I have a nice chunk of chuck roast I want to braise, then shred for stuffing into taquitos. But the weather is hot, so I want to choose the least house-heating method.
Which should I do - turn on the oven to braise it, or braise it on top of the stove?
Depends somewhat on the oven & stove top, but probably the stove top in either case.
Modern ovens are pretty well insulated so less waste heat, heating the house.
Stone tops, especially gas stove tops just pour a lot of heat into the room.
But induction stove tops, far less. That is where it gets tricky and I leave that to someone more savvy than I to answer.
But in general, the stove top puts more heat into the house.
What_Exit has it right but I have a good exhaust fan above my stove that will pull all the excess heat and steam from the stove.
I’m not sure about that. The heat has to eventually dissipate, right? That means releasing into the home. Also, the stovetop heats a much smaller area than the oven. Now, I can see where a toaster oven made for roasting would likely be more efficient than both of the others.
I think this depends on whether the oven is gas or electric. An electric oven can be pretty much completely insulated, like you say. A gas oven needs to vent to keep the flame going, which lets some heat out.
Anecdotally, I can tell that using my gas oven makes the kitchen noticeably warmer than the rest of the house. I don’t know how that compares to using the gas cooktop, though.
Top of the head here, I’d think the oven would be better at keeping heat confined in an insulated space. It won’t be perfect (one of my back burners, on an electric stove, for some reason has a vent from the oven), but I’d think a burner would pump more heat into the room, not being surrounded by insulation.
In my own kitchen, I’d probably choose the Instant Pot. If you have one, maybe consider that? (If you lived near me, I’d lend you mine.)
Of course you should run the exhaust fan to remove the steam but all of the air that goes out of the fan will be replaced with outside air, which is probably hotter than your inside temperature. That air will heat the house as well.
My WAG?
Ovens are inherently inefficient cooking devices: they heat the air, which then heats the pot, and air is a horrible conductor of heat. Stoves, OTOH, heat the pot directly, which means that you need much less energy to do your cooking. Advantage stove.
OTOH, if one wants to braise the roast at a lower temperature, the oven is probably the better way to control the cooking temperature for several hours.
Do you have a crockpot or other slow cooker?
Sous vide. The water bath stays lower temp [firm member of the 137 club for steaks] an one may chuck it in today to pull tomorrow - long slow braise in a bag is phenominal
This can be answered definitively by observing the electricity (or gas) consumption. In both cases, every watt/btu used ends up as heat in the house. Probably tricky to measure, though.
Google’s AI overview search results, for whatever they’re worth, suggest that a typical oven is going to average 400-600w maintaining 300F, and an 8" stove element on low will be 300-500w average, which is pretty close to a wash. I’m guessing a gas element is going to be worse.
I tend to agree. I have a “self-cleaning” oven which I never use in that mode, but it means that it’s very well insulated because of the extreme temperatures it’s designed for. It doesn’t matter, because the whole oven has to heat up and then eventually dissipate its heat. A stovetop burner involves much smaller heat dissipation.
My completely anecdotal evidence is that turning on the oven often triggers the A/C to come on some time after turning it on, at which time I observe the surface of the stove beginning to get warm. I have observed no such correlation with stovetop cooking.
Insulation of the oven absolutely matters. Once an oven is up to temperature, a better-insulated oven will require less heat to be added to maintain the temperature than a more poorly insulated oven. A theoretical perfectly insulated oven would require zero energy to be added to maintain a temperature once its contents were up to the set temperature.
If you’re baking cookies for 12 minutes this isn’t going to make much difference, but for what I’m assuming is a 3hr or so braise it absolutely will.
+1.
I’ll put in another vote for “in ideal circumstances, oven heats less than stove, but conditions are probably far enough from ideal that I wouldn’t be surprised either way”.
Y’know, I do have a slow cooker, but I haven’t used it for years. I didn’t like the texture of pot roasts done that way. But if I’m going to shred the meat anyway, I think that’ll be a good option. Thanks for reminding me of it. I’ll have to dig it out of the back of the pantry closet.
It’s also the one high-wattage appliance that I’d feel very comfortable running overnight (when indoor air temp may be less of a concern).
As long as your slow cooker (and its power cord – no extension cord, please) are in good shape.
If you do have a pressure cooker/Instant Pot, the quality of the braised meat beats crockpots by far. And it cooks in a fraction of the time.