Or almost every oven commercially available, for that matter?<p>I am trying to keep the oven warm to rise some bread and I'm wondering if it's a pointlessly frustrating process or if there is any reason for this?
Slide a cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven and fill it with boiling water, close the door. You don't need to cover the dough using this method. It will always proof in the same amount of time. Anytime you want to talk about yeast fermentation, I'm your guy.
At first I thought it had to do with the accurate range of cheap thermostats, but it seems like it's related to safety:<p><a href="https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/safe-minimum-cooking-temperature" rel="nofollow">https://www.foodsafety.gov/food-safety-charts/safe-minimum-c...</a><p>Actual article mentioning a mention of the regulation (which I haven't found):
<a href="https://www.chowhound.com/post/ovens-170-anymore-283403" rel="nofollow">https://www.chowhound.com/post/ovens-170-anymore-283403</a>
I think a cheap gas powered oven would have difficulty regulating to anything too low. Mine acts like an HVAC system. It clicks on an off to stay at the desired temp. There is no high/low/mid setting to the flame, which is large and in small space. My guess is that this leads to large temp swings where low settings can’t be accurately maintained.
Not a problem with my oven which starts at 30C (86F) in 5 deg steps.<p>I guess they are using some cheaper components that are specified only for a temperature range above 200F.
My ovens all had a row of burners. Maybe the maker does not want invest in the engineering required to make a subset of the burners fire below a certain temperature, so they instead make the lowest temperature the temperature the burners can achieve in unison at a low flow.