Rayburn efficiency?

[Ophelia]

I couldn't agree more:)))

O

[Mary Fisher]

Oh Andy! Steamed puddings are anything BUT stodgy - they're light and airy (if made properly) and I wish I could afford to eat them more often. Nothing todo with finances - the waistline you understand ...

Why a thermometer?

Mary

[Andy Hall]

No, although I sometimes think that it would be nice.

partly off them.

Not unless you are incompetent. It's pretty hard to burn something on the simmering plate.

The point is that you don't. If that was what you did when you had one, then you were doing things wrong.

You can slide a pan to a certain position and pretty much leave it - for example simmering milk with zero risk of it boiling over. Same with rice or pasta.

Hob time is relatively short in most cases because usually one initially boils the item there, transfers it to the simmering oven and then if need be, back to the top.

On a modern gas Aga, the temperatures don't drop to any noticable extent during a typical cooking session.

One has to wonder what on earth he was doing. It would be pretty difficult to achieve that, even for those of Darwinian stupidity.

In the Aga you actually almost a continuum from bottom left to top right. I've measured it. In a given oven, there is, through convection, a difference between top and bottom.

I have a broad range and can also vary completely under my control, and predictably, simply by locating the items where I want them.

Two oven Agas work perfectly well, but four is better. At the very bottom left, the warming oven warms plates and serving dishes and in the top of it, food already prepared can be kept, without drying out for latecomers. Above that, the simmering oven replaces many of the operations that would otherwise require lengthy standing in front of a hob.

I'm sure they don't....

Actually I don't. I've measured the temperatures in all four ovens, top and bottom during the course of a cooking session and they remain very constant, making timings easy to do.

With the predictability of temperature in a given place, that was very easy to do. I don't think we had a single disaster when starting, but that was several years ago.

Likewise, although I simply make a note on the recipe that it's a certain shelf in a certain oven. very easy.

I don't know where you got that from, but I've never heard of it. I have a 4 oven model, though. Can you identify the accessory on the Aga Cookshop site?

Not really. I have the space for and wanted the four oven model. It also has the benefit of the warming area on the top.

You can't compare the two because the cooking techniques are different.

People are able to cook perfectly well on a two oven Aga, but the four oven is more flexible. I don't have a space issue.

It might do in a coal or old oil one. It changes very little in a modern gas one. Variations in time are almost always due to specifics of the ingredients or their starting temperature.

.... and added bonus then.

I should have sent you my Neff fan oven. It managed to easily. I have no idea why.

It doesn't need to be for an hour though. If you add up having 3-4 burners plus an oven running, you are using 10kW easily.

I was really talking about 700W.

If you think about it, many people have that sort of figure in lighting and appliances.

[owdman]

My favourite cooking is on an open fire between 2 stones - basically a ground level barbeque. You need reasonable weather and a supply of booze also. We did it a lot when we lived in a primitive cottage in Wales and all we had was a Rayburn. Our kids grew up thinking that's what everybody did!

cheers

Jacob

[Andy Hall]

I don't see it in that way.

Essentially, it's an energy store that I can heat cheaply and which adds to the space heating. The cooking is effectively free.

In terms of practicality, again no real problems by any way of measuring that I can think of. For example, if anything, I need to spend less time standing at the Aga than I did at the hob.

Interesting point. You do get a pack of cleaning materials and a brush though :-)

[Andy Hall]

More correctly they are not very good at sustained cooking on the top, although the modulating burner types make a big difference to that.

When cooking in the ovens there is very little temperature drop.

A commercial kitchen has a different pattern of use because you have an arbitrary number of people to cater for arriving at arbitrary times, normally.

[Andy Hall]

The method's strightforward enough, and results identical to or better than achievable on a hob.

[Ophelia]

Fascinating:)) Do tell us more:)

Ophelia

[Andy Hall]

Writes for the Guardian - that's even worse :-)

Exactly.

What else are you planning to cook in it?

I suppose in part, this is the same notion as pizza being better from a proper wood fired oven.?

[Andy Hall]

Even like that, which we can do, they still have too high a glycaemic load for me to eat more than a tiny amount, so typically we don't bother with them.

In the case of meat, I don't like it to be overcooked, although obviously in the case of pork or poultry, one has to be sure that it is enough.

[Andy Hall]

Good thing too. THey should... :-)

[Steve Firth]

In rural Italy it is, more or less what everyone does. Large log basket with a blazing fire, rake out the ashes and put a trivet over them. Grill your pork chops, arrosticini, lamb steaks or whatever.

[Peter Parry]

The burner can modulate to its hearts content - it simply doesn't have enough power. The maximum output is only about 5kW which is to be expected for the design - it isn't meant to be a fast recovery device. With both of the insulated lids on the top open the cooker looses nearly an extra 7kW/hr on top of the standing loss of 1kW and in addition to the heat loss in the ovens through cold items being put into them and doors being opened (or left open to cool them down). The burner can't keep up (and of course isn't designed to).

You can oven grill, jamming a pan against the roof of the oven isn't my definition of grilling. It works adequately for some things like sausages but is no different from cooking them in a tray in a conventional oven. The maximum temperature you can achieve from the oven roof is much lower than that of a normal grill.

I find the wrist action needed with a wok particularly difficult to master with a cast iron pan - is there a special Aga bodybuilding course? :-)

Oh, I'd agree with that - except that both articles match my experience with an Aga quite accurately.

The design hasn't changed much except that the internal "thermal mass" has been pared down over the years so newer ones are not quite as effective heat stores as older ones. The oil version still uses a very old wick burner and the "modulating" gas version is actually only a rather crude thermo mechanical valve with the over riding advantage of being simple and reliable rather than efficient.

Those are Aga's recommended servicing times - twice yearly for oil burners, annually for gas versions. I don't know a single Aga owner who doesn't know the name of their "man who comes to service it". I don't know a single conventional cooker owner who has ever had to have one routinely serviced.

Most of the other comments are in line with my own experience (although some, such as the aluminium pan scare, are rather OTT).

You should try a proper one, not an Aga boiled to death stodgy one. A light steamed sponge is most adequate and an apple dumpling a treat.

Conventional cooker - "Put pan on hob, when water boils check level, put lid on, reduce to simmer and boil for 1 hr".

Aga - "Boil hard on the boiling plate for 10 minutes, before moving to the simmering plate for a further 20 minutes. Check to see if it needs topping ... After this initial 30 minute start, transfer the whole pan, water and all, to the simmering oven for 2 1/2 hours"

I'm not sure how you can describe the second process as "a lot easier".

Or one can conclude more reasonably that this is actually a well known and widely acknowledged characteristic of such devices. I'm beginning to suspect the one you have is an escaped experimental model using Tardis technology it differs so much from all the others in the world.

That's what I said - Haybox cooking, I've always said they are good at that.

"If cooking is carried out, then the ?store? is robbed and the indicator will drop, taking several hours possibly to stabilise back to the centre line position." (Aga).

Why do so many people (other than yourself) have problems with heat loss if the thermal mass alone is sufficiently great to compensate for opening and closing the doors? The thermal mass is also not as great as some think. A 4 cooker oven weighs about half a tonne but most of this weight is the castings outside the insulation layer.

Blumenthal is noted for his lack of scientific knowledge and imprecision in his cooking I suppose. I doubt if he has much experience of cookers either.

Most modern Agas don't have a modulating heat source.

Possibly, he isn't the most intellectually flexible chef is he?

What you have seems to differ considerably from all other Agas. Aga put the quiescent heat loss from their ovens at 1kW, yours looses

700W. Aga quote weekly gas consumption for a 4 oven model at 527kW per week, yours seems to use much less. Aga quote the maximum power output of the gas burner at 5kW - yours seems capable of much more. I'm increasingly certain it must be from an alternate dimension or have a small nuclear core inside it.

[Steve Firth]

to have fitted an Aga cooker"

So no need to go much further eh? The only one, it's in Lancashire where the food is s**te anyway and people would eat a dead dog garnished with baked beans.

And the rest of the places, indeed this one as well are all bed and breakfast establishments.

Do you want treatment for that ragged wound in your foot.

[owdman]

Strewth 527kW per week? Our last (typical) gas bill is for 336kW per QUARTER and we do a fair amount of cooking - not as much as some on this thread but more than the average household I'd guess.

cheers Jacob

[Pete C]

Hi,

True, but if the Aga isn't room sealed then the ventilation requirements will be fairly genereous.

cheers, Pete.

[owdman]

Don't knock it if you haven't tried it! Could be worse - last time I was in Lancashire I tried a Burger King.

cheers Jacob

[Ophelia]

LOL

[Peter Parry]

I've spent several months there - I'd advise having one leg shortened before going as it makes leaning into the wind much easier.

partly off them.

It's rather easy to do it on the other though.

You can pile them on the simmering plate and they won't boil over - that's simply because they won't boil at all. On the boiling plate they will boil over. Putting them bit on one and a bit on the other and playing slidey pans until they all obtain a form of equilibrium is an interesting but futile way of spending your time.

Of course - one gets bored with sliding them around.

It is remarkably easy, Agas actually account for far more fires than you would expect from the number in use. You put something on the boiling plate and forget it for a bit. With potentially about 5kW available things go from cold to boiling over and ignition very quickly.

Either it is an efficient heat store - in which case there will be thermal equilibrium all around each stove or it isn't - in which case the heat loss will generate a thermal gradient proportional to the rate of heat loss. You can't have it both ways (or if you want to please explain how it can happen!).

Aga:- "If you want to cook large cakes which take more than 45 minutes to cook, such as fruit cake, Madeira cake, cherry cake, etc., with a two oven Aga you should invest in an Aga Cakebaker."

"On a two-oven Aga, the Aga Cakebaker is used for cooking large cakes...While you are making your cake and lining the tin you preheat the empty outer container and lid on the floor of the roasting oven.

When you are ready to bake the cake, place it in the carrier, and move the Cakebaker to the simmering plate while you gently lower the carrier and cake in. Make sure the tin is perfectly flat in the carrier or you will have a lop-sided cake. Replace the lid and return to the floor of the roasting oven. Lower the simmering plate lid and cook in the normal way."

The "modern" gas one dates from 1968 (upgraded 1993). I suppose in Aga terms that is modern.

Have you ever tasted dried labrador? Quite inedible.

Indeed but it usually isn't for long so the effect isn't particularly severe (unless on chooses to do a full roast dinner on a July evening).

I appreciate that, but your Aga appears to be especially frugal, I was using figures from Aga.

All the more reason not to put another 0.7/1.0 kW/hr on top.

[Andy Hall]

It does fo rthe intended method of use.

This is irrelevant because it isn't used in that way.

Yes it is. At the top of the roasting oven the heat radiated is certainly adequate for browning. If you want to char things, that's another matter, but I don't want to wreck food.

This is irrelevant as well. I don't want to char things, and to the extent needed to grill and brown things, the roasting oven does a perfectly effective job.

No but I could understand it being difficult for the limp wristed. :-)

Fine, but not mine.

The burner and control in the gas one has, and I think may well have made quite a difference.

OK, so it's not 6 months across the board as you implied in the first place. It makes sense to service or at least clean any gas appliance annually.

I don't, but on the other hand, Aga dealers do offer a high level of service and support if you ask for it. Personally, I can clean the burner myself.

I

In the case of a gas oven as opposed to a gas Aga, I am not sure that either *needs* to be serviced. For oil, that is a different matter.

This assumes that the hob can maintain a simmer at constant rate for an hour without checking.

I don't think that either are of particular consequence.

Nope. I've just measured a recent model using a thermocouple, so I know how it behaves.

In the case of the article you quote, no fuel is mentioned, nor is the age of the cooker and his way of using it doesn't add up. There is no way that it takes 12 hours to recover from a drop in temperature from having the lid open for a typical cooking time on the boiling plate. Therefore the only conclusion that one can come to is that he used an old model or it had a fuel other than gas, wasn't adjusted properly or he was doing something stupid.

I've never used a haybox, but as far as the Aga is concerned, this is a great way to cook a large piece of meat.

I have no idea. I am not sure that it is "so many" in the sense of being a large proportion of owners of recent models. I am not convinced in any case that a significant heat loss occurs from opening and closing oven doors on an Aga unless you leave them open for a long time. I am more likely to believe that people get themselves into trouble through not reading the instructions and trying to use the top plates for extended periods of time with older models.

In fact they are nearly 600kg. On the modern ones, the only substantial cast components outside the insulation are the top and front. Between them, (and I have lifted both comfortably individually), I don't think the weight exceeds 100kg.

Goodness knows. The srticle doesn't say what type or age of cooker he used or how he tried to use it.

????

The gas ones certainly do. The burner modulates up and down as required.

I am not sure what the oil ones do, but the site suggests a thermostatic arrangement for the burner.

Who knows? I've never met the gentleman.

Their specifications are generous.

I measured the gas consumption of mine over a 24 hour period on two occasions when no cooking was done and it equated to 700W.

That's a figure that they quote as "typical" without saying how it is derived.

No it's the same as all of its type and I haven't suggested that it is any more than that.

I can only comment on the results I've measured.