Uneven performance with a few highlights
LG made a big deal when it announced its line of ProBake ovens in August , so I had high hopes for the oven's performance during my bake tests. Unfortunately, the 72 biscuits I baked left me deflated. For each test round, I baked two sheets of biscuits (12 biscuits per sheet) on convection mode in the bottom oven. Round after round, the biscuits were uneven in color. Many of them had dark edges, but some biscuits in the front row of the bottom rack were much paler than the others on the same sheet.
I also tested the oven's performance without the convection fan enabled, and I was much happier with the results. I baked three rounds of larger biscuits (eight biscuits per round). The row closest to the oven door was often paler than the row of biscuits in the back row, but the difference wasn't as drastic as I had seen in the convection bake tests. Plus, there were no burnt edges on the larger biscuits.
The convection and traditional tests showed me that you'd have to spend more time learning just how to adjust your recipe's cooking times with the ProBake mode enabled, but you still might not have results that are as desirable as those from the traditional baking mode.
I switched to the top oven for broil testing. The broiler took an average of 17.97 minutes to bring six hamburger patties to 145 degrees F. This time puts the LDG4315ST near the bottom of the pack in comparison to other gas ovens we've tested. But the relative lack of smoke made using this broiler a better experience than I've previously had with models such as Dacor ER30DSCH .
Hamburger broiler testing
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Time to achieve 145 degrees F, in minutesBoth ovens have a "pizza" setting, which will automatically set the temperature of the oven based on the type of pizza you plan to bake (frozen with a regular crust, frozen with a rising crust or freshly made). I cooked two frozen pizzas with rising crust (one in each oven) at the same time on the same settings. Though I baked each pizza for 18 minutes, the results were drastically different. The pizza from the upper oven was underdone on the edge closest to the front of the oven, while the pizza in the bottom cavity was completely overcooked.
The LG LDG4315ST began to restore my faith in its performance with the chicken I roasted in the bottom oven. I used the convection roast feature, and I had an evenly browned chicken after about an hour and 20 minutes. The dish had a great combination of crisp skin and moist meat that I always look for in this test.
Stovetop cooking was a mixed experience on the LG LDG431ST. The UltraHeat extra large burner lived up to its name. It boiled 112 ounces of water in 10.65 minutes. The only gas cooktop with a faster boiling time was the Kenmore 74343 , which boiled the same amount of water in 9.75 minutes.
Large-burner boil test (gas models)
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Time to achieve rolling boil, in minutesI also cooked tomato soup on the cooktop to see how well a burner set on low could hold a steady temperature. The LG LDG4315ST brought the soup down to temperatures that were much lower than those of other gas ranges, which stayed pretty hot over the 20 minutes I let the tomato soup simmer on low.
Final thoughts
I really wanted to like the LG LDG431ST. Its design is user friendly, its stovetop is top-notch, and its app shows that LG is willing to invest in the future of smart cooking technology. But many of the features LG showcases on this oven are huge disappointments.
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