We have a vzug xsep oven, but I'm sure my question is relevant to any vzug oven. I was hoping for some help with the bottom heat function, as I'm not sure if what our oven is doing is normal or not.
When you use the bottom heat only function (ie no fan), does the temperature count up as it's preheating, the same way as it does with the other heating functions, or does it do something different? Can you heat the oven using bottom heat only? If you preheat the oven using a different function and you switch to bottom heat only does the temperature remain stable or drop?
I'd be so grateful if someone could have a play/bake and give our family some feedback. I've had the oven serviced 4 times since November and we still have this issue - is it me having expectations that are too high or should we make a final service call?? The service technician seems to think it's me and if Swiss experience is the same then I'll accept it 😂
I understand your questions and don't have an answer but would be curious to understand what issue you are trying to solve as that may help creative answers
Are you experiencing not high enough temperature? Or else?
Once you set the thermostat, the temperature inside your oven should not be affected by changing heating functions. Surely it will fluctuate a bit between heating cycles, but this is irrelevant to your question I think.
With bottom heat only function in the combi Vzug oven, ours does not count up the temp but rather show 3/4 dashes until the set temperature is achieved. This is different than setting temp in other cooking settings whereby temp will count up to the desired/set temp
As for switching cooking functions & temperatures, we were instructed to always open the oven door first before and of course the temp adjusts accordingly based on whatever setting/temp you change it to - I assume this is related to the humidity & seal
Thank you for your responses so far 😊 my apologies for the vague initial questions. I've been told by the technician that the oven is unable to heat to a desired temperature with bottom heat only and must be preheated in another function first, then switched to bottom heat only. This seems strange to me, although I realise it would be incredibly slow to heat the whole oven space with just the bottom element.
@kri My biggest problem is that the oven seems to sometimes heat quickly, sometimes heat slowly and sometimes the temperature drops in this function (ie I preheat the oven using a different function to 250° and after half an hour it falls to 180°). The technician suggested that the element is very weak and unable to heat the space on its own; surely as a minimum it should be able to maintain the temperature in the oven though?
@fcbarca thanks for your description of what your oven did. Ours is slightly different but similar idea - all elements count up except bottom heat only which shows the temperature which has been set, regardless of whether it has been reached or not (always shows 250° until turned off). Interesting about the second part of your message - I've never heard this before.
1) It's not even clear what you are talking about or what the actual problem is. What exactly is the oven not doing that you think it should be doing that indicates a fault?
2) I am not surprised the technician is annoyed with you when he has been out 4 times and has found no fault with the oven. What a waste of his time and resources.
- appliances are designed for a planned, common use
- any over engineering means higher price (comparing to competition)
- heating is needed for thermal looses + heating needed to warm up air inside and the material of oven itself + heating up the food
The oven is heated fast (small space, little material), heating up the food inside is slow (as it is working over the hot air, which is not the best media) and because of that, it doesn't need much energy, so yes most energy is needed for thermal looses
You already have over-dimensioned heating element, the upper one, because of grill function.
Except for pizza baking I don't see any other scenario where you would need all the heat at the bottom. And even there, you are actually just compensating the fact that kitchen oven is not pizza oven!
So, to me it is logical that bottom element is weaker.
*for pizza baking you can use pizza stone or metal, and heat the whole oven
**or buy a nice small pizza oven
it is still unclear what you are trying to do, except if you are doing a test, how much the lower element heats.
Surely it is a fault that the oven temperature drops 70 degrees after its been on for an hour and a half.
Except it doesn't do it consistently. Sometimes it maintains the temperature. This is where the confusion arises.
My issue: the temperature doesn't maintain at the temp it is set. But noone is able to tell me if that's normal or not.
Thanks Chuff, I've read the manual several times. It's awfully basic and simply says use this function to crisp the base of pies, pizza, wähe. My family love that, so yes it's a function we like.
Nejc, at the end of the day it has become a testing issue, unfortunately. I use the function and it's unreliable and unpredictable when it will or won't work and I'd be grateful if it always did the same thing.
Thankfully the technician has fixed other issues the oven has had.
Ok, in that case send it back if they cannot repair it. My V-Zug is stable inside my use, but: it is an old one with manual controls and I never tried to run it on max temp only on bottom heater.
btw:
If your problem is pizza, the answer is:
1. pizza stone (or steel)
2. pizza oven (Ooni for example)
home ovens are not made for pizza baking, even in many professional ovens they don't throw pizza after pizza inside, but you have to wait a little between series.