Three Reviews for the Price of One

BACKGROUND

If you’ve seen a couple of my other reviews on Thermador, you know that I just moved into a new home that came with the total Thermador package including this built in stainless steel oven combo. Cost aside, these are really beautiful and top performing appliances that will bring out the ‘cook’ in you!

The POMW301 is a combination unit that includes a microwave, large 30” oven and a separate warming drawer for keeping foods hot. The oven features conventional as well as convection cooking. The interior of the microwave and warmer drawer are stainless steel while the oven interior is a porcelain finish. The look is that of a truly professional looking oven combo.

In reality this is a review of three different products: Oven, Microwave and Warming Tray.

OVEN REVIEW

RACKS: The racks are stainless and include a couple of flat racks plus a telescopic rack that slides out on ball bearing slides for easy access to your food. The flat racks also slide out but not with the smoothness of the ball bearing rack. The racks have 7 different slots where they can be mounted at different heights in the oven.

An additional feature is the built in Rotisserie rack. The rotisserie motor is built into the back of the oven so when you want to use it, you simply install the rack assembly and the drive shaft fits into the hole in the back of the oven. Skewers and the rack assembly are included with the oven so there’s nothing additional to buy. It also comes with the typical broil pan and Grid for broiling steaks, etc.

OVEN COOKING:

The oven has a number of cooking methods available and are briefly explained below:

BAKE: This is standard baking using dry heated air with both the upper and lower elements providing the heat. Foods should be properly positioned on the racks and as a rule, only one rack of food should be cooked at a time.

TRUE CONVECTION: Heat is provided by a third element behind the back wall of the oven and is circulated throughout the oven by the convection fan. This allows you to cook using multiple racks at the same time including multiple pies, cakes or cookies on cookie sheets. Location in the oven is not as important since the heat is well circulated although they do suggest using levels 2 and 5. It is best to avoid opening the door as much as possible. They suggest that you reduce the cooking temperature by 25 degrees for most recipes.

ROAST: The Roast mode is similar to Bake above in that it uses both the upper and lower elements for heat. However, the upper element provides more intense heat than the lower one to increase browning of the exterior and yet retain the moisture inside.

CONVECTION ROAST: This mode uses both the upper and lower elements as I’ve just described but also adds the third element with its heat circulated by the convection fan. Generally cooking time can be reduced approximately 25% using this method.

SPEED CONVECTION: This mode uses all the heating elements plus the convection fan for even distribution of heat throughout the oven. An advantage of this mode is that it doesn’t require pre-heating the oven. This mode is recommended for cooking frozen convenience foods (except microwaveable plastic packaged items). With this mode, you don’t have to flip foods and they come out crisper and evenly browned. Plus you can cook more than one packaged item at a time (assuming equal cooking times).

BROIL / MAX BROIL: Broil uses intense heat from the upper element to provide heat while Max Broil uses a larger broil element. With normal broil the food is placed in the center of the grid and with Max, the food is spread out across the grid.

MAX CONVECTION BROIL: This mode uses the upper element as described plus the third element with heat delivered by the convection fan. Again, this method provides a faster means of cooking than conventional.

WARM: The upper and lower elements maintain a low temperature (150 to 225 degrees) to keep foods at serving temperatures.

DEHYDRATE: This dries with heat generated by the third element and circulated by the convection fan. Used for drying and preserving foods such as fruits and vegetables. Most fruits require a dehydration cook time of about 12 hours at 150 degrees.

MICROWAVE COOKING:

SETTINGS: The settings button takes you to a selection of ten items to enable you to customize the oven to your liking. These include language, Pound/KG and other features. One default that I changed was to add the Reminder Beep so you will get a reminder beep every 15 seconds at the conclusion of cooking until you open the door. This is helpful if you’re out of the room when the timer goes off the first time.

The Microwave has a turntable to rotate foods for even heat distribution. A rack is also provided and can be used with most cooking including baking to get heat penetration on the bottom of the food.

Only Microwave containers should be used although you can put strips of aluminum foil over the food taking care to not let them touch each other or the sides of the oven. Containers can be tested by putting cool water in the container and heating in the oven on high for 1 minute. The water should become hot while the container remains relatively cool. If the container is hot and especially, very hot, you should not use that container. NOT for PLASTIC containers.

COOKING MODES:

SIMPLEST MODE: To cook on high, simply press the number pads to the desired number of seconds or minutes and press Start. On completion, the oven beeps 5 times.

QUICK MIN: Pressing this button/pad increments the timer in 1 minute intervals so pressing it 3 times will reveal 3 minutes on the timer display. You can use this to add minutes to something in process or to use in simple mode as above.

POWER LEVELS: Repeatedly pressing this button will change the power from P10 (High) down to P1 (Low). After setting the power level, enter the time with the number pads and press Start.

TIMER: This multi-purpose timer can be used as a count-down kitchen timer for times up to 99 minutes. After pressing Timer, enter the desired time and press Start. NOTE: You cannot use the Microwave during this timer period.

DELAY TIMER: The timer can also be used to delay the start of cooking an item by a specific period and then cook it for a desired length of time. For example, to delay 30 minutes and then cook an item for 5 minutes you first press Power Level once, then enter 30 minutes with the number pads, press Power Level again (repeatedly if you want a lower power level) and enter the cook time of 5 minutes and press Start. The Microwave will wait 30 minutes before starting the cooking process, run for 5 minutes and beep to let you know it’s ready.

KEEP WARM: This feature allows you to keep a food item warming with time settings up to 30 minutes.

POPCORN: Press this button repeatedly to set the size of bag with 3 different size selections and then press Start. Otherwise, you can use the Simple Mode described earlier. They caution you to not leave popcorn unattended.

MORE / LESS: This button allows you to quickly add or subtract 10 or 20 seconds to a program including programs in process. Pressing once adds 10 sec., twice, 20 sec., three times subtracts 10 sec. and four times subtracts 20 sec.

QUICK DEFROST: After pressing this button, you will need to enter the weight of the item using the number pads and then press start. Downside here is that unless you set your default setting to from Pounds to Kilo Grams (see Setup) you have to enter weight in pounds or tenths/hundredths of pounds. So if the package is in grams – you’ll have to do the math (!!) 100 grams is approximately 0.2 pounds. Or if your item is in ounces, you have to do the conversion here also but of course we all know there are 16 oz in a pound so it’s a bit easier.

AUTO REHEAT: This allows you to reheat a refrigerated or room temperature food item without pressing power level or time. Press once for a single serving and repeatedly to increase the number of servings up to 4. Each serving size is 4 oz.

AUTO COOKING: This is an intelligent cooking process set for different types of foods. Each press of this button will display a different food type in the display window. For example, pressing 3 times displays “Soup”, 7 times displays “Frozen Veg”. Once you have the food choice, press the Serving/Weight button repeatedly to the value matching the portion of your food item. You won’t have to do any conversion in this mode.


WARMER DRAWER:

The bottom drawer or tray is used exclusively for keeping cooked foods warm while other items are cooking or for staging foods. It is not recommended as a means to reheat cold foods. It is capable of running for up to 5 hours and up to 74 hours in Sabbath Mode.

Press On/Off to begin or press one of the Heat Level buttons to begin. Either brings up an initial time of 1 hour. Press the + / - buttons to adjust the timer. A blue light comes on to show that the Warmer is operating. At the end of the warming cycle, the warmer will send out a beep signal.

Low setting holds temperature at 140 degrees; Medium at 165, High at 190 and Proof at 100. USDA recommends at least 140 degrees for keeping foods warm.

There is also a Moist / Dry lever. Moist seals in the drawer to hold moisture while Dry vents moisture out.

Sabbath Mode: This feature enables foods to be kept warm for up to 74 hours.

SUMMARY

Overall, the oven and companion units have some great cooking options. The unit is very attractive as noted and the oven light in and by itself is cool – it ramps up in intensity much the way an automobile interior light operates. Ramps down when it goes off.

The analog clock gives the appliance a ‘Retro’ look as well. But in fact I think Thermador retro’d me back to the 㣂’s or earlier. One feature that’s missing on the oven that still has me scratching my head is an OVEN TIMER. That’s right, there isn’t a Time Bake mode or even a separate Oven countdown timer. You’re left to use the Microwave Timer as your only option (limited to 99 minutes). But if your using that timer, guess what – you can’t use the Microwave !! I called Thermador’s customer service to verify that I wasn’t missing a hidden setting somewhere and confirmed there is no timer. I asked what the possible thinking could be and was told most people don’t use or want timers. An informal survey reveals this to be 100% incorrect to this point in time but maybe we’re old fashion or not professional cooks. I just don’t know…