On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 22:22:20 +0100, "G&M"
wrote:


"Andy Hall" wrote in message
.. .
Surely an Aga has got to put put more than 400W.... 4kW perhaps...

Definitely not. The maximum is about 1kW and that is after a major
cooking session. In steady state it is no more than 750W with gas or
oil models because the burner modulates.

Am I missing something here. How do you cook on 1kW ?

The heat is stored in a substantial quantity of cast iron internally
and it requires about 600-750W steady state to maintain that.

The internal components are carefully arranged to provide temperature
gradients throughout the appliance. There are two very large plates
on the top, each of which will comfortably hold three or four pans.
The hotter one is directly over the burner and will boil very rapidly.
The flue gases pass through a chamber under the other and provide a
cooler plate which will simmer or even maintain milk at just under
boiling point continuously, for example. Sauces don't curdle or
burn.

There are then four ovens offering temperature gradients from just
under 300 degrees down to about 50 degrees, so you have a range that
is greater than most modern cooking arrangements and with highly
stable temperatures. There is a working area that can also be
used to gently warm butter or chocolate or other ingredients without
needing to mess about with pans of warm water.

It is unusual that a large amount of heat is needed for an extended
period on the top plates because the usual method of preparation is to
initially boil something on the top if it requires it and then to
transfer the pan to the appropriate oven to complete the cooking or
simply to maintain the required temperature.
Other operations such as grilling are carried out in the oven to begin
with.
The results are invariably superb and the food tastes better and is
less dried during the cooking stages, unlike fan ovens which wreck
food by drying it.

The burner is capable of delivering about 5kW input but we have found
in practice that it has never run at over about 1kW. You would
have to try extremely hard and use the range totally incorrectly to
get it much above that.

In addition to the above, you can air clothes, warm shoes and coats,,
dry herbs and tend to sick animals. Pretty good for one appliance.


Recently installed a 9kW total hob and I had to agree with somebody here
(Christian) that a good gas hob would still be faster.

In fact it isn't. We have compared individual and combined cooking
operations working in both ways and there is very little time
difference. It is actually much easier to speed up or slow down
cooking of individual items very easily by just moving them slightly
and the risk of drying or burning things is much reduced in comparison
to a fierce gas hob. Added to this, one doesn't need to stand at
the hob the whole time in front of 9kW of heat twiddling knobs to try
and balance the rates of cooking without burning or overcooking the
food.

I wouldn't buy a gas hob or an electric oven again, having thrown both
unceremoniously into a skip where they belong a couple of years back.


..andy

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