Miele at Grand Designs Live

Forever Better visited Grand Designs Live and two of our guests, Gary and Jenny have put together their thoughts on Miele’s presence at the show.

Gary, The Inspirational Geek, has provided an in depth and visually rich rundown of what the day involved, in particular the Miele stand,

“The Miele stand was once again showing off their new range of kitchen products. Steam ovens, coffee machines and induction hobs that look great and have the industry renowned function to accompany. It’s also credit to Miele that some of the smaller brand stands were even using Miele ovens and fridges to surround their own products, they are the industry level of association and image other people want.”

He also talks about the live demonstrations and especially enjoyed the ‘hilarious’ Nancy Lam who was demonstrating Miele’s induction hob and submerged wok work station.

Jenny, The Style PA, has written a post at Yell.com under the interior design section. There’s talk of all that the show entailed and how seeing the state of the art homes of the future was a real eye opener.

In regard to Miele Jenny lists the products that impressed her and gives her thoughts on the Miele appliances,

“[…] their appliances are the most intelligent I’ve seen. This is one company that really has thought of everything, and we’re not talking gimmicks. As a Miele representative gave me a demo of the range you could see how every feature was a real solution to a problem or a way to make people’s lives easier.”

One thing that Jenny really loved was the Miele collaboration with SieMatic. Together they’ve utilized wireless technology to create a multimedia system that is integrated with the kitchen and can all be monitored and controlled from a single head unit. Very cool.

You can read the full posts at Yell.com and Inspirational Geek (Gary also has a photo set of the day at Flickr) where you can leave your comments and let them know your thoughts.

If you’d like to get involved with Forever Better and Miele then let us know by getting in touch below.

Miele appliances praised on Boards.IE

Miele appliances are held in high regard by Crossmolinalad, something he has expressed on Boards.IE.

The thread was started by Aldente who is looking to invest in an induction hob and a wall-mounted extractor. They are keen to hear of any recommendations or experiences of various brands to help inform their choice. They do express a preference for German appliances, but are aware that they are expensive. Crossmolinalad offers the following advice,

“Always bought everything Miele = expensive, but washing machine is now 15 years old and still working without ever needing a repair. Bought kitchen stuff two years ago in Germany, rented a van drove to Germany and bought the lot there.”

Road-trip! It might be a little extreme for most, Aldente included, but the advice was still well received. If you want to get involved the full thread is here.

More of the Miele Experience Centre…

Yesterday I promised to cover the posts by Feast With Bron and Source It, Cook It, Eat It, two of the bloggers who were among the seven that spent Saturday with Miele and ForeverBetter at the Miele Experience Centre.

Bron’s entry begins with imagery, the start of her Miele kitchen, before plunging into the details of the day. Arriving in time for the coffee demo, she was suitably impressed by the built-in machines,

“I tend to be hesitant about any coffee I don’t know but this was good enough to have another. So I did, getting to press the button myself!”

The rest of the day was spent split between four workstations, each offering a different setup. One had a steel plate for quick sealing, another had a salamander for the perfect grill finish, Bron worked out with a wok and a induction heated hollow and the final workstation offered a cast iron open grill.

Robin the man behind Source It, Cook It, Eat It mustered up, among other things, Malaysian tiger prawns. He like Bron was impressed with coffee and in his post passes on some facts. However it was the Miele name he was most intrigued by,

“I was interested to learn about some of the history of the company, since branding (especially cool and quality brands) was the topic of my dissertation. The heritage of the company goes back a long way; it being an innovator in a number of product areas since it was founded in 1899.”

In the experience centre this heritage is on display, in the form of products they created throughout their history. These include the moped depicted below – photo credit to Robin.

Go to either Bron’s or Robin’s post to read more, and don’t forget to check in on the other guys who came along.

If you’d like to get involved with this sort of activity, then drop an email to Claire telling her why you’re interested and she’ll get back to you.

How good are induction hobs?

As something of an early Christmas present saltireblue has promised his other-half a new hob and as they’ve no gas supply to the house is looking at the alternatives including induction hobs. As a novice in these kinds of things, he’s turned to the fellow members of the Land Rover Forums for their thoughts on the subject.

As an induction hob owner and whitegoods supplier, sherpa87 explains the benefits of induction cooking including speed: “faster than gas, takes about half the time to heat the same amount of water”, safety: “a lot safer, because the hob itself doesn’t get hot” and ease of cleaning: “if something does boil over it’s unlikely to be burnt on”.

All of which prompts saltireblue to make use of his decent year-end bonus and splash out a little bit extra on a Miele: “was originally thinking of spending about £750″, although for the grand he spent he got “auto non-boil feature, boost on all 4 zones, timer on all 4 zones” and a “5 year guarantee”.

If you’ve got any experience of induction cooking why not pop across and share your thoughts.