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It’s been awhile now so I’m finally sitting down to provide a first hand account and review of the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro 900 BSS. Quite a mouth full there, but you’ll soon see why we have to be specific with all the various models out there.
Breville Smart Oven Pro Review of the 900 BSS Air Fry
We purchased our Breville Smart Oven Pro at the end of 2022. Although we’ve been using it nearly every day since, I wanted to wait until enough time had passed to provide a full and complete review based on personal experience. I didn’t want the “newness” to influence my objectivity.
Also, to be clear, I’m writing this review of my own will to be a help to visitors like you. I am not paid by the manufacturer to do this or given any free products. We purchased our Breville with our own hard-earned money. 🙂
How We Learned About the Breville Smart Oven Pro Air
The week we purchased this smart oven is seared in my mind because our original toaster oven broke down the week I was let go from my former job. Funds were immediately tight and making the decision to purchase a smart oven seemed out of the question.
I was fine with a cheap $25 toaster oven, but a Breville smart oven that cost nearly $300? After spending hours researching products online, my husband and I decided to give it a try and look at it as a long-term investment.
In this Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro review, I’ll explain why I’m glad I did and how I believe our purchase has actually saved us money. I will also cover the features, functions, pros and cons.
You can also check out my video below on YouTube (also embedded below towards the bottom of this page) that shows first-hand what to expect if you choose the Breville Smart Oven Pro 900 BSS with Air Fry capabilities.
Breville Smart Oven Pro vs Air Fry
Breville has a number of similar models. The one I’m writing about is the Smart oven Air Fryer Pro. The Breville has a mini-smart oven, a compact smart oven, a smart oven pro and a smart oven air.
Each of these models have increasingly more features respectively. The main difference between the mini and compact smart ovens vs the smart oven pro is the size and lack of features. They are your standard toaster oven appliance and nothing fancy. They are about half the price of the Smart Oven air.
I will explain the differences between the Smart Oven Pro and the Smart Oven Air.
The Breville Smart Oven Pro
The smart oven pro is for up to 6 people. It is the BOV845BSS. It only has 10 unique presets. It does have a slow cook setting, but unlike the Air model, it doesn’t have air fry capabilities or a dehydrating function.
It also only has regular Convection, not the additional Super Convection.
The Smart Oven pro also doesn’t have the proof setting which the Air does.
The Breville Smart Oven Air Pro
Sometimes this is called Air, Air Fry, or Air Pro.
This cooks for up to 14 people. It has 13 unique presets.
It also has a slow cook setting, which the Pro has and is the only other model that has it from this series.
This Air Pro (900BSS) has the air fry capability which I talk about later in the review.
It also has a Super Convection setting, also described below.
Which one to get?
After reading this review I think you’ll have a better understanding of the features and if it is what you are looking for or if it’s too feature-filled for you.
What Comes with the Purchase
Here’s an image of everything the Breville Smart Oven Pro 900BSS came with. The packaging was nice and neat and we had no issues with the box it came in. Like all our purchases, we save the box and packaging just in case there’s an issue and we have to ship it back. Fortunately, we have not had to do that.
Included in the box:
- 2 oven racks
- 1 broiler rack and tray
- 1 drip tray
- 13″ pizza pan
- wire basket for air frying and dehydrating
Where to Buy Smart Oven Air Pro Accessories
If you’re looking to buy additional Breville smart oven racks, replacement parts or trays you can find them on Amazon.
Breville Oven Racks for the Smart Oven Air can be found here and additional mesh baskets can be found here.
Features of the Breville Smart Oven 900 BSS
The 900 BSS has multiple cooking functions, pretty much standard. What makes it unique is the smart technology behind each of these functions. For this Breville 900 review, I’ll give my opinion of the following functions.
Broiling
Like a regular oven, the smart oven has a broiler which makes it useful for quick charring of vegetables or melting and crisping foods quickly. Nothing special here about this feature.
Toast
The toasting functionality is pretty sweet and tons better than I had originally anticipated. To me, toast is just toast. Our previous Black and Decker toaster oven made our toast and bagels too dried out. I disliked it so much I didn’t use it for toasting but used a 4-slice toaster.
To be fair, the Black and Decker was a great toaster oven as we used it to do more than just toast. However, the Breville blows the Black and Decker out of the water.
For starters, the Breville will adjust the length of time based on the number of slices and the degree of darkness you set. So, if you only have 2 pieces of toast – you set the dial to 2. If you want it very dark, turn the other knob to the dark position. The Breville will set a timer and start counting down when you hit start.
Not only is it convenient to know how long it will be until your toast is done, but if you decide to adjust the doneness the Breville will auto-adjust the timer.
Bagel
Yes, this smart oven has a setting just for Bagels and I love it. However, it doesn’t toast the top evenly (and the toast too), but it does well enough. Here’s an image.
I was convinced the 900 would not toast the bagel without drying out the inside, as I don’t like my toast or bagels very crunchy. However, the oven toasted the outside just right and left the inside of the bagel still soft. That was a big impressive win for me.
Air Frying
In all transparency, we’ve done very little air frying. We thought for sure we’d be using this feature to air fry potatoes, fries, veggies, etc. We never did. Instead, we air fried some dough we had left over from baking and decided to make little mini-rolls. We air fried them for approximately 8 minutes and they came out with a slightly hard outer shell and soft inside. It was perfect for dipping in our soup!
I recommend you read other Breville 900 reviews specifically about the air frying feature on Amazon, but from what I’ve seen is that it can get very messy and will require a good amount of clean up if you’re using a lot of oil.
Dehydrating function
Since I grow my own herbs, I thought immediately how I’d enjoy using the dehydrating feature. While the feature is a great concept, the fact of the matter is that it’s not practical because you don’t have any use of the smart oven during the hours that it is in use dehydrating. Dehydrating in general can take 6, 8 or even 10 hours depending on the food item.
Since we use our smart oven all day long whether cooking, toasting slices of bread or bagels, I can’t use the dehydrator unless I do so at night. I prefer not to run my appliances when I’m not around. So I don’t use the dehydrator function and just use our regular dehydrator instead.
When I have first-hand experience with it, I’ll be sure to include it for this Breville smart oven pro review.
Baking
We’ve used the Breville smart oven 900 BSS to bake cakes. It can fit two 9” round cake pans as shown below.
It is fairly even in temperature front to back, and if you’re unsure just turn it around half way through. We’ve made muffins, brownies, cookies, cooked frozen chicken dinners, reheated stuffed shells, cooked stuffed mushrooms (see image further below), and baked cakes as in the image above. The cakes shown are two 9 inch round pans.
Roasting
One of the videos that Breville put out talks about how it can roast a 14 lb turkey. Well, that’s great if you can find a 14-pound turkey small enough to fit. Here’s an image of our 12-pound turkey, albeit frozen, but it wasn’t even close to fitting.
It can roast a small chicken, but I still prefer a larger space to account for splatter and a loose foil covering over it.
Pizza
The Breville has a pizza setting, and I didn’t think much of it until I actually decided to try it. You can adjust the time and temperature based on the type of pizza you are baking. You aren’t stuck with the defaults they provide.
However, what makes this feature worthwhile to me is that it will beep you half way through the pizza baking cycle to remind you to rotate the pizza. If you don’t want to rotate, just open and close the door and it will continue to bake.
Slow cooking
I’m more into cooking quickly, so slow cooking isn’t something we do frequently. However, it has a Low and High setting – similar to a regular slow cooker. My Fagor 3-in-1 electric cooker has the same setting. I can’t comment much on this but I do like that it has this setting.
Proofing
This is very cool and I didn’t think we would use it, but my husband uses it almost every time he is making dough. If it’s a very large batch and we’re using a large bowl it won’t fit, but most bowls will fit without any issue.
The proofing setting will keep the oven at an even temperature of 100 degrees F which is great. You can’t do that with a regular oven. If I proof dough in a regular oven, I preheat the oven a bit then turn it off and place the proofing bowl in it. With the Breville, it keeps it consistent and it actually works.
Element IQ system
The element IQ is what controls the ability to sense the baking times based on what you have in there and the settings. The more you use it, the more you’ll see that it auto adjusts as you make changes. I’ve seen it adjust times based on sensing how many pieces of toast we have in there even though we didn’t set it.
I have no clue how the technology works, but it does and it’s great.
LCD display
The LCD display shows all the various presets you can use. Turn the knob to select the cooking function you want and it will give you some defaults. Sometimes it will use what you last used but I’m not sure if it resets or not. However, the display is very easy to read. It’s a good layout and design.
Interior light
The interior light is great. It illuminates the entire inside and it’s easy to see everything. Here’s an image of my mushrooms baking. Another feature I like is that the light turns on when you open the door. Very useful and just a nicety.
Magnetic auto-eject rack
One of my favorite features that I talk about in the video is the magnetic auto-eject rack. It only works for the toast and bagel rack, but when you close the door, the rack comes in contact with two magnets on the door.
When you go to open the door to get your toast or bagel, the rack pulls out about 2 inches or so since it’s attached to the door’s magnet. See image above. It makes it super easy to pull your toast out or to use a pot holder to pull the rack out further without fear of burning your hand.
Full length rack grooves
The full-length rack grooves are awesome. I learned about the value of this while reading reviews of another type of small oven that didn’t have full side grooves from front to back. As a result, when this individual pulled out the rack a bit too far, the back part of the rack tilted backwards causing his dish to slide off all the way in the back of the oven!
If the racks had been in full length grooves, they wouldn’t have slipped off like this. So, I made sure the 900 BSS had this and they did. Here’s a close up of the grooves and the rack stop guard which I mention next.
Rack stop guard
This is a feature that I’m not even sure Breville talks about much. Just as the above point talks about the rack falling backwards, it could easily fall forward if pulling out too far in general. However, the Breville has a stop guard that prevents that from happening.
Maybe that’s common with smart ovens, but I know our previous toaster oven didn’t have it and it was troublesome.
Size and capacity
Overall, the dimensions are 12.5×21.5×17”. It’s about 38 pounds which is still light enough for me to carry if I have to, but it’s clunky. It fits underneath a standard cabinet as it’s not very tall.
It does have vents on both sides so be careful not to place it up against a side wall. It also has a 4-foot cord which makes it nice for reaching an outlet that isn’t real close. It also makes it more flexible as to where to keep your oven.
We keep ours on a wire rack, mainly because we just don’t have room in our tiny kitchen. It works fine.
Convection Settings
The last big feature I want to cover is the convection settings. You’ll see this too in the video. The Breville 900 has two convection settings, Convection and Super Convection. When you turn on Convection it will reduce the temperature by 25 degrees, otherwise your food would over cook due to the convection.
If you use Super Convection, it will reduce it further by 10 degrees. I’m referring to Fahrenheit, but if you use Celsius just hit the button for Celsius.
I’ve used convection when I’m familiar enough with a recipe, otherwise I use regular bake. I’ve used super convection and it does speed up the cooking process a bit, but never so much that I consider this a necessary feature.
Cons of the Breville Smart Oven 900 BSS
So, let’s talk about what I don’t like about the Brevillle 900.
Cost. I don’t like the cost. It was $300 which, if I recall, we may have done a payment plan given our financial situation at the time.
However, in all fairness, I think it’s paid for itself since we rarely ever, and I really mean rarely, ever use the big oven which is a total electricity hog.
Size. Although it’s large, it’s not tall. But it does take up counter space. If it were just a toaster oven, I’d have sent it back, but considering it basically replaces our oven, it doesn’t seem so big. We use it on a wire rack because we have a very small kitchen.
Breville Smart Oven 900 BSS Maintenance and Cleaning
Since we don’t air fry or cook a lot of fried foods, cleaning is pretty easy for us. I’ve seen videos and images of other home users that show pretty beat up looking insides and trays. But you can clean it by soaking the trays and racks or putting them through the dishwasher.
The most I’ve needed to clean is the crumb tray which is nice and deep. It makes it easy to catch the crumbs and there’s no fear of spilling them when carrying it to the sink to dump out and clean.
I use a regular sponge and dish soap and for tough stains I use a stainless-steel pad or a brillo pad.
Also, one quick note is that when cleaning it’s easy to clean even under the tray when you pull it out. The way the grates are, you can reach your hand in (when it’s not hot inside) and pick up anything else that spilled. This was much harder with the Hamilton toaster oven we had.
Breville Smart Oven Pro Review Video
Final Thoughts
If you want to see other customer reviews and feedback, check out the Amazon reviews. That’s where we purchased ours. I also encourage you to watch our YouTube video above where I show you on video the various ways to use it. I think you’ll get a better understanding and a closer first-hand experience.
I hope you’ve found my Breville Smart Oven Pro Review for the 900 BSS model helpful. I recommend checking out other models for due diligence. The price tag is high, but if you use it to the extent we do, it is well worth it.
I also recommend getting an extended warranty, especially if you plan on using it extensively.
