it properly?

[Andy Hall]

If you look with Google, you will easily find several.

[Steve Firth]

Only because projectile vomiting after dinner is regarded as impolite.

[Steve Firth]

Not half as silly as your reply.

[Steve Firth]

Oh look, it's dIMM.

Name one or admit you lied.

[Owain]

Jam-making? Although I understand that Agas aren't great at concentrated batches of on-the-hob cooking like jam-making because the plates cool down.

Owain

[Andy Hall]

In that case, I would suggest that you refrain from doing it.

[Mary Fisher]

You said, "The one-size-fits-all fan oven is one of the worst services to proper cooking ever invented"

That doesn't mention ANY particular type of cooker, it's all-embracing:-)

Ah, well now you're falling into the trap of some other posters, making a general statement based on your personal experience and even with only one model.

That's not sensible, is it?

Mary