will a cooker oven heat up quicker if you turn it full on then turn it down to desired temperature

[encee]

eg if you want an oven on at 200 degrees is it quicker to turn it full up first.then back down to 200 or put oven to 200.i've always wondered about this one.hubby says turn it full on first

[woodchopper]

Just put the oven on at 200 - its just a thermostat on 99% of ovens.

[bednobs]

my logical head tells me it dosent matter ... it will only heat up at the speed it heats up really!

[Ethel]

It won't warm up any quicker - it will just waste energy exceeding the temperature you want over a longer time.

If you want it at 200, put it at 200 and watch to see when the light goes out - then it is up to temperature.

Now you will know roughly how long it will take.

[MrPahoehoe]

As long as you keep an eye on it and turn it down to the temperature that you actually want, before its reached this temperature & gone past, then it wont waste any energy.

I would imagine that it wont heat up any faster, since I believe most ovens will go at full blast until they reach the temperature desired by the thermostat.... although I have to admitt that I am guilty of the same thing ;-) I guess its all psycological.

[kwicky]

Unless you have an oven thermometer how would you know it had reached your desired temperature?

[MrPahoehoe]

Well you don't, what i do is keep flicking back to the desired temperature to see if its heated up, when its very nearly there i tend to leave it there, rather than overshoot it. Like i said, i'm sure its completely useless, but i still do it.

[Toureman]

Your Hubby is wrong.

[mattfox]

I had a similar thing where I worked... we had a hot water urn and a few people would insist on leaving on the highest setting to make it "boil quicker", then turning it back down again!

They wouldn't have it that that didn't work!!

[encee]

now hubby says that our fan assisted oven does not reach temperature instanly.i thought that was the idea of fan assisted?.please solve this somebody.he is always so right all the time.well he thinks he is..bless

[MrPahoehoe]

Surely no oven will reach temperature instantly: the walls of the oven and the air in will be cold, and require heating up. Most ovens will be heating at full blast until their internal termostat tells them that the temperature of the air (or whatever it is they measure) has reached the desired temperature. Once this has happened they will stop heating, just switching on and off as required to maintain the temperature (if you have a gas oven you can see the flames reduce in height dramatically when it reaches temperature).

As bednobs said; logically, this suggests that the oven will heat up at full speed, then turn off when it reaches the desired temperature, only coming back on when the temperature starts to drop.

Fan ovens circulate the air, so they can cook food at a lower temperature and/or more quickly apparently (the food will be in contact with more hot air per second, so more heat will be transferred). I guess this means they will be slightly quicker at heating up, since the hot air will be moved around the interior of the oven, but obviously it will still take time to heat the cold oven walls, etc.

[encee]

ok so why is it that recipes state there is no need to wait for the oven to heat up when using a fan assisted oven?believe me i am trying to understand all this???

[EDLEE]

While I am sure your hubby will continue to disagree until you drop the subject (sorry, but it's what we do when we think you're not sure) I must tell you the truth. He is wrong. the source of heat in all ovens manufactured for home use ( including convection ovens) are designed to remain at full output until the thermostat switches them off. Setting the temp higher will not change that simple fact.

Prepare yourself for farther arguments from your husband because we don't give up that easily!!!!

[encee]

you of course are soooooooooo right.thank you