Q&A: Kashering an Oven for Meat and Dairy
Kashering an Oven for Meat and Dairy
Question
Dear Rabbi, greetings and blessings,
I would like to ask several questions regarding the use of a single oven for both meat and dairy foods:
We customarily use the same oven chamber for both dairy and meat foods. Until now, we have been careful to wait 24 hours between cooking meat and dairy and vice versa, but we have not been careful to heat the oven to its highest temperature for half an hour.
Today I looked in Peninei Halakha
and we saw that it says one must heat it to the highest temperature, but there is no need to wait 24 hours.
Therefore, I would like to ask the Rabbi the following questions:
- Is there a halakhic view that holds one should wait 24 hours between meat and dairy use in an oven, even without heating the oven to its highest temperature? That is, does this view stand on its own, or does it lack any significant halakhic basis?
- If I accept what is written in “Peninei Halakha”—to heat the oven to its highest temperature for half an hour between meat and dairy use—may I rely on the leniency described there and not wait 24 hours between uses?
- It says there that “the custom is to clean” the oven before kashering it. I would like to understand: is this cleaning part of the law itself, or is it merely an added stringency? For if the oven is heated to its highest temperature, seemingly there is no need for a thorough cleaning, only to make sure there are no substantial visible residues.
- Regarding pareve foods, such as french fries—am I correct that the lenient view described in Peninei Halakha permits baking them in an oven that absorbed meat (or dairy), even without kashering or waiting 24 hours? That is, when one wants to eat the fries with a food of the other type, and there are no actual residues in the oven, is it permitted to use it as is?
In closing, I would like to thank the Rabbi for the help. Even when these are matters that seem simple, it is important to me to make sure I have understood the Jewish law correctly.
Answer
See here for a short overview of the different views: https://www.kosharot.co.il/index2.php?id=411720&lang=HEB
It is possible to heat it without waiting. However, perhaps annulment of vows is required, since you are doing this only in order to be lenient and not because you have concluded that your previous practice was based on a halakhic mistake.
Indeed, strictly speaking, it does not need to be cleaned completely.
See the above overview.
Discussion on Answer
In my opinion there is no need to change the rack according to the view that uses the same oven.
As for pareve, you quoted Rabbi Melamed correctly.
I’m reading the answer again.
I’ll just note that I do wait 24 hours between one use and the next.
So I made pizza now, and I want to make french fries in another hour—according to the Rabbi, may I eat the pareve fries with my schnitzel?
I’m not going to answer anymore. Your way is always to come back again and again with the same question. I don’t know whether this is OCD; in any case, I do not treat such issues.
That’s perfectly fine—you don’t have to answer.
It’s not diagnosed OCD; sometimes the Rabbi answers indirectly and I don’t fully understand.
I’ll leave it at that.
Thank you for all the answers there are; I’ll try to understand from them.
I read on the Kosharot website that ideally one should also change the oven rack between meat and dairy use. By contrast, in Rabbi Melamed’s ruling in “Peninei Halakha” this is not mentioned. Until now we have not been careful to change the rack, and I have not seen another source that requires it—so my question is: is this a stringency of Kosharot, and ideally may one use the same rack afterward?
Also, what is the law when preparing a pareve food like french fries—when switching from a meat oven to dairy (or vice versa), must one heat the oven to its highest temperature for half an hour even ideally, or because it is pareve may one be lenient?