Pros and cons of cooking with an Aga

June 21, 2009 11:17 AM

Tell me about your Aga / Rayburn experiences

We love cooking: stews, baking, stir frys, sauces, roasts, boiled veggies...

What would a big cast iron cooker like an Aga do for us? Where would it fail? What do you wish you'd known before you bought one or bought a house with one?

posted by Bigbrowncow to home & garden (6 comments total)

Learning to cook on an Aga takes practice but you can cook all of those things comfortably on one. Personally, however, I do not think the charm is worth the cost unless you are also using your Aga to heat the house and hot water.

Is this just sort of "Oh, Aga, cool! Wantsies!" or do you have sort of a larger plan here?
posted by DarlingBri at 12:26 PM on June 21

Run it on the cheapest fuel possible - an Aga can often be converted from one fuel source to another.

They're great for heating water and drying clothes, but you have to work out a cost benefit unless you're stinking rich as they cost an absolute fortune to run. With the hike in oil and gas prices in the UK, a lot of my friends are desperate to get rid of their Agas as they're just too expensive.

Saying that, they are just lovely, and the house has a focal heating point, and it cooks stuff beautifully - once you get used to it. Mary Berry does a great Aga book, as I recall.
posted by stenoboy at 12:30 PM on June 21

I think Agas are really only practical in something like a farm house where you have people around all day and are constantly using the stove and cooking a huge amount of stuff from scratch (plus warming the occasional lamb or kitten). In a regular suburban house they seem wasteful. You are generating a lot of energy that no one is around to appreciate.

They now offer faux-Agas that look like the old ones but are not on all the time and function more like a regular stove. That might be worth looking into.
posted by fshgrl at 12:38 PM on June 21

From the owners I've talked to, range cookers do a great job of heating the house but are somewhat less great as actual cookers, they also cost a fortune to run/repair - they are massively inefficient compared to modern central heating.

People who are really into cooking tend to just get something like a smeg and spend all the money saved on copper pots and pans.
posted by Lanark at 3:57 PM on June 21

The Aga we had here nearly bankrupted us. Well, ok, that's an exaggeration, but it was about $25 a week in fuel, and that was four years ago. They are also not as "friendly" as a regular oven/stove, and the ovens especially were troubling because they didn't fit any normal-sized pans.

Looked fabulous, though.
posted by maxwelton at 7:18 PM on June 21

Aga dried out the plaster above it, caused massive ceiling collapse.


There, I've told you my Aga experience. What a ridiculous contraption.
posted by fourcheesemac at 1:30 AM on June 22 [1 favorite]