Breville BOV900BSS Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro and Convection Oven Brushed Stainless Steel

This is a great countertop oven, perfect for an apartment or smaller kitchen, a more efficient alternative to your stove oven and probably even a great second oven on those days (Thanksgiving, for example) when you need extra oven capacity. Rather than tell you what you can read from more authoritative sources like Wirecutter and Serious Eats, I'll just touch quickly on a few things: (1) What it does -- and it does lots -- it does really well. Baking, roasting, casseroles, you name it, it's great. (2) It has an astonishingly wide range of things it can do. It has a setting for use as a dehydrator, which is a great way to preserve foods, or make your own jerky. It has a super low setting for proofing bread, for goodness sake! (3) Yes it is a hot air fryer. Not this product's problem, but there is no such thing as hot air "frying." Frying, by definition, is done in a hot oil. That's what gives food that taste you (maybe) love. Frankly, I do not understand this concept of hot air frying. But that's what people want, so I guess that's why manufacturers title their ovens with that name. The Breville is as good or better than any competitor as a hot air fryer. Not its fault that's a useless category. (4) "Toaster oven"!? HA. See Item 3 regarding air frying. There is no such thing as a "toaster oven." Again, the Breville is like the starship Enterprise. I should not complain if it does not fit in every parking spot! Read more

What should other customers know? You probably mean about this Breville and not the other 1000 things that come to mind. The oven rocks. It is shiny. It gets hot. Not too hot. More like what it shows on the lovely LCD when you turn the big knob. That hot, exactly. It is new, so I'm learning the time period that it takes for each type of food. It's a little different than my last Breville. I had to leave that in the city I fled from. I think the people down the hall knew who I was. I had that one dialed-in regarding how long things were going to take to get cooked how I liked them. The last one was only a couple of years old. It still had a bunch of life left in it, I'll bet. This new one has a bunch of different shelves. Racks? One of them is even round. Someday I'll figure out what it is for. In the meantime, I am using it for pizza. Pizza from the grocery store. Not frozen, but unfrozen. I think it could get a tiny bit hotter on the bottom. The cheese threatens to burn - you ever been threatened by a cheese? It's not great. - before the dough is completely done. I'm hungry. This is my third Breville. I think the first one got dirty and needed replacement. Actually, I have no idea why I replaced it. But I did. Did I mention this one has a big-ish air fryer basket? It does. I wasn't overly familiar with air frying. The last oven that I had, the Easy-Bake 100 that was here when I moved in, said it was an air fryer. Then again, it said a lot of things. Most of which cannot be repeated on this family forum. It left me with the impression that air frying is just putting things in a basket so they could cook from all sides at once. That's nothing like the frying I was familiar with. This one has , like, a fan. The fan has a turbo mode. It's still not like frying. But it does pretty good at "air frying." Better than the Easy Bake. Did I ever tell you about the time I met Eazy-E's son? No? I was on an airplane flying around. Oh, I should stick to the oven story, huh? Some other time. Look, if you want a high quality, shiny, toaster oven that has a big air fry basket, and also has a dial with a bunch of other settings, go with Breville. The model I've got is great. I'd have liked the option of it coming in blue. Or even black. No, blue. They have a model that is blue, but I think this one is superior. It sounds like it but that might just be because it is French. I think. Buy it, you'll love it. I do. It's hot. PS- Don't fight me. That was a joke. Which they'll probably make me edit. Read more

The media could not be loaded. Our Breville Smart Oven BOV800XL finally broke after 10 years of almost daily use, so it was time to replace it. Another Breville, no question - but which one? The newer Breville model (BOV900BSSUSC, the one in this review) seemed like the obvious choice, but I was afraid it wouldn't fit on the counter or it would get too hot under the cabinets. Short answer: It fits! It doesn't get too hot! It works great! Best choice! How did I live without it?? Long answer, for those who like to overanalyze everything (not that I'd know anything about that...): *** How big is it? *** - Width: 21.5" - Depth: 15" not including handle, 17.25" with handle - Height: 12.375" not including handle, 12.75" with handle See the attached pictures for how it compares with the BOV800XL. *** How loud is it? *** Quieter than the old one. The older 800XL convection fan was loud and almost rattled. The new one has 2 fans: one to cool the electronics and one for convection. Even with both fans, cooking with normal convection is pretty quiet. Airfry turns the convection fan up to 11 and makes a serious whoosh. I don't use airfry much (regular convection works just as well for most things we cook), so it's not a big deal. You want numbers? I got numbers. With the decibel meter sitting on the counter next to the oven: Baseline room noise: 33dB Oven, no convection: 55dB (mostly the electronics fan) Convection: 57 dB Airfry mode: 69 dB (Note that when the fan first starts, it's louder, maybe 66dB, for 1-2 seconds until it gets up to speed. That's how the old 800XL fan sounded all the time.) Check out the attached video if you want to actually hear it. *** How hot does it get? *** After 15 minutes of convection roast at 450°F: - Top front: 215°F - Top back: 160°F - Sides: 140°F - Glass: 235°F - Door: 220°F (top and sides), 170°F (bottom) - Back: 135°F - Wall behind it, a few inches away: 90°F - Cabinet above, 7" clearance: 90°F The cabinet above it does get warmish inside, so if you store your chocolate or cooking oils or other heat-sensitive stuff there, you might have a problem. *** How well does it work? *** Great! Having a 2nd oven is amazing for when I don't want to heat the big one, or need to cook things at 2 different temperatures, or need to keep something warm while the rest of the food finishes cooking. This oven has 10 settings, but I use only a few of them: - Toast: Slower than a toaster, but cooks the slices evenly. - Bake/roast: Temperate is accurate, cooks mostly evenly (there's a slightly hotter spot in the front right). - Airfry: I never had a standalone airfryer, so I can't compare. It does make things crispier compared with normal convection. Usually I just use the airfry basket with the fan on normal convection, and that seems fine. - Slow cook: Never used it. - Reheat: As far I as I can tell, the only difference between reheat and bake/roast is that for reheat, the timer starts when the oven starts heating. For bake and roast, the timer starts after the oven is already heated. Subtle difference, but surprisingly convenient for not overcooking your leftovers. tl;dr: Oven is good. I like it. Read more