Do you have a gas oven at home and are wondering if it cooks evenly? Unfortunately, most gas ovens don’t heat your food as evenly as you would like. You may notice this when baking cakes or preparing your favorite meals.
Gas ovens don’t heat as evenly as electric ovens. The temperature inside the gas oven can often form hot spots, which cook the food differently. Plus, they tend to hold more humidity, which can lead to burning. Luckily, there are several ways to improve the heating to make it more even.
So, if you happen to have a gas oven in your kitchen, you don’t need to upgrade it. Instead, read the tips in this article to cook your food evenly. I made sure to add everything you need to know here!
Why Gas Ovens Don’t Cook Evenly
Gas ovens have more parts that can wear out over time. Your range might have started out cooking food evenly when it was new, but now leaves cold spots while other areas have burned. The heating elements can wear out in places, causing issues.
The temperature also can vary wildly in different locations within the oven due to how the heat travels. You can try replacing the bake or broil elements if you notice that they appear to have damage.
There are also a few simple tests that you can do to check for uneven heating.
Overall, gas ovens are very efficient, so you won’t want to replace them. Doing so is very expensive anyway. They’re inexpensive, and you probably already have everything that you need to get started.
Gas Oven Tips for Even Cooking
If your gas oven isn’t heating your food evenly, you’ll want to know how to prevent that from happening again. Start by trying all of the following methods.
Rotate Your Food
Always make sure that you rotate your food while cooking in a gas oven because the top of the range tends to be much hotter than the bottom. Plus, the closer it is to the heating elements, the more likely it is to burn.
To avoid burning and uncooked sections, make sure to rotate your food often.
However, how constantly you adjust the food depends on what you’re making. For slow-roasted dishes, you won’t need to turn the trays as frequently. When the temperature is higher, you’ll want to move the trays more for better cooking.
Overall, this simple method can help a lot. You’re sure to notice a difference the first time that you try it. Every gas oven is slightly different, so you’ll need to experiment and determine how frequently you need to adjust the food for the best cooking.
Add a Pizza Stone
Or, you can try adding a pizza stone to the bottom of your oven. You don’t want to cook on it. The stone is just there to warm up and better disperse heat throughout the chamber. You want to place the stone either directly on the oven floor or on the lowest possible rack.
Many people already own some pizza stones at home, so this is a quick and easy fix. For the evenest heating, make sure you combine this tip with rotating your food trays. Overall, the pizza stone method is straightforward and can help you out quite a lot.
Avoid Dark Cookware
You’ll also want to make sure you don’t use any dark cookware in your gas oven. The darker materials draw in the heat much faster, leading to burning when the food is in a hot spot. Using a glass baking pan or lighter cookware is probably your best option for most dishes.
However, you don’t need to replace your cookware if you have any that are too dark. You can place aluminum foil inside the cookware when you bake, which will allow better browning.
Contact a Pro
If your oven seems to malfunction, you might want to have a professional repairman look at it for you. They can assess the damage and make suggestions. Plus, they can also repair or replace the heating elements for you, which allows more thorough cooking.
Overall, you don’t want to avoid asking for help when it comes to your gas oven. If something’s wrong and you don’t know how to fix it, there is likely a reliable pro in your area who can do the job for you.
Replace the Temperature Sensor
This part can wear out over time, causing your gas oven to run hot or cold. You might be able to fix this on your own.
Start by checking if the temperature sensor is right against the inner wall of the oven. If it is, this placement could cause issues. However, it’s effortless to move the thermometer gauge back into place.
You’ll then want to test the sensor by using an ohmmeter.
The reading should also go up, along with the temperature of your oven, during the preheating stage. If the numbers don’t rise at similar rates, then you can call a maintenance specialist to help you.
For those who don’t have an ohmmeter at home already, I recommend that you try the AstroAI Digital Multimeter from Amazon.com. It’s accurate, has plenty of features that make taking measurements more convenient, and is a great price.
It’s also easy and safe to use in your oven.
Inspect the Calibration
Sometimes, unevenly cooked food means the calibration in your oven is off. If you’re setting it to cook at a specific temperature, and it’s always about 30ºF (-1.11ºC) off, the calibration could be to blame.
Fixing it would allow your meals to cook evenly again.
You can recalibrate the oven as long as it has digital controls for you to work with. However, it’s likely a different process for every brand and model of the gas stove out there. You’ll want to consult the user’s manual that should come with your oven for more information.
You can also contact the oven company’s customer service line.
Move the Racks
Another simple fix is to move the inside racks around in the oven. You likely have four or five different levels to work with. It can take some experimentation, but you can find out which rack your food cooks the best on.
Some ovens cook food better lower, while others work better higher. You may want to write down what you cook where, so you can compare the results.
That way, you don’t forget what rack placements you’ve already tried.
Straighten It Out
Finally, if the oven’s legs aren’t even, it can either cause the dish to shift during cooking or cause the heating gas to enter the chamber unevenly. You’ll want to adjust the oven’s legs so that it lays completely flat on the floor.
Hi all! I’m Cora Benson, and I’ve been blogging about food, recipes and things that happen in my kitchen since 2019.