June 19, 2015 - 5:53am
Help troubleshooting sourdough
My wife recently has been trying to transition from using dutch ovens to our Subway fan oven to which I added a steam injection system.(I posted previously about it). The shelves are lined with ceramic tile as well as the bottom. When she has done it in dutch ovens it has come out prefect, Now as you can see from the photos it is not correct. She preheats to 450. Starts injecting steam about 10 before putting loaves to the oven then continues steam for about 10 min until they strt to turn brown. Reduces heat to 420 (which does not do a lot because the tiles keep the heat), open door to release stem, closes door then bakes until finished. Any suggestions to get this right would be appreciated.
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I suspect that your oven is cooler than 450 when the loaves go in and are being steamed. Have you double checked with an oven thermometer on what the actual temperature is?
Yes
...too much when the temp is lowered to 420, then the door opened to let out the steam? When baking in the dutch oven, you do open the door at about the halfway point so you can remove the lid of the dutch oven. This is the same as letting out the steam, but at that point I don't normally turn the oven temp down first. I might consider not turning down the oven and see if it browns more.
try 8 min with no pre steaming.
Well we had success. I did not do the presteaming. Steamed for 8 min or so
My wife think there was proofing problem in the previous batch.
She wanted to do it like this. heat the oven up to 500 degrees and at the beginning of the baking turn the oven off because it is a fan oven and she thinks the fan blowing causes some problem. Since the oven has ceramic tiles on the shelves and bottom, it retains heat well. Then after the steaming period, turn the oven back on set to 400 degrees and finish baking. Is turning the oven off necessary? Does the moving air from the fan disturb the crust process? We are going to do some more testing.
Does the moving air from the fan disturb the crust process?
Hmmm.
Sometimes, it the temp is too hot or fan too strong. Most fans have baffles and circulate the air much better than long ago when slanted muffin tops were common.
I can still see the cartoon of the baker testing the oven and assistant opening the door before turning off the fan, the cake batter stuck on the assistant's face dripping, eyes open in shock. From around the corner the baker asks..."Is the fan working?" Na ya,… :)
Steam is in the oven to prevent drying so the very high temp might not be so needed. Opening the door releases the steam. I turn my fan off my normal kitchen oven a minute before opening the door so as not to loose too much heat. That is when it is important to turn off the fan. If the fan can't be turned off, turning the oven off is the next best thing. But I turn it back on when the oven is loaded to take advantage of the energy saving.
Pre-steaming with steam injection is not needed and in fact can be dangerous when opening the oven to load. The nasty steam is invisible. Stay clear. Please don't blow hot steam at yourselves.