fan-assisted ovens [Matthew's Journal]

Wait until it's cooked through? Cooking times on packaging are always egregious lies, anyway.

Obviously it means less difference in temperature from top to bottom. Functionally in my very limited experience/conversations you want to set a fan-assisted oven to 10-20C cooler then a standard oven (probably closer to 10).

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This is what I was always told. Also, preheating fan-assissted ovens is generally unnecessary.

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IME, you always need to preheat the oven. It's often quicker in a fan-assisted oven, but not by anymeans always or by much. Otherwise, as

numberland said. It really doesn't make all that much difference. (

stripey_cat says she doesn't think the difference covers the cost of running the fan - more even top-to-bottom heat, but less even front to back, so not a reliable improvement. Her experience thus seems slightly worse than mine, but not by very much....)

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nthed, I drop the temp by about 10 degrees for mine and it does fine.

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IMVLE, reduce cooking time by something approaching a quarter. Or, if that wouldn't allow the thing to cook through, compensate by lowering the temperature a few tens of degrees.

Wikipedia says you lower the temperature by 30°C and even then get the food cooked more quickly, which feels optimistic (or over-cautious, depending on your perspective) with pizza and similar bread products, at least.

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It depends on what you are cooking, but I haven't noticed a vast amount of difference. I do tend to set the oven at the bottom end of the reccomended temp range (eg 180-200c)for fan assisted and top end for conventional though.

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I also have a FAO and also have the same problem. I tend to cook things at about 20C lower than the instructions and check it 10-15 minutes before, then leave it a bit longer.

Stuff like pizza that has a short cooking time tends to need careful watching and can go from frozen to overcooked in a very short space of time, in which case, turn it down a little more, just to make sure it's cooked through properly.

With roasting meat, I tend to start it off for the first 20 minutes at about 180, then turn it down to 150 ish.

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I tend to reduce temperature by 10C for most things, and by 20C for pastry / bread items, and in addition reduce the time by around 20%. I don't cook things (ie, meat) where it's a disaster if it's not properly cooked though, but my problem is more normally not burning the food.

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Presumably you've already tried googling for it to see if the manual is online?

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reduce temperature by 10-30deg.
And or reduce cooking time by 10-30%.

I have a fan oven and had to do a lot of experimenting before I figured it out. I don't think the manual helped at all (or maybe we simply didn't read it) so there was a lot of cooking fail at first.

For half hour things I don't cook for longer than 25mins, but I'm not precise about the temperature either, tending to go for 'a bit less for both' varying proportions depending on the sort of thing i'm cooking (eg pizza stays hot, at suggested temperature, but cooks much quicker, roast, temperature alittle lower, cook for almost as long...)

Many things have fan oven cooking times and temperatures on them.

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When food looks cooked, it usually is.

Works for me.

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I'd tend to reduce temperature by 10-20° (so 160°->150°, but 200°->180°), and keep the time roughly the same (maybe knock a few minutes off, but not much).

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Not that you necessarily need any more data, but I tend to keep the temperature the same, and check if it looks done after about 75% of the stated cooking time has elapsed.

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I normally do 10° off the temp and 5 mins off the time unless it's very short (10 mins or less). For things like raw meat (especially poultry) I usually keep the same time and temperature as conventional (had too many bad experiences of undercooked chicken), and for proper baking like cakes where time and temp are critical I tend to use the no fan mode. Just because you have one doesn't mean you always need to use it.

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cook it till it goes black, then put it in the freezer for a bit to undo the last few minutes of cooking.

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This is genius :-)

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In general, 15-20C lower temperature, and about five minutes per hour less. Some things that cook quickly (particularly pizza) tend to burn if you're not careful, so keep an eye on it! While the oven is more even in temperature from top to bottom, things near the vent at the back can get mildly scorched sometimes (again, pizza tends to be more crispy on that side).

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personally i cook at the normal-oven temperature, but set the timer 20% shorter to check. things like chips.. i find there's no difference. things like cakes seem to cook faster.

30 degrees cooler..? that sounds like madness to me. especially for things like pizza/chips - if they don't get that hot, they don't seem to crisp/cook at all.

our fan oven seems to be hottest at the front - a quite marked difference front-to-back, and the bottom's also cooler.. but i guess it's just not as great as if it had no fan.

i always pre-heat the oven. i can't see any reason why just because it has a fan, food will magically start cooking when the oven is at room temp. it still takes 5 minutes to get hot.

bottom line - nothing will be exactly as any manual or food package says. so until you know how long something takes, i'd not presume, and check it early/often.

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Ten degrees lower temp is where to start, because the circulation of the hot air heats whatever you cook more effectively. However, you will probably need to adapt the settings for the efficiency of the actual oven, and for disturbances to air circulation caused by the number of different items in there at the same time.

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I remove 10% from the temperature for my FAO, and keep the cooking time the same. It seems to work well.

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(that's 10% from the temperature in Celsius, obviously)

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C or F wouldn't make any difference

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Yes it would - the zeroes are in different places.

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Ok, I concede

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We tend to turn it down by about 10-15 degrees, and check things for not-cooked- and cooked-too-soonness when we haven't done them before.

We also don't have a manual for ours, can you tell ;) But given the instructions on the packets don't seem to be right for even normal ovens all the time, not sure it makes that much difference? We don't bake so I dunno for that. Experiment?

But...unless it's a very very old or obscure brand, you should be able to find the manual online or get one from the manufacturer.

I haven't read the other 25 posts, so if this just repeats them ignore it.

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Matthew's Journal

fan-assisted ovens

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February