The Fresh Loaf

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Miele Range with Moisture Plus: Any Opinions?

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

Miele Range with Moisture Plus: Any Opinions?

Hi everyone. Visiting an appliance store this weekend, I came upon what I think is a fairly good close-out deal on a discontinued dual-fuel Miele range with a steam feature called Moisture Plus. The salesman said it is great for bread bakers. I've heard this before and am suspicious. They only have one left in stock so I'm thinking about jumping on it before it's gone. I'm wondering if anyone here owns a Miele range with this Moisture Plus feature and, if so, what your opinion is of the range in general and the steam functionality in particular? Thanks!

–AG

gavinc's picture
gavinc

I have a Miele oven with the Moisture Plus function. It's fabulous!

I use it when demonstrating my DIY dough loader. I press the steam button at the end. (260) Home DIY dough loader - YouTube

Results example here: I've hit the maximum capacity of my oven. | The Fresh Loaf

 

 

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

That's great, Gavin, I appreciate your thoughts. The range is a bit of an investment even at closeout pricing, so it helps to hear feedback from a real user. Would you say there was a big learning curve or was it an easy adjustment?

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Very easy adjustment. At first, looks daunting, but after perusing the manual we found it easy. I recommend getting the Miele baking stone suitable for the model you purchase.

The moisture plus function can be used automatically or manually. I go with the manual method. 3 bursts of steam total. One 5 minutes prior to loading, then one after loading and another 5 minutes into the bake. It uses about 100ml of water per burst. You don't have to vent the oven, it finishes in a drying oven itself.

 

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

Thank you for this information, Gavin. I was initially distrustful of the bread baking claims, but now I think I might take the plunge. Our aging gas range isn't dead yet, but after 20 years, it doesn't owe us anything (except maybe a decent loaf of bread). I thank you for your very helpful feedback.

–AG

GlennM's picture
GlennM

We just bought a Miele oven on close out, it doesn’t have the steam option, I would have liked that, but so far it is really nice - replaced a 20 year old thermador 

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

I'm glad to hear that you are happy with your Miele oven because we're paying for a lot of features that don't involve steam and of course we'll be using it for all of our cooking, not just bread so I like to know other Miele owners are happy with their purchase. Thank you for the feedback. I hope you continue to love yours!

foodforthought's picture
foodforthought

… double oven with “moisture plus” (requires plumbing water to stove) steam injection in the upper unit. Both ovens have proofing, and many other, functions. The steam and proofing are great features for bread bakers. I’m not always in love with their user interface code. The modal dialogs (OK, OK, OK…) and algorithmicaly not-very-“smart” procedural sequences are occasionally mildly annoying, but after using for 6-ish months, I’m mostly very happy with the ovens.

Miele has other ovens they dub “steam ovens” but I have no idea how they differ from the ovens (not many, btw) like mine. I think there may be some lost in translation complications here, possibly exacerbated by marketing jargon.

 

Phil

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

I hear what you're saying about the marketing jargon. The product listing includes several features that seem very similar to other features with different names. That's a concern, but more of a concern is the unwieldy user interface. We have a microwave that requires us to hit eight – eight! – buttons to reheat a cup of coffee. Sheesh.

I was concerned that this oven might not produce enough steam... or the convection fan would set the crust too soon... or that there would be a big learning curve with times, temperatures, and steam. That doesn't seem to be the case. Thanks for your input. It helps a lot.

–AG

foodforthought's picture
foodforthought

It’s not fatal, but the programming style is a bit long in the tooth, possibly more German or more likely, more driven by engineer-who-thinks-all-users-are-incompetent-morons. Example: (to start proofing):

  1. set temp and duration (duration limited to 2 hours??? Why???)
  2. not very helpful message on screen: “Leave dough in oven until it has doubled in size”
  3. must hit OK to proceed
  4. next not very helpful message on screen: “Place food in oven”
  5. must at minimum open oven door (Miele is managing me here…)
  6. next not very helpful message on screen: “Shelf level 2”
  7. must hit OK to proceed
  8. at last something happens, oven comes to temp and remains that way for set duration. If you want to go longer, start again at 1

Annoying occasionally but the value of the features is greater than the obstacles placed in a mistaken understanding of of user friendliness. I would buy another if I was, god forgive, redesigning another kitchen.

Phil

Phil

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

... however, your endorsement that the benefits outweigh the annoyance tells me a great deal. Thank you!

–AG

GlennM's picture
GlennM

Our new Miele is fairly simple. Just two rotary knobs and a couple of touch buttons 

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

Hi Everyone! We ended up buying the Miele range with the Moisture Plus feature and it was installed on Thursday – just in time for entertaining over the long holiday weekend here in the US. So far, we love it!

The first bake was a sourdough (of course!) on Friday and the crust was nothing to write home about. I tried again on Saturday and changed the timing of the steam bursts and it came out better. I'll keep playing with those settings, but it's already pretty decent so I'm psyched about that.

Yesterday I baked a high hydration Forkish loaf and was inspired at the very last minute to bake it in a loaf pan (Thanks, Dan Ayo 😀). That's when it occurred to me that I really didn't know what settings to use. I'm a complete novice with convection ovens! So I'm wondering... in general, should bread be baked with convection or without? Should time or temperature settings be changed? etc... I'd guess the answers might be different for pan breads vs hearth breads vs enriched doughs, etc. Not looking for specifics, but if anyone can offer some general guidelines, I'd sure be grateful! 

–AG

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Hi AG. Congratulations on your purchase. When I bake bread on my stone, I never use convection, only moisture plus setting. I also do three manual bursts of steam; one 5 minutes before loading the dough, one at time of l loading, and a third after about 5 minutes (when the steam light comes back on). When I bake in loaf pans, I use conventional setting, never convection. 

Convection is really handy when cooking on multiple shelves.

Cheers,

Gavin

 

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

Good to have some confirmation on this. I didn't initially use steam or convection for yesterday's pan bread, that seemed rather intuitive... but when the bread started browning quickly, I de-panned the loaf as soon as it could stand on its own and switched to a low-temp (350°F/177°C) convection bake so the water would bake off without over-browning. Came out great, but it took an hour to bake – not something I'd want to do all the time. I used Moisture Plus for the hearth loaves and they baked up really nice, especially the second one. 

Thanks for all your help! We're so glad you, Phil, and Glenn recommended it, we love the range so far. 

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

for his artisan style open baked loaves, so he may be a resource.  

He recently mentioned it here: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/508857#comment-508857

In the follow-on comment I brought up some possible reasons why newbies can have difficulty with convection and top heat.  It's another variable to contend with.  

Maybe built in steam is something that allows successful convection mode, as commercial bake ovens also seem to use convection and top heat with success. But top heat and convection seem to wreck havoc with a number of newbies.

gavinc's picture
gavinc

The Miele "Moisture Plus" is a function of it's own and works great. The only way to inject steam is to use this option. Alternatively, one can choose to use convection (Miele's "fan plus") function or "conventional" amongst a host of other options.

LeConformiste's picture
LeConformiste

Hello Gavin et. al.

I’m new to all this, but hoping you can help with some technical details re: Miele Moisture Plus oven that will be imminently installed in our home.  The specs require the plumbed water line to have a water filter and an accessible shut off valve.  My questions:

1 - Where is the filter and shutoff valve located?  i.e. How accessible is it?—Ours will be plumbed from a split line that’s used to provide water to our refrigerator.  So, to shut it off we’d need to move the refrigerator.  It’s doable for us, but certainly not as accessible as the water valves under our kitchen sink.  Would this be ok for the oven?

 2 - What filter do you use for this and how often do you change it?

I appreciate your attention and expertise.

Christopher

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Hi Christopher,

You have a different model Miele than ours. Ours draw water from a jug when deciding the number of bursts of steam. We have a filter and isolation valve on our cold water at the kitchen sink. If I had your model, I would plumb off that one; only one filter and shutoff valve. I change the filter every twelve months. In your case you would have to move your refrigerator every twelve months. I recommend plumbing off the kitchen sink.

Cheers, Gavin

LeConformiste's picture
LeConformiste

Thanks for the quick reply. Seems I'll need to figure out a way to plumb from sink area; will be more costly...sigh.

Another Girl's picture
Another Girl

Hi Dave, I appreciate your jumping in. I just read your comment on the thread you linked and you are correct: Excessive top browning was exactly why I ended up changing the oven settings mid-bake with Monday's pan bread, so your point is well-taken. The Moisture Plus feature worked a treat for hearth bread, but when I wanted to bake without steam, I was stumped. Yeah, there will be a learning curve for sure!