Electric Oven temp

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Chopstix

Head Chef
Joined
Oct 3, 2004
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Singapore
I need advice from the experts here. I've relocated to another country in Asia and am now living in Bangkok. The oven here is electric unlike what I was used to back home which was a gas model. The user manual says that as soon as oven temp reaches the desired temp setting, the light indicator will switch off. I also have a stand-alone Taylor thermometer that I hang from the grill rack inside the oven to determine actual temp.

My problem is this: I've found that when I set the oven to say, 200 degrees, the light indicator switches off after sometime but the Taylor thermometer only reads 175 degrees! I don't think there's anything wrong with my thermometer. And the electric oven is a brand-new FRANKE model.

So what I've been doing is to set the oven temp higher than my desired temp, and adjust settings based on the Taylor thermometer reading. It's quite exasperating.

Is this normal of electric ovens? Or is there something wrong with my oven thermostat and I should call for service?

Thanks in advance!
 
Yes, your thermostat needs to be adjusted.

But be aware that they often need recalibrating.

I would just use my oven thermometer all the time.
 
Electric ovens (and electric ranges in general) can be a bit erratic. There are differing levels of quality, and the low end can be quite frustrating. I'd go with the oven thermometer if you've used it before and trust it. Make yourself a chart of how the oven settings on the range compare to that, and go with it. :chef:
 
I have to go with RPCookin on this one.

Grew up with gas ovens, but for at least 25 years of my adult life have cooked with electricity.
Have found the electric ovens to be capricious beasts.:rolleyes:

Just married and no money, we moved into one apartment that had an electric oven. Went to roast a turkey, probably ten or twelve pounds (good cheap eats). As I recall I set the oven at 350 or so, my usual fall back temp.

Peeked at it in an hour and realized it was done.

Nah, couldn't be. Called the hubby and he said "Nah, couldn't be".

But then we looked again, and cooked it was.:ohmy:

Learned the stove had two settings, full on or off.

The thermostat did not work at all. :mad:

Whatever one set the beast for, it cooked at 500 degrees (bought an oven thermometer).
The turkey, however, was surprisingly moist and tasty.

The landlord :angry: would not fix the darn thing and we lived with that beast for one year.

Learned quite a bit about roasting though.

But my point, oh yeah, I suppose I should get there, is that we have never had an electric oven that actually cooked at the temperature it was supposedly set at.

Since the 'how to cook a turkey in a 500 degree oven incident' have always relied upon an oven thermometer.

They are readily available and cheap.

Now have a fairly reliable gas stove.

Maybe one of these days will stumble upon a turkey at a good price and try to recall what cooking at 500 degrees is all about.:LOL:
 
Thanks to everyone for the info! I guess best thing is to just trust my oven thermometer and look forward to making friends with my new wily oven.
 
Ovens don't hold a constant temp - they cycle off and on. If yours is reasonably close, live with it. If it is absurdly off, have a service person re-calibrate it.
 
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