Meet my $600 toaster oven

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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
Bacon - air-dried overnight in the fridge, then steamed-baked & then dry-baked:


It was really convenient, although not my family's favorite method of cooking bacon, in terms of final results.

 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
but I want it to go to 550 like my real oven so you can make great bread.

Also due to the small space, I will still be using my big oven for bulk-baking cookies. So the APO will be my Personal Cookie Oven for when I have a hankering for something delicious & easy!
 

herm0016

Diamond Member
Feb 26, 2005
8,466
1,086
126
are those 1/4 sheet pans in there?

I do all our bacon in a breville "smart" toaster oven. fits 1/4 sheets. we use it almost everyday as its great for 2 people without using the large oven. 350 for about 12 min. I think most people just use too much heat with bacon, cook it too fast and the fat does not have time to render.

Steam in an oven is more about increasing the heat transfer coefficient and heat capacity of the system than about the humidity doing something to the food directly. it becomes a more stable / consistent temperature and the heat is transferred to the food faster and more efficiently.

every control system has some swing, so their little graph thing on the website is just marketing hype. i would be intersted in seeing the real graph, im sure its better than most ovens.

true convection cooking is an element that is heating the air, usually near the fan and no other elements in the oven on. not just a fan running in a hot oven. this means there is only convection heat transfer and no radiation heat transfer to the food from the element. some devices say convection but are really not. does this have an element in the air stream for true convection?

looks like you can run them on 220, but i dont see much info if it is a different model or the same one that will run on both voltages. 220 seems like it would be worth trying for the extra 500 watts.

looks like a neat device. looking forward to your continued review.
 
Last edited:

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
are those 1/4 sheet pans in there?

I do all our bacon in a breville "smart" toaster oven. fits 1/4 sheets. we use it almost everyday as its great for 2 people without using the large oven. 350 for about 12 min. I think most people just use too much heat with bacon, cook it too fast and the fat does not have time to render.

Steam in an oven is more about increasing the heat transfer coefficient and heat capacity of the system than about the humidity doing something to the food directly. it becomes a more stable / consistent temperature and the heat is transferred to the food faster and more efficiently.

every control system has some swing, so their little graph thing on the website is just marketing hype. i would be intersted in seeing the real graph, im sure its better than most ovens.

true convection cooking is an element that is heating the air, usually near the fan and no other elements in the oven on. not just a fan running in a hot oven. this means there is only convection heat transfer and no radiation heat transfer to the food from the element. some devices say convection but are really not. does this have an element in the air stream for true convection?

looks like you can run them on 220, but i dont see much info if it is a different model or the same one that will run on both voltages. 220 seems like it would be worth trying for the extra 500 watts.

looks like a neat device. looking forward to your continued review.

Those are 16 x 12" pans that I purchased aftermarket, they fit perfectly! I sometimes use quarter-sheet pans in it, because I have several & they're just convenient to use. I'll try 350F for 12 minutes tomorrow for breakfast, thanks!

So as far as humidity control in the APO goes, there are two methods:

1. Sous-vide mode, which is 77 to 212F, which offers precise +/- 0.5F control of the humidity. The oven itself, in dry-heat mode, is +/- 6F, but is generally pretty stable once it hits temp (goes up, goes a bit above, then down, then back up, then stays there using the PID feedback controller, unless you open the door, which drops the temp a lot as per normal)

2. Steam mode, which goes up to 482F, which is more of a measurement of how hard the boiler is working. Steam mode is not the same as precision sous-vide humidity-control mode, which uses the wet bulb to carefully control half a degree of precision in wet bakes under 212F.

Regarding the elements, there is a top element, a bottom element, and a rear element, so three total. The rear element has the fan. If the rear element "only" is used, then it locks in the fan at high speed. You can adjust the fan speed (off, low, medium, high) if you use other elements or combine say the rear & top element. Just depends on what you're cooking. I discovered that using the top & bottom elements was terrible for baking cookies, but using the rear element (with the convection fan locked to high) did a pretty good job...I just had to drop the recipe by 100F!

I believe the 220V is just for international use, not for extra wattage, but don't quote me on that! (I would probably get a line run up to it, if that were the case!)
 

herm0016

Diamond Member
Feb 26, 2005
8,466
1,086
126
I believe the 220V is just for international use, not for extra wattage, but don't quote me on that! (I would probably get a line run up to it, if that were the case!)

check out the specs on the website. it says the 220 one has more wattage. there should be a sticker on your machine that says voltage and amp requirements, this will tell you if it can be run on 220 or not.
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,688
2,810
126
I'm convinced I want this even though I don't need it. The question is do I wait for cheaper 2nd gen or buy this initial beta version.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
check out the specs on the website. it says the 220 one has more wattage. there should be a sticker on your machine that says voltage and amp requirements, this will tell you if it can be run on 220 or not.

Yeah I had previously talked to Anova about that & they had indicated it was only for international power requirements, not for extra power, because I was curious about that when I pre-ordered. Would be nice to see the website updated to reflect that, however, because I would be interested in getting a higher-power version to hit higher temperatures!
 
Reactions: herm0016

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
49,021
39,137
136
Well the husband just bought one of these. I am looking to trying out the steam injection for bread.
 
Reactions: Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
I'm convinced I want this even though I don't need it. The question is do I wait for cheaper 2nd gen or buy this initial beta version.

It really boils down to your personal food-production requirements. I do 3 meals a day, 3 snacks a day, plus dessert. That's 49 servings a week to support, which is a lot! The more I can optimized my personal meal-prep system, the less work & the more food-cost savings I can enjoy. Not all of my meals & snacks require the oven (I make a lot of granola bars, energy bites, bliss balls, fat bombs, protein powder-based snacks, etc.), but like, I've been living off the tenderloin & pulled pork all week...BBQ pulled pork baked potato, pork tenderloin chopped cheese sandwich, egg & pulled pork breakfast burrito, etc. (usually I vac-seal & freeze this in one-pound packages, but it was so good I just kept eating lol).

It's not without its glitches, nor a high pricetag, but oh my GOSH is it amazing! Probably the biggest thing for me is just how much it reduces the mental workload of cooking...it's all about the approachability of the machine. Open door, stick food in & stick probe in food, press app button, voila!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
Well the husband just bought one of these. I am looking to trying out the steam injection for bread.

Congrats!! We don't have a super huge community for it yet, but here's the subreddit:


And here's the Facebook group:


If you're looking for ideas, I have a good 3 month's worth of things to try on my list for the APO & will mostly be posting on reddit about it!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
What....what about toast?...

Yes & no. It's a large countertop oven, which is just a small version of a big oven, as opposed to a dedicated toaster oven, where there are thin coils really close to the food. Preheat time in the APO is quick; I timed it at 4 minutes 35 seconds for 350F from a cold start. But it takes like 8 minutes to make toast, because it's just like a regular oven, only on your countertop. So yes it does toast, but no, it's not quick. My Panasonic FlashXpress infrared toaster oven can do a dark brown piece of toast in 3 minutes from a cold start, vs. about 13 minutes for the first batch of toast in the APO.

TL;DR: We're keeping our compact toaster oven.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
49,021
39,137
136
Congrats!! We don't have a super huge community for it yet, but here's the subreddit:


And here's the Facebook group:


If you're looking for ideas, I have a good 3 month's worth of things to try on my list for the APO & will mostly be posting on reddit about it!

Thanks I'll start doing some research as the day of delivery becomes at hand.
 
Reactions: Kaido

herm0016

Diamond Member
Feb 26, 2005
8,466
1,086
126
Yeah I had previously talked to Anova about that & they had indicated it was only for international power requirements, not for extra power, because I was curious about that when I pre-ordered. Would be nice to see the website updated to reflect that, however, because I would be interested in getting a higher-power version to hit higher temperatures!

maybe we can just order it off amazon or similar from a country with 220 power.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,297
30,322
146
damn it I've had that thing bookmarked for a couple months now and I keep trying to forget about it.

You are the ruiner of wallets, Kaido.
 
Reactions: Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
Thanks I'll start doing some research as the day of delivery becomes at hand.

They have about 150 official recipes posted so far:


The cool thing is that they're not dumb recipes, like where they're just slapping together a cookbook, they're all made specifically for the APO & have programming built-in so you can simply launch the settings right from the app!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
How well does it do braising?

Sous vide > braising. But yeah, it does it lol. Their Korean ribs recipe has you do 50% steam at 300F for 2.5 hours, fully automated! Behold the power of a Combi Oven:

 
Reactions: zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,297
30,322
146
Sous vide > braising. But yeah, it does it lol. Their Korean ribs recipe has you do 50% steam at 300F for 2.5 hours, fully automated! Behold the power of a Combi Oven:


I love sous vide but I would never consider preparing coq au vin that way!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
I've had that thing bookmarked for a couple months now and I keep trying to forget about it.

You are the ruiner of wallets, Kaido.

I glossed right over it when I first saw it, tbh. I didn't understand that it could do bagless sous vide. Which is just an insane feature. Or that it could do turbo-mode sous-vide, which is equally insane. And no bath is required! It's done great at nearly everything I've thrown at it (my cookies required quite a bit of experimenting, finally settled on a full 100F lower than normal temp, but that's the case with any small countertop oven, due to the smaller size).

I'm not sure how to accurately describe how cool this is. You just put food it, it does its thing automatically, and you get perfect food! It shifts from having to babysit it & do work & spend time to just doing the assembly portions of loading the pan & searing the output. The mental workload reduction is just incredible...it's so easy to use on a daily basis!

Short-term ruiner of wallets - the amount of money that this thing will save you in the long run, with regular use, is going to be incredible!
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
I love sous vide but I would never consider preparing coq au vin that way!

I dunno, I'd have to try it first to make a judgement. @Hayabusa Rider posted about SV so much that I finally bit the bullet all those years & fell in love with it, so I'm always open to new takes on traditions now!

Added to my list lol.
 

snoopy7548

Diamond Member
Jan 1, 2005
8,167
5,205
146
This could be cool to keep in my cube at work. Cook a nice steak while the plebs eat their crappy sandwiches and reheated crap.
 

TXHokie

Platinum Member
Nov 16, 1999
2,558
176
106
Well hell. I thought I have all the kitchen toys already but obviously I need one more.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,881
5,535
136
This could be cool to keep in my cube at work. Cook a nice steak while the plebs eat their crappy sandwiches and reheated crap.

The reheating feature takes a little longer than a microwave, but the results are worth it! Especially with steam!
 
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