Halachot and Customs
An Oven Used for Both Meat and Dairy: What Should Be Done?
Question
Hello, honored rabbi.
If there is an oven in which meat food is baked, and once dairy food was baked in it, and afterward they continued baking meat food again several times, my questions are:
1. What is the status of the dairy food?
2. Does the fact that meat food was baked several more times after the dairy food permit the meat food?
3. What is the status of the oven?
4. How can one use one oven for both meat and dairy foods?
Answer
Hello and blessings.
The foods that were made there in the past are kosher. However, from this point onward, the oven may not be used without koshering. The oven should be cleaned thoroughly and heated at the highest temperature for half an hour.
From now on, great care should be taken to designate the oven for only one type of food, either meat or dairy, and not to use the other type without koshering. If one wants to use a meat oven for dairy food, one must ensure that the dairy pan is covered with two layers of aluminum foil in a way that seals the pan so that no steam can escape at all.
With blessings,
Benjamin Shmueli
