Using a preheated oven, but not a preheated pan
I do the no-knead baking method, my dough is pretty wet. I also use sourdough starter instead of instant yeast. I'm going to bake a loaf of equal parts spelt flour and Hard Red whole wheat flour and wonder if I could get away with just putting it into an open top bread pan for the final proof and then slide it into my preheated 500 degrees oven on top of a baking stone. I'll probably also use a pan of water for steam. I normally use a preheated 5 qt. dutch oven, but I'm wanting to achieve something more sandwich loaf shaped.
I usually bake at 500 with the dutch oven lid on for 15 minutes and off for an additional 20 minutes. Since there will be no lid, but also the pan will go in at room temperature, I'm not sure about cooking time, etc.
Any thought's. The loaf will probably be about 1.5 pounds.
Yes, that will work just fine. Bake at 475-500 for about 10-15 minutes (keep an eye on it to make sure the crust doesn't burn), then pull back to 425 for the rest of the bake, 25-30 minutes. If you find that the top is getting too dark, simply take the loaf out of the oven, flip it over back into the loaf pan (so that the top is now inside the pan), and put it back in the oven to finish the bake.
Good luck !
So, I did bake an oblong loaf.
lepainSamidien, thanks for your message. Unfortunately, I was not able to follow your advice, this time, as I had just finished baking my loaf about an hour earlier. I certainly appreciate your post however, and I will use your advice on temperature next time.
The bread turned out reasonably well in spite of me flying by the seat of my pants and forgetting to score the top of the loaf. Here are the facts followed by a couple of pictures.
I've never weighed my bread before today, but then except for the water, salt and any special add-ons like seeds or Rye flour if I'm making Rye bread, I don't actually measure or weigh my flour. I just add until it reaches the consistency I'm looking for. It turns out that my actual loaf weighed 2 lb, 6.5 oz, practically 2.5 lbs, not even close to the 1.5 lbs I guessed it was, and never has been (no wonder I'm getting fat), hahaha. So, there's that! heh, heh.
As I mentioned, I did about a 9 to 10-hour first proof, folded my dough and did a 60 minute proof in the pan that I baked it in. I discovered that starting with a non-heated pan and no lid definitely changes the baking time a lot! Since I was not using an enclosed baking vessel I began with the total standard time it normally takes using my enameled dutch oven, 35 minutes at 500 degrees. At 29 minutes I did an internal bread temperature check because I was nervous. It was only about 135 degrees. At 35 minutes it was about 149 degrees, or so. I set the oven timer for 10 minutes longer and checked again and the temp was up about 174 degrees. I did another 10 minutes, but I turned the oven down to 450 degrees. This time, it was done. The internal temp was 202 degrees. So, the total baking time was 55 minutes. One thing I did do to ensure a nice crust was add a pan of water to the oven when I put the bread in. Actually, I preheated that pan in the oven and poured 2 cups of water into it after I slid the bread in. That created some nice steam and it worked like a charm. The bread has a nice crust.
First, the pan was a bit large for the loaf and second, because I didn't score the top it came out a bit misshapened. Next time I'll add half again as much to my dough amount and it should fill the pan nicely. The crumb is also very nice.
Here are the pictures.