Using a convection steam oven
I recently got a Panasonic NU-SC180B Convection Steam oven, mostly for baking. Results have been generally favorable thus far, but this is my first convection oven, and first one with steam. so I'm early in the learning curve using it.
My question has to do with convection steam mode. Steam is injected into the oven throughout the bake, interleaved with the heating process. i.e the heater/fan turns off, the steam comes on for a few seconds, then the heater/fan resumes. I assume this is In order to keep power consumption low. The steaming definitely is working; you can see its vapors wisping out of the exhaust vent.
In convection steam mode, you can set the baking temp but there is no control over quantity of steam produced. For a 30-minute steam bake, it used somewhere between 400-500 mL of H2O. None of it was in the overflow channel so it all went into the oven chamber.
a) Is this good? Not so good? How does one know?
b) What sort of adjustments, if any, to time and/or temp are made when using steam?
the steam cycle to the first several minutes of the bake only. Some say 5 minutes, I go with as much as 13 minutes regularly in an electric oven. Endless steam will prohibit your loaves from developing the crust, but necessary at the start of the bake to allow the outside of the loaves to expand without the crust setting. I've never used convection baking, but my understanding is that the bake temp. is generally lower with convection on, and so you may have to bump up the bake temp. if you follow my suggestion below.
If the convection bake steam continues to be introduced throughout the cycle, my suggestion is to turn off the oven when you wish to terminate the steam, and then immediately restart it in conventional heating mode without convection. Open the oven door at that time to allow the steam in the box to escape ad then close it up again after rotating your loaves.
I agree with Alfanso's suggestions. BTW, glad to hear that the fan goes off when it steams, on mine, the fan is on constantly . If you have a steam only mode, I would suggest running in that mode for a few minutes before you load your loaf. Steam at the very beginning of the bake is better that later, and if you load it and there is no moisture in the oven, then it may take a while to build up in the oven.
When I think of convection and steam, they impress me as a push-me-pull-you; the former drying the crust early, the latter tending to keep it soft. So shortening the steam period seems a bit counterintuitive to me.
Alfanso, that's exactly what I did. The 30-min steam bake was followed by 20 min with steam off. It was a 60% rye / 40% AP with rye CLAS. Crust was firm and chewey. BTW, this oven does not have a non-convection mode.
Barry, I like your suggestion of steam-only to start, taking the place of the preheat esssentially. And then go to convection-only bake? Or followed by a shorter steam/bake first?
I haven't done any measurements to confirm it, but my impression is, this oven runs a bit hotter than the set temp. At least compared to others I've used.
When I think of convection and steam, they impress me as a push-me-pull-you; the former drying the crust early, the latter tending to keep it soft. So shortening the steam period seems a bit counterintuitive to me.