Anova precision oven
New oven from the sous vide people [1]. I'm a little weirded out by it.
Like sous vide, you cook at lower temps: they contrast cooking a turkey at 425F in a regular oven with doing it at 149 F in the Anova, until internal temp reaches 142 (then finishing at 480 for 7 minutes, presumably to brown). I can understand how this sort of thing works in water, which carries heat efficiently, but in air, even with convection? The point to this oven is that it precisely holds its temperature, unlike a regular oven that fluctuates, but I'm not sure how that translates into the lower cooking temp. This isn't a food safety issue?
They have a section extolling this for breadmaking: "You can't make this bread at home ... yet. To get the perfect spring, crust, and crumb in a loaf or boule, home bakers resort to hacks like water trays, spritzers, and dutch ovens. Our hack? Real, controllable steam injection. With the magic of steam, you’ll watch through the glass as your sourdough springs up, without all those stressful hacks. And the easy-fill external water tank will keep you cooking with 24 hours of continuous steam, no plumbing (or spritzers) required."
Steam injection (no plumbing needed)--cool. They have a baguette recipe [2] and it looks like the bread temps are more like we're used to (475F at 100% steam for the first 5 minutes, then 10 with no steam).
I have an ancient oven you can't get parts for anymore, and I'm anxious it's going to stop working one day--I already went to a regional appliance place, and due to the space's small size they couldn't find an in-wall replacement. So either I redo the whole kitchen or get a countertop oven. I have an Anova sous vide and it works well, but I don't know if I should consider this (if I need something).