Convection ovens use fans to evenly distribute heat, resulting in faster cooking times and reduced energy consumption. A 25% reduction in conventional oven cooking time or temperature can be used as a guide for convection ovens, but adjusting both time and temperature will provide the best results.
Convection ovens differ from conventional ovens in the way heat is dispersed throughout the unit. A convection oven works by ensuring an even spread of heat throughout the compartment, allowing all areas of the oven to cook food at a constant temperature. This is achieved through the use of fans built into the oven housing, which blow hot air over the surface of the food. This technique gave rise to these types of ovens known as fan ovens. Using this method of uniform dispersion, there are no high or low temperature areas as found in conventional ovens and as a result, cooking times can be reduced or the overall cooking temperature of the oven can be reduced, with both operations which provide a reduction in energy consumption.
With the convection hot air movement provided by convection ovens offering more even heat dispersion, convection oven times are generally less than the cooking times required for conventional ovens. Hot air convection is only a small part of the cooking technique used in a conventional oven, with most of the heat distributed through the radiation of the oven chamber wall. This means that the food will cook faster or slower depending on its position in the oven. Because heat is distributed evenly throughout the oven when using convection techniques, food will cook more evenly regardless of its location within the oven.
When calculating convection oven times, there is no precise factor that can be applied as the type of food being cooked can alter the time required. As a general rule, when considering reducing convection oven times, reducing conventional oven cooking time by 25 percent will give a good indication of the times required for a convection oven. Similarly, when trying to reduce the temperature when using a convection oven, a 25 percent reduction from the temperature specified for a conventional oven will give an indication of the level of heat required.
Using a reduction in convection oven times and temperatures compared to conventional ovens is generally thought of as a combination of the two reduction factors. This means that reducing both the conventional cooking time and temperature to establish new convection oven times and temperatures will provide the best overall results. When reducing both temperature and time, the 25 percent factor will still apply, but as an overall adjustment. For example, when you decrease convection oven times by 10 percent, the cooking temperature should be reduced by 15 percent.
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