Oven thermostat question

Unlikely to be better than +/- 5% (17 deg). Possibly no better than

Certainly subject to variation depending on age and technology used. An electric oven could possibly have better control than a gas oven (if PWM used to modulate the heating elements).

Do an online search for specs on various brands. Is Jenn-Air better than Kenmore or GE?

John

I don't konw if this helps, but you can adjust the electric oven control on GE and probably all electric ovens now. For non-electroncially controlled ovens, I'm sure the method is the same for all of them -- it's part of the operating instructions for each model --, and I'll bet there's a method for electronically controlled too. It would be a step backwards if there weren't.

snipped-for-privacy@jecarter.us wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Thanks. I appreciate your taking the time to respond.

Jesse

mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

It makes sense that new models would be better, but I'm not sure it would have occurred to me if you handn't troubled to respond.

Thanks for the help.

Jesse

LOL at myself. By "now" I meant as opposed to 31+ years ago. I'm not even sure about then, but my oven from only 30 years ago, that I just replaced because of a grease fire, could have the temperature calibrated by the owner, with a simple screwdriver.

And my "new" oven from 20 years ago, also non-digital, also had the instructions in owners manual. What about microwave ovens? I'll start a new thread.

That's very nice. Glad to hear it.

You're welcome.

Further to your comments, Smitty, there is the hysteresis band of the actual thermostat PLUS the significant delay in the heat from the element [which is also slow heating an cooling] getting from the bottom of the oven up to where the sensor usually is at the top. In the occasional tests I have done using a thermocouple [fairly fast responding] a measurement on the shelf in mid oven swings 30 or more degrees F as the element cycles.

Neil S.

...

We used to take nine-point profiles of our little industrial ovens; it never occurred to me to profile a cooking oven.

Digital oven thermometers are cheap -- the OP might want to answer his own question and get back to the group.

How long did each temperature cycle take, assuming this 30 or so degrees swing?

cy

That sort of swing happened every time that the thermostat cycled which was dependant on the heat loss, oven temperature and mass being baked. Presumably a convection oven would have much tighter control of gradient in the chamber with a fan blowing the hot air around.

Neil S.

Mechanical or electronic thermostat? Big difference likely.

When verifying the calibration of a thermostat, the interval between the hash marks on the dial is the tolerance; e.g. if the last mark passed is 350 and the next mark is 375, the expected reading is considered to be 350 +/-25.