Does the oven door glass get foggy - is that normal?
I noticed that when I cook in the oven, the glass in the door keeps fogging up and I can't see anything. Is this a sign of a breakdown or does this just happen?
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Fogging up the glass in your oven is completely normal and depends on the humidity inside. When you're cooking a dish, especially if there's something with high moisture content, water evaporates and settles on the glass, which is cooler than the inside of the oven. It's physics, nothing's broken here.
To improve visibility, you can try a few things. First - just wipe the glass from the outside with a cloth while cooking, but it's kinda annoying. Second option - turn on convection if your oven has that function, because air circulation helps avoid condensation. Third way - crack the door open a couple centimeters at the end of cooking so excess moisture escapes, but this might mess with the temperature.
If the glass fogs up even when cooking dry dishes like cookies or meat - then yeah, you should check the door seal. Maybe it's worn out and lets humid air in from outside. But in 99% of cases it's just condensation, and there's nothing to worry about.
That's totally normal, I was worried about it at first too. When I started cooking more often, I realized that fogging is just physics. Moisture from the food evaporates when it heats up, and when hot steam hits the cold glass of the door, it condenses into droplets. It's especially bad when you're cooking something wet - soups, casseroles, vegetables, stuffed pastries. I actually made chicken wrapped in foil with vegetables recently, and the glass was just completely fogged up.
The only thing that might be a sign of an actual problem is if the fogging suddenly appeared when it never happened before, and at the same time the oven isn't heating well or you feel cold air coming from somewhere. Then the seal might be broken. But if everything works normally, it preheats fine, and the temperature holds steady - it's just condensation, nothing to worry about.
A tip: if you really can't see what's cooking inside, you can hold a towel or napkin against the glass from the outside - the condensation dries up there pretty quickly. Or just open the door for a second to let some of the steam out. Some manufacturers these days make anti-fog glass, but honestly I think that's mostly marketing.
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