On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:53:15 +0000, Andy Hall
wrote:

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 14:49:31 +0000, Peter Parry
wrote:

As the Aga lacks any form of controllable hob, has wildly fluctuating
oven temperatures

Not true in the case of a modern gas model since the burner modulates.

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).

and has no grill there are many things which can't
be done on it as well as on a conventional oven. Serious grilling of
any sort and stir frying are two obvious examples

Not really. You can grill very effectively in the roasting oven.

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 have no difficulty with stir frying either, although I tend to do so
very rapidly using a pre-heated cast iron pan and that works well.

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? :-)

Anybody who believes anything written in that rag is naive anyway and
to rely on *anything* written by a journalist is questionable in the
extreme.

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

He is referencing a cooker that his mother must have had at least 50
years ago, probably rather more.

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.

Another good article is at
http://www.ovolopublishing.co.uk/hou...-aga-help.html

Most of which is untrue - e.g. servicing,

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).

I'm not sure why people eat stodgy rubbish like steamed puddings
anyway,

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.

In terms of a more meaningful comparison of steaming a
pudding on a hob vs. using the Aga simmering oven and not needing to
do anything for some time, the latter is a lot easier.

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".

We discovered this flaw while trying to cook a
piece of pork shoulder at 70C for 12 hours. At such a low
temperature, a 10C drop meant that the meat would not cook. In fact,
we soon worked out that the temperature fluctuations were up to 25%
in either direction, and when my wife telephoned Aga to inquire about
this, she was told that it was quite normal."

Again, one can only conclude that he or she had an old model or not a
gas one.

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.

We periodically do an overnight roast in the simmering oven and it
always works very well.

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

Obviously the temperature in an oven drops when the door is opened,
but it goes back up again very quickly because the heat stored in the
thermal mass of the cast iron is hugely more than that required to
heat the air.

"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.

If a joint is being cooked over a 10-12 hour period, there is no way
that there can be a 10 degree or 25% drop in temperature due to oven
doors or lids being opened.

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.

Who knows? Either he was using an old Aga or one without modulating
heat source,

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

or was trying to use it like a gas hob.

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

I prefer to stick with my own experiences of what I know works with
what I have.

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.


--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/