Neff B6ACH7AG3F built-in oven test: everything for cooking, (almost) nothing for comfort

Convenience of use

The Neff B6ACH7AG3F built-in oven is far from being the most popular model funky of our comparison. Here, sobriety reigns supreme: black window, black control panel, anthracite brushed steel for the handle and the metal parts on the side of the door. It therefore does not risk being tasteless and can be installed in any kitchen, even very designer ones.

The control panel, laced above the door, also plays the part of classicism to the fullest. Two dials surround an electronic display equipped with a few sensitive keys. For a built-in oven that sells for a whopping €1,000, we would have appreciated metal rotary knobs, but we'll have to make do with plastic. To avoid snags, these can be retracted into the facade, flush, and a push-pull system allows them to be brought out for handling. Nothing very innovative, of course, but it's still practical.

The great originality of the Neff B6ACH7AG3F oven (and the brand's other built-in ovens) is of course its retractable Slide & Hide door. When opened, very simply and without effort on the part of the cook, it will lodge in a cavity located under the muffle. This means you can get very close to the opening to handle dishes in the oven very easily. The idea is excellent and its implementation does not interfere with other aspects of the oven, such as cooking settings or cleaning. In a nutshell, the Hide & Slide system (exclusive to Neff ovens, remember) is a real added value.

This famous Slide & Hide door hides a muffle with a volume of 71 l, large enough to put the largest poultry in the oven without them feeling cramped. Please note, while the majority of built-in ovens have five levels for placing dishes, the Neff B6ACH7AG3F only offers four. It's not going to change the face of the world, but it's better to know.

The handling of the Neff B6ACH7AG3F will not revolutionize the genre. The left dial allows you to choose the cooking mode (natural convection, pulsed heat, etc.), while you adjust the temperature with the right dial. Extremely picky chefs will also be delighted to learn that this oven allows adjustment to the nearest degree up to 100°C, which is far from always being the case! On the other hand, after this fateful threshold, the temperature in the muffle is modulated in steps of 5°C. Classic.

Although this precision is very appreciable, we would perhaps have preferred that certain cooking methods allowed a little more heat. We are thinking in particular of the pulsed heat mode (here called Circo Therm Pulsed Air), one of the most used, which cannot exceed 200°C. This is all the more regrettable since the vast majority of other modes (except eco mode) allow you to go beyond the famous 200°C (275°C even for the pizza position).

Despite the lack of additional features, you can still set a cooking duration, a delayed start, etc. thanks to the touch pad on the electronic display. Without it being insurmountable, a careful reading of the manual will not be too much trouble to clearly understand the different operations to be carried out before programming the start of heating at a specific time, as well as its duration.

Another small regret is that cooking begins without any intervention from the user who would have to press a Start button, for example. Once the temperature is set, heating begins. We have had more problems, but it is never pleasant to feel rushed when setting up your cooking.

Modes and functions

The Neff B6ACH7AG3F built-in oven doesn't really bother with cooking modes. There are only eight of them sharing the spotlight.

Obviously, we find the very classic natural convection (the top and bottom resistances heat simultaneously) and pulsed heat (the annular resistance at the bottom of the cavity works in concert with the fan), called on this model CircoTherm Pulsed air. The eco mode takes the name Circo Therm Doux and the selection is expanded with a bakery mode (for bakery preparations, the bottom resistance heats up to a high temperature), the pizza mode (same as the bakery, but with the addition of a fan), bottom heat (for bain-marie), large surface grill and finally pulsed air grill.

We've already mentioned it, but the Neff B6ACH7AG3F doesn't benefit from any cooking assistants to help beginner chefs. As a reminder, this is a set of automatic programs which configure the oven (choice of cooking mode, temperature and duration) according to the dish in the oven and the quantity to be cooked. You will therefore have to program the oven yourself from A to Z.

Cooking

We can argue for a long time about the relative technological deprivation of the Neff B6ACH7AG3F. However, it proves capable of providing excellent cooking performance.

First good point, this oven raises the temperature very quickly. In pulsed heat mode, it takes a little more than 7 minutes for the heat in the muffle to go from 25°C to 185°C. If this is still a little slow, you can shorten this interval by switching on the static heat mode. This time, it only takes 4 min 30 s to complete this mission, which makes it one of the fastest models in this exercise. Note that rapid preheating starts as soon as the desired temperature exceeds 200°C.

As is very often the case, we notice phases of undercooking and overcooking in pulsed heat mode. However, the frequency is far too high and the differences between the highest and lowest temperatures far too low (less than 3°C) for this phenomenon to have negative consequences on daily cooking.

If necessary, to prepare the most delicate and demanding dishes, it is always possible to activate the static heat mode. In this configuration, we notice slender curves, without any notable variation. This means that the temperature hardly varies during the entire cooking process. Beautiful work.

Finally (and this is not so common), the eco mode turns out to be quite usable and has a profile quite similar to that of the pulsed heat mode, although with a slight drop in temperature if cooking drags on.

The shape of the enclosure, but above all the large fan contribute to the very good homogeneity of the heat throughout the muffle. Indeed, our graphs show that the eight curves which symbolize the temperature recorded at different points are very close to each other. Very prosaically, this means that all the biscuits on a tray will be cooked the same way, regardless of their location in the oven.

Let us end here by specifying that these very good provisions are valid at 200°C and 250°C.

Power consumption

If the cooking performance of the Neff B6ACH7AG3F is almost perfect, this is done without excess energy consumption.

In forced heat mode, it only needs 0.72 kWh to reach the end of our 45 min test, which consists of going from 25°C to 200°C and maintaining this temperature. In static heat mode, our wattmeter indicates 0.75 kWh.

The eco mode, certainly a little more energy intensive than the eco modes of the other ovens in our comparison (0.70 kWh compared to a little more than 0.50 kWh generally), is nevertheless usable since it is also much more stable.

Conclusion

Overall rating

How does the rating work?

If the Neff B6ACH7AG3F were a car, it would be a high-performance car, but without ABS, without GPS, without automatic gearbox. A Caterham Seven 485 Final Edition, for example. Indeed, its cooking performance impresses and guarantees perfectly cooked dishes. But for this, you will have to do without culinary aids (steam, telescopic rails, connection to a smartphone, etc.) which are now found on many much less expensive models. Therefore, one can wonder if the B6ACH7AG3F is a reasonable purchase. Everyone will see midday at their door, and those looking for perfect cooking will be in heaven. Chefs who are a little more tech-savvy, who like to have a plethora of cooking programs and an assistant to rely on, can move on, even if the Slide & Hide door remains a brilliant idea that unfortunately cannot be found anywhere else.