If you love baking, you would understand that having an oven is a necessity. But then, it can be challenging to choose the right kind of oven given the many choices out there. Between infrared oven vs. convectional oven, what’s your choice?
In case you’re not familiar with these items, there’s no need to worry. We’ll make sure you can identify which ones you are using or will be using.
In choosing an oven, you need to consider some things like brand, manufacturer, uses, functions, capacity, and more!
Here are some comparisons between convectional and infrared ovens.
Editor’s Recommendation: Top 5 Infrared Oven VS Conventional Oven
What Is an Infrared Oven?
This kind of ovens uses energy waves to create heat inside a vacuum. Since the air can’t absorb infrared energy, the food that you are cooking absorbs it instead. When cooking using an infrared oven, the reflectors and shields inside heat up the food.
The moisture of the food that you cook inside an infrared oven absorbs the infrared energy. When molecules vibrate at high speed, while you’re cooking, friction takes place. As a result, heat is made, which speeds up the cooking process.
Since infrared ovens use infrared energy, the extreme temperatures might also affect you. It is best not to spend a longer period in front of an infrared oven due to the energy it emits.
What Is a Convection Oven?
A convection oven has a fan and exhaust system. The fan helps blow the hot air over and around your food that cooks your food evenly and quickly. Then the exhaust exerts that hot air outside together with the moist of the food.
Perhaps, what makes it different than the standard ovens is how heated air travels inside the appliance. With the convection oven, there is a circulation of the heated air, while in standard ovens, hot air is typically blown directly unto the food.
When cooking using a convection oven, you’ll notice that most of your dishes come out juicier than the standard ones.
Infrared Oven vs Conventional Oven
If you want to choose between infrared ovens and convection ovens, these are some things you might want to consider.
- Noise
Are you in doubt which between the two oven is the best in terms of its noise emission? You might want to choose the infrared oven. Convection ovens tend to generate a lot more sound compared to the infrared ovens.
Since convection ovens use fans and exhaust, those components are the ones that generate the noise.
- Price
As far as the price is concerned, we would want to buy the one to save more. Being a wise buyer doesn’t mean you always bought the cheapest, but you made a purchase right for its price and quality.
In terms of prices, and there isn’t that much difference between the two. Infrared ovens cost as much as a convection oven. However, you might wonder why they differ in sizes.
Infrared ovens have fewer parts than the convection ovens, whereas convection ovens have bulkier parts.
- Cooking Time
When it comes to cooking, time management is essential. There are foods that require stringent time management, especially when baking. Don’t wait for the food you cook to turn black.
Speed is also necessary. If you need to cook fast but just right, you need to choose which one will suffice you.
In terms of cooking time, infrared ovens and conventional ovens don’t differ that much. As mentioned earlier, infrared ovens heat the food by using infrared energy. Most of the food you are cooking absorbs the infrared energy resulting in faster cooking time.
The same goes for convection ovens; the hot air is circulated throughout the appliance and concentrates the heat on the food cooking inside.
- Cooking Capabilities
The primary purpose of ovens is to cook. Cooking your dishes to its most delicious state is what we want.
When using convection ovens, the food tends to cook more evenly since the air inside is encircling the food. Convection ovens are also better at browning. These ovens can satisfy your needs when it comes to browning.
Since the regular air inside can’t escape the area, the moisture coming from the food you cook gets trapped inside. Convection creates a dry atmosphere perfect for caramelizing sugars when roasting, baking, and browns vegetables a lot better while keeping the interiors moist.
- Clean Cooking
Cleanliness is next to Godliness, as some saying goes. Keeping your area clean is a necessity. It is the food we’re cooking here. Otherwise, your area will be prone to numerous bacteria, without you noticing it. So, it is essential to keep everything you use as clean as possible.
When it comes to cleaning, convection ovens have self-cleaning capabilities. The oven heats up to a super high temperature making the surface of the oven sanitized. These self-cleaning features tend to use up a lot of energy used to clean the surface.
The only problem with its self-cleaning feature is the fan. The fan could accumulate dust, which in turn can get into your food.
Now, infrared ovens are washable, and you can wash them without worrying about dust accumulating and entering your food. When it comes to cleaning efficiently, infrared is the better choice.
- Energy Efficiency
Who doesn’t want to save energy? Without a doubt, energy conservation is a necessity.
As far as energy efficiency goes, convection ovens are a no go. Because of their self-cleaning capabilities, it tends to consume a lot more energy than the infrared ones.
To save energy, you will need to try to batch out your items when cooking. Never leave your oven on for more extended periods.
- Safety
When using any appliances, safety first! It would be best if you took extra precautionary measures when using an infrared oven. These kinds of ovens can reach extreme temperatures. Try not to spend a lot of time in front of these high-intensity infrared emitters.
It is not advisable to stay in front of any ovens or microwaves at longer durations. It can ruin your health too. Not just because of the heat generated by each appliance but also because of the radiation it emits.
Final Words
Choosing between the two can be difficult. Hoping we have helped you decide which one you’ll choose between convection oven vs. infrared oven. Have a great baking day!