Breville Combi Wave 3 in 1 – microwave, oven, air fry, grill and combi (appliance review)

The Breville Combi Wave is a 32-litre, 1100W microwave, 1550W oven, and 1100W grill that can replace several kitchen appliances. And being Breville, it works very well.

Let’s segue slightly because cooking technology has changed immeasurably over the past 50 years. In 1973, I bought a ‘huge’ Sanyo microwave. It had a drop-down door and a single rotary timer. It was perfect for vegetables but not much else.

Over the years, I have bought Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Sharp, and the eye-wateringly expensive and underpowered 900W built-in Miele (which did not last 10 years!). When combination inverter microwave and convection ovens (the steam option was useless) became de rigueur, we bought that.

Which brings me to Breville. We never considered it a microwave brand despite using its excellent double grill, blender, kettle, toaster, bread maker, multi-cooker, hot chocolate maker, coffee machine, and InFizz soft drink maker (beats Soda Stream, hands down) …

The Breville microwave range includes:

• Combi Wave 3 in 1 $749, 32L, Inverter, turntable (this review)
• Diamond Wave Flatbed* $319, 23L (equivalent to a 42L turntable), 900W
• Silhouette Compact Wave Flatbed* $199.95. 800W, 20L (equivalent to a 34L turntable)

* Flatbed does not use a round turntable and has a 30% more usable cooking area as it can use rectangular dishes.

Australian Review: Breville Combi Wave 3 in 1 Model BMO870BSS4JAN1

Website	Microwave page Product page Manual Combi Wave explanation Recipe Cards
Price	$749
From	Breville Online, Harvey Norman (and sub-brands), JB Hi-Fi, Good Guys, Bing Lee, David Jones, Myer, Retravision, Betta, and Breville stockist
Warranty	1-year ACL
Made in	China
Company	Breville (Wiki) was founded in 1932 in Sydney. This Australian ASX-listed icon has become a global brand selling in over 70 countries. In the past few years, it has acquired several international brands and partnered with Nespresso for capsule coffee makers.
More	CyberShack kitchen appliance news and reviews CyberShack Breville news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed. You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First Impression – Huge LCD, soft close door, and many options

It looks traditional in brushed stainless steel but has a huge LCD (great for poor vision), two rotary knobs (Instant Start +30 sec) and Adjustment (power, time, weight, food type and more) with the six combi buttons and my favourite – ‘A bit more’ to add more time!

Hidden behind the soft-close door (my wife loves this) is a Shortcut panel for more functions (more later).

It is 51.9 (W) x 31.6 (H) x 51.3 cm (D) with the handle and easily fits most kitchen cabinet cavities or on a benchtop (although the rear panel is basically all perforated metal and not for show). If you put it in a cupboard cavity, leave a 20cm clearance and make sure it is well-ventilated.

It has a microwave-safe Combi Crisp Pan (adjustable legs) and a Trivet to keep pans off the glass turntable. The LCD tells you when to use these.

Suffice it to say that it has all traditional settings – time, sound, child lock, turntable off and many more.

Breville’s challenge is to use this as more than a microwave!

Microwave Controls – Pass+

Press Start for 30 seconds, or multiple presses add 30-second increments. Or press the Adjust dial and select 10 power levels. We found that the 1100W setting was slightly more powerful than the 1100W Sharp we last used.

Two 70g eggs and 50ml of milk (scrambled egg mix) took under 2 minutes. The 1100W Sharp takes 2 minutes and 12 seconds, and the useless 900W Miele takes nearly four minutes.

Spaghetti on toast usually takes 2 minutes (Sharp), and that was just a tad too much.

Bagged popcorn took <2 minutes, whereas the Meile takes 3.5 minutes and burns the popcorn.

You can also call up a Smart Cook menu listing 15 types of food and set the weight or time (1-95 minutes). That is when the ‘A bit more’ button or keep warm can be handy.

You can also allocate one cooking process to a Favourite button.

Convection (fan-forced) Oven – Pass+

Food is placed in an oven-proof dish on the Trivet (prevents hotspots on the glass turntable).

Like any oven, you select the temperature (60-230°) and set the time (1-120 minutes); it preheats for a few minutes. We roasted a 1.5kg chicken at 180°, which usually takes 1.5 hours in a traditional oven. The preheat was about 8 minutes, and it took 65 minutes to reach 75° internal temperature—fast. We used a lot of paprika to get the darker colour.

While the results were perfect and the chicken evenly cooked, we missed being able to insert a cabled meat thermometer to monitor the process. In the future, we will experiment with turning the turntable off and see if the metal cable can fit under the door without damaging it or the door itself.

Hint: When roasting any meat, there will be splatter, and next time, we will use Glad oven bags to contain the splatter.

Grill – Pass

The top elements grill. There is no temperature adjustment, so assume 230°. Grill times are 1-20 minutes. Use the Cobi Crisp with legs extended, and you can line it with aluminium foil.

We made grilled cheese sandwiches, which were ready in about four minutes. This is slower than the oven or other grillers, but the results were OK. There was still not enough golden brown, but we could have left it longer.

The key issue with the oven and grill is the power-efficient pre-heat times compared to a wall oven.

Food menu – Smart Cook does not necessarily replace experience

After selecting cook, reheat or defrost, select the type and weight. Uses Microwave unless specified.

Popcorn (100g)	Hard veg not frozen (100-500g)	Soft veg not frozen (100-500g)
Rice (250/500g with water	Bacon (select number of slices)	Cake (oven 450g 20cm)
Cookies (oven)	Soften butter (125-500g)	Melt Chocolate (50-400g)
Frozen Pizza (microwave and grill)	Frozen Nuggets (200-500g, air fry)	Frozen Fries (200-450g, air fry)
Chicken (200-800g pieces or 1-1.6kg whole, microwave, oven, grill)	Meat (200-500g pieces grill, 750-2000g roasts. oven)	Fish (200-800g fillets, microwave, oven and grill)

Popcorn uses a 100g bag of microwave popcorn. It popped most of the kernels in about two minutes. I would typically place the bag in the microwave and select three minutes, pulling it out at 2.5 minutes or when there was no more popping.

Frozen pizza was good (microwave to defrost/cook and grill to brown), but a standard oven produces a crisper base and more golden cheese in a similar time.

Bacon was microwave-cooked rather than pan-fried crispy. I think the Grill function would have been better but more messy.

Air Fry – Passable

A traditional air fryer uses a perforated basket and air-forced heat to crisp and cook. The Combi Pan is not perforated and relies on being hot enough (pre-heat) to sear the food, and then turning it ensures all sides are crisp. It requires at least 3 minutes to pre-heat – if not more.

We cooked two supermarket-bought, defrosted, breaded chicken schnitzels. An Airfryer usually takes 5 minutes to crisp, turn, add cheese on top and a further 5 minutes to melt and brown the cheese. Left is the Breville and the right is an air fryer version.

At five minutes, neither side was crisp. We turned, and at the end of another five minutes, there was a semblance of crispness—but not the crunch factor we expected. We topped it with cheese, which took about 10 minutes to reach a golden melt—a total of 20 minutes versus 10 for an Airfryer. The schnitzels were cooked correctly but did not have quite the same crispy mouth feel, so it is more about knowing how long this takes.

We tried defrosted chips, which usually take about 15 minutes in an air-fryer. Three things to remember – don’t overfill the Combi Pan – single layer only, turn more regularly, and it took nearly 25 minutes.

Smart Settings – Pass+

Smart Reheat Food (1-2 plates) or beverage (250-1000ml ceramic mug) or by time (1-95 minutes). A 14oz 400ml Coffee came out at 64° (perfect).

Smart Defrost brings up the chicken, meat, fish, and soup menu by weight or time.

We tested with a range of ‘junk’ foods, including sausage rolls, pies, and DIM SIM, and these required some standing time afterwards. A 300g chicken fillet came out without the usual par-cooked edges.

Oven/Grill Temperature Accuracy – Pass

As far as we could ascertain, using a handheld laser thermometer, temperatures were reasonably accurate. Yet, to achieve the same level of cooking, we needed to set them 20° higher. I suspect it concerns the Combi Tray and the Trivet height. Like any cooking device, it becomes muscle memory – what you cook at 180° in a big oven is more like 200° in this.

Maintenance – Pass+

Apart from the roast chicken, the oven remained clean, and a wipe-over with a damp cloth suffices.

Warranty

It has the statutory 1-year ACL warranty, but given the price, consumers are entitled to coverage under Australia’s tough consumer laws. Canstar has declared 9-10 years of life for microwaves, so consumers can be sure that their rights for a major failure will be protected for at least half that time.

Do not buy so-called store-backed extended warranties – ACL covers that.

What dishes can you use in the Breville Combi Wave?

The 30cm turntable takes any microwave-safe plastic containers, preferably with clip-on lids and a steam lock valve, because you can blow the lid off.

Pyrex glass containers and Corning Corelle plates are suitable for the microwave and oven. They are not suitable for grilling, as they can crack.

We tried bamboo, and it seems OK, especially the stacked 20 (round) x 14.5cm Kmart Anko (three-layer for $12).

The Trivet is solely for lifting cooking utensils off the turntable, so it is suitable for oven use and can be used inside the Combi Pan.

The 270mm Combi Pan aids grilling. You can grill bacon, chicken, meat, etc. I place aluminium foil in it for grilling and baking paper for quick melts.

You can also use it for air frying, and the trick here is to use silicon air fryer inserts (19 x 12.5cm) to reduce splatter.

You can stop turntable rotation for oven and grill, but you may still need round cooking utensils.

Best use

The Breville Combi Wave can replace kitchen appliances, but you must experiment until times become muscle memory.

Breville has a recipe book that can help get you started. Search for Breville combi wave recipes, and you will find a veritable cornucopia.

CyberShack’s view: The Breville Combi Wave can replace several kitchen appliances

A housing developer friend uses the Combi Wave 3 in 1 for one—and two-bedroom rental apartments along with a two-plate cooktop. It gives the tenants more functionality than a full-sized oven while consuming less power. To be clear, it replaces an oven, grill, and microwave and can be cabinet-mounted, leaving the bench clear.

We have only been using it for two weeks, and the 34L microwave is enough for two people.

The only caveat is that you can only use it for one thing at a time. That is fine if you are organised.

We roasted the chicken and jacket potatoes first, wrapped them in aluminium foil to rest, and then roasted the pumpkin and carrots for about 20 minutes. It’s doable!

With the caveats

• Serial cooking means planning to get everything ready at once – precook some items and reheat to serve
• Mid-size is perfect for singles or couples
• The fan-forced oven does everything a larger oven does – only less preheating times
• The grill is about 25% slower than an oven but has a faster pre-heat time, so it is a draw

All I needed extra is my trusty Breville Smart Grill Pro for steaks, pikelets (pancakes), toasted sandwiches (toasties) and anything requiring a hot plate.

Breville Combi Wave ratings

Combination devices usually have a two-out-of-three compromise. You can have good A and B, but C sucks.

I would not call any function inferior, but its strengths are the microwave, oven and smarts, and the grill and air fry are average. But then I had the same issue with the Panasonic and Sharp convention microwaves – let’s not even speak of the Miele. If you take the time to learn, you can get very good results.

• Features: 90 for such a comprehensive device
• Value: 85—This is harder as 32L convection microwaves start at $500. But if you shop around, you can get 20% or more off, so it is reasonable value for all the extra features.
• Performance: 80—Overall, it delivers across all functions. The microwave and oven are the strongest features.
•  Ease of Use: 80—Overall, it’s very easy to use as its standalone functions. However, there is a learning curve for combi functions.
• Design: 85—The top features are the large LCD and the soft-close door. Otherwise, it’s a stainless steel microwave.

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