What Is Convection Cooking Technology?

Shopping for a new oven? Today’s market offers a large selection of ovens designed to simplify the cooking process with the latest features and technologies.

Naturally, you’ll need to decide on the technology that fuels your oven. So what are your options? Well there’s gas, electric… oh, and convection.

Convection is the latest and hottest technology used by appliance manufacturers today. But what is convection and is it superior to gas or electric?

Find out below!

Where Does Convection Come From?

History lesson time! Although convection ovens are only now becoming a hot item on the market, they have actually been around for decades.

They were first created in 1967 by the Malleable Iron Range Company in St. Louis, Missouri. When they first arrived on the scene, they were thought to be a tool for professional bakers.

WIth the help of advances in technology, convection ovens are now residential appliances that can fit into most people’s budgets.

What Is Convection?

So what exactly is “convection”? Is it a new fuel from a rare dinosaur recently discovered by archaeologists, or a new plant-based fuel created by scientists?

Unfortunately, no, but both of those would have made for some super cool stories. It’s actually a method - not a new fuel. In fact, it can use either gas or electricity in order to work.

Convection ovens use the heat distributed from either gas or electricity and instead of just letting the heat sit there, it constantly moves hot air around the oven cavity to evenly brown and cook your foods.

What Makes Convection Work?

Traditional ovens use one heat source to heat up the oven cavity, either a gas burner or electric element at the bottom.

Convection ovens work by using fans in the back of the unit to circulate this heat throughout the cavity and maintain a consistent temperature.

This allows you to not only evenly cook your food, you can also cook it faster with consistent results.

The convection method is also what can give you Air Fry results. Ovens with the Air Fry technology use a mix of heat and fans to give you the taste of fried foods without the extra fat of deep-frying.

Is Convection Better?

Just because convection is new and popular, is it actually better?

Gas and electric ovens work very well but have their downfalls. WIth just one heat source at the bottom that relies on the science of heat to rise, gas and electric ovens can have cold and hot spots throughout the cavity that can cause inconsistent results.

They can also take longer than convection ovens. Convection ovens can speed up cook times by 25%! That’s a significant increase in efficiency but that also means traditional recipes have to be recalculated to fit convection ovens.

Whether convection ovens are actually better than traditional gas or electric ovens are a matter of opinion. Many people are used to their traditional oven and prefer not to relearn cooking times and temperatures.

But if you’re comparing consistent results and cook times (and, of course, the ability to have Air Fry), convection is a true winner.

What Appliances Have Convection?

Not all convection ovens are wall ovens and ranges. Some can be as small as a countertop oven or over-the-range microwave oven.

So if you really want to try convection technology before updating your oven setup, we carry a wide range of gas and electric ovens from popular appliance manufacturers to serve you best.