The steam oven toaster is said to be the ultimate experience of toast. With a simple evaporation mechanism, steam is released into the oven while toasting. This helps to prevent toast, and other foods, from drying out. The result is toast that is perfectly crisp and crunchy on the outside, while soft and delicate on the inside.
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Things to Know About a Steam Oven Toaster
The simple steam oven toaster should also not be confused with the steam convection oven toaster nor the superheated steam oven toaster by Sharp Healsio. The steam oven toasters reviewed here do not have a convection fan, and only a simple steaming mechanism.
The steam oven toaster just has a reservoir into which you place water to make steam. You can choose to operate the steam function or not. Similar to the convection steam toaster oven, there are only a few models on the market.
Like any oven using steam, you should always make sure to clean and dry wipe the oven after each use. This helps to prevent rust from setting in and bacteria from building up.
Reviews and The Best Steam Oven Toaster in Japan
For the simple steam oven toaster in Japan, there are only two models that are popular and well-received. These are the Balmuda and the Iris Oyama steam oven toaster.
Balmuda, the Toaster – Supreme Regent of Countertop
- WDH/本体: 357× 321× 209
- WDH/庫内: 274× 204× 178
- 1 300 W / 230 ℃
- 2 Slices
- 4.4 kg
- Cord 1m
- Timer 15 min
- 3 Colors
Balmuda is a company founded by former Japanese rock legend Gen Teroa. Their exclusive range of products focus on technological superiority coupled with inspiring design and quality manufacturing. If you want to view their products first hand, Balmuda has a showroom in the Osaka Umeda Hankyu Store and in Tokyo Matsuya Ginza.
Key Features and Cooking Modes
The Balmuda Steam Oven Toaster has often been considered the crème of oven toasters. They cost a pretty penny, but may make your kitchen richer for it.
The steam function is only used with the 4 icon menu modes running from the bottom to the top on the dial:
- Toast mode: for sliced bread, Yamagata shokupan (milk bread), sandwich bread, bagels, and English muffins.
- Cheese toast mode: for cheese toast, pizza toast, or other dressed toast.
- French bread mode: for baguettes, rolls, soft Japanese koppepan, and anpan.
- Croissant mode: for croissants, chocolate bread, scones, Danish rolls, apple pie, melon bread, Weiner rolls, curry bread, and cinnamon rolls etc.
The Japanese manual has a full time guide for when heating breads at room temperature or when frozen. Frozen breads take 1 to 2 min to reheat to their original state.
The three temperature selections of 170, 200, and 230 ℃ are called ‘classic mode’. You should never fill the steam reservoir when using these modes. If you do, you can damage the toaster mechanism. You can use this mode for whatever other baking or heating you need to do including gratin and mochi.
Accessories for Balmuda The Toaster
When you buy the oven, a recipe book (in Japanese) is included together with the manual. Naturally, there is the completely removable rack and bread crumb tray, and the water measuring cup for the boiler reservoir. From their website, you can buy an enamel baking tray separately, and other spare parts.
You can view additional recipes online at their homepage. Alternatively, you can also view the contents on us.balmuda.com. The US market model is slightly different and has a special pizza mode.
There is no mention of pizza (?) anywhere for the Japanese model or in the included information – but you can try the cheese toast mode or just use the classic oven baking mode.
For oily breads, or items that are likely to drip, you should use aluminum foil if you don’t have a baking tray.
Balmuda KO5A versus KO1E
The latest Balmuda toaster is the KO5A series. The older KO1E model may still be available online, so be careful which one you buy. It’s easy to spot the latest KO5A model because the timer lettering is larger and the timer knob now incorporates an ON/OFF switch.
The newer model has overall better thermostat control and performance. It will also power off if not in use for 30 min. Other upgrades are to the water reservoir lid, and the rack net and crumb tray are redesigned for easier removing and cleaning.
This product is available through the Balmuda homepage, and numerous other online portholes like biccamera.com.
User Experience and Final Words:
Almost all people rave about the performance of the new Balmuda toaster and its ease of use. Essentially, you pay for the design, the look, the dedicated customer service, the product quality, and lifespan.
This oven can cost up to two to three times the price of other steam oven toasters reviewed below.
In terms of cheaper ovens, the Iris Oyama (reviewed below) is the most affordable choice. The Iris Oyama Convection Steam Oven Toaster is more comparable in terms of a high tech oven. The Tiger Convection Steam Oven Toaster is pretty much the same price as this Balmuda.
These convection ovens, however, are more complex to use, larger, but at the same time more versatile. For ordinary toaster ovens, with no steam, see the Aladdin Oven Toaster in our other reviews. It’s a popular toast-master often compared to the Balmuda.
Iris Oyama Steam Toasters – The Simple and Affordable Choice
- 2 or 4-slice model
- Element power controls
- 15 min timer
- Toasting guide on door
When it comes to oven toasters, Iris Oyama has a horse in every race. Their steam oven toaster comes in a two and four slice model. Both just use a simple water trough that slides into the upper left hand side of the oven cavity.
Compared to other steam ovens, it’s a somewhat crude though effective enough mechanism. Both the two and four slice models operate in the same way, although the power levels are different.
The 2-slice model allows you to operate the lower element and upper element separately or together on the highest of three thermostat levels. With the 4-slice model you can operate the lower element alone, or the lower and upper elements together on three power levels.
User Experience
People are overwhelmingly positive about both these toasters. Toast comes out crispy and soft inside. The simple steamer is effective especially with reheating bentos and stuff like pizza toast.
The nice thing about this design is that you can use steam with whatever you want and at any selected temperature. This is not something you can do with all steam oven toasters.
If you don’t want to fork out on a premium price, yet would still like the experience of steam toasting, these Iris Oyamas are quality ovens at an affordable price.
Doshisha is an Osaka company that started in 1974. They design and manufacture their own household products as well as trading other brands.
Their steam oven toaster has a different design concept. The steam function is set to a 5 minute limit with the knob on the left. The other controls are a thermostat between 80 and 240 ℃ and the usual 15 minute timer.
Generally, this steam oven toaster is well received, especially for the price. It is also handy for doing small scale low temperature steam cooking of other dishes. On the downside, the 1 m cord is a little shorter than average. You can research the product on their homepage.
Hiro Corporation is a Fukuoka based company and they made a wide range of lifestyle products. There have been two editions of their steam oven toaster – the HCST2016-I and the more recent HE-ST001.
Unfortunately, neither of these have been generally well received or reviewed. Most people report they do not toast so evenly. The water reservoir is on the right hand side and it is rather small and difficult to get water inside.
For these reasons, the Hiro steam oven toaster is not really recommended. The product seems to be discontinued on their homepage, but is still available on portholes such as Yahoo Shopping.
Other Choices for a Steam Oven
If you’re interested in other oven choices in Japan that incorporate the use of steam, you may be interested in our other posts: