The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

dull crust troubleshooting

love's picture
love

dull crust troubleshooting

Hi TFL

As always I bow to your collective wisdom.

 

I have this ongoing issue with my bread. The picture shows an extreme example.

 

I always seem to end up with a pale and dull crust on top with zero caramelization. But I do get caramelized crust where the bread touches the cast iron. So you see, I get this 2 color effect. It happens with all my different doughs. I say this is an extreme example because for this bake I left my loaves in too long without my usual bottom heat shielding to see if I could get any browning at all on top, and though I did, it was a dark and dull browning, a burning rather than caramelization. The resulting crust is thick and chewy rather than being thin and crispy.

 

I think it might be related to insufficient steam or fermentation. Or not enough top heat from the oven. My standard baking setup is to use aluminum roasting pans as loose covers for the cast iron skillets in which the bread is baked. This method affords good oven spring and when the covers are removed, the breads are moist and steamy. But I suspect some negative impact on the crust from this method.

I have had crusty success using a different setup with a pizza stone and steel bowl as a cover. But I can only do one loaf at a time that way, which doubles my baking time.

I looked into Graniteware roasting pans but I want to zero in on the real issue before purchasing more gear.

 

Does anyone have any insight to provide here?

Thanks in advance.

 

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Spritz the loaves before going in and use Mega steam instead.  Lave rocks in a pan on the bottom,  Preheat wtih oven and put 2 C of tap water, not boiling water on the stones right when you close the door.  No more problems

love's picture
love

Thx DBM! Will try. Not sure what you mean by 2 C of tap water?

Filomatic's picture
Filomatic

Why cold water?  I guess it would produce more steam.  I use boiling water out of concern that cold water could lower the oven temperature.

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

Is the cast iron preheated or not?

Seems likely that the shiny aluminum covering protects the bread from both radiant and convective heat. People that use cast iron bottoms usually have cast iron tops.

If you want a large covering for several loaves, your best bet is a hotel pan.

love's picture
love

It is preheated. 

Yes, surely a fitted top would be better. But I'm trying to "fight the good fight" in hopes of finding a baking solution that doesn't require buying more stuff :) We will see if I can avoid it with DBM's suggestion.

 

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Thinking of using a preheated hotel pan on a preheated baking stone. What gauge hotel pan do you use, 22 or 24?

Thank you

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Bill, IMO the gauge is of little to no consequence. The important thing is to trap the steam near the bread.

As contrary as this sounds, there is some data that may validate the statement above. Take a look at this link.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/56822/cast-iron-cooker-vs-graniteware-thermal-data

Danny

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Thank you. Was wondering if the lighter gauge hotel pan might allow more steam to escape than a heavier gauge one. My plan is to preheat everything, load the batards onto the stone, pop a couple of ice cubes in Al foil ice cube sized "boxes", cover with hotel pan and bake for 30 min. Vent (remove hotel pan) and bake for another 15-20 min.

Mark, from AWMCOINC, makers of FibraMent stones, comments that just dropping ice cubes onto the preheated surface of the stone "isn't practical due to spreading of water and puddles damming up again dough." Said nothing about risk of FibraMent stone fracturing, so I take it that this is not a concern.

Seems key, as you point out, to decrease the volume containing the steam (for home baking without using a commercial grade, steam-injecting deck oven, which is truly wonderful), hence, the cover.

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

I also doubt it matters. And I don't think the hotel pan needs to be preheated. It heats up very fast, although I did paint mine black.

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Thank you. I expect you're right about hotel pan rapid heating.

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

I use a steam injector for the steam:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040ZCRZC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Drilled a small hole in the side. I shoot a 15s stream into the hole & leave the bread covered for about 10 minutes.

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Cool way to inject steam, although the device is not food-grade. How do you keep injected steam from escaping via injection hole?

The deck oven I got to use for a week in South San Francisco did a 2.5 s injection and that was considered long, but the injection method was more diffuse. Venting 25-30 min later. You must have done some experimenting to obtain your injection/venting times.

What is the impact of the steam injection on crust quality, particularly thickness?

How far from the heating element is your stone? Do you ever get burnt bottoms? I've seen this in a local home baker's hotel-pan-covered stone-baked loaves.

Thank you

 

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

The hole is small, just barely enough for the tip of the injector. Very little steam escapes and the loaf itself generates a lot. I don't see good-grade as being an issue. I don't clean it, but no bacteria will survive the interior of the oven.

"You must have done some experimenting to obtain your injection/venting times."

I've read that to maximize expansion, you want steam until the crust starts to set; that takes about 10 minutes under the pan.

"How far from the heating element is your stone? Do you ever get burnt bottoms? I've seen this in a local home baker's hotel-pan-covered stone-baked loaves."

In order to be able to lift the pan off the loaf while in the oven, I need quite a bit of vertical clearance, so the shelf is set fairly low in the oven. Bottom third? I don't get a burned crust, but that's controlled by what temperature you preheat the oven to. For a sizable batard, the total baking time is about 20 minutes; after I remove the pan, I turn on convection mode to increase browning.

 

 

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Thank you. I agree re: food grade except for possibility of chemical breakdown of steam generator's innards. I really like the idea, but worry about the hole.

Using convection for venting (if oven vents during convection) is a nice idea. I get great browning in Dutch oven (following Mr. Forkish's and other's lead), but am not happy with thick crust. I'm using whole grain flours. Hoping this will be less of a problem with FibraMent stone and hotel pan cover. Mr. Forkish recommends 475°F for 30 min with lid on and same temperature for 20 additional min with lid off. This was about what we used at San Francisco Baking Institute. What temperature do you use for 750-800 g boules and batards?

Thank you for being so generous with your help.

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

If the hole remains a concern you can plug it with a twisted piece of aluminum foil. 

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Thank you again.

Al foil plug seems a nice solution. Do you every have any warping issues with hotel pan, such that the pan no longer lays flat on the stone? I've got everything I need for doing this now (except the steam injection system). 

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Don’t remember ever having a pan warp. The lip around the top of the pan provides a lot of stability.

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Thank you!

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

I use Forkish's book, but I don't use Dutch ovens. I don't like boules, so that just doesn't work for me. I tend to use 450F most often. I wouldn't call the crust thick, but I haven't used the Dutch oven, so I can't compare. I have hard time imagining it thinner.

birdlandbill's picture
birdlandbill

Tried with a couple of ice cubes (placed in a small Al foil box) in a hotel pan-covered pizza stone and got

 

with a nice thin, crunchy crust, good volume, gelatinization and a typically mediocre scoring. Used cold, stone milled whole grain flours from Baker's Field Flour & Bread (sifted Bolles, unsifted Forefront and Coarse ground rye) to make Mr. Forkish's Field Blend 2, my current favorite bread. Didn't put anything on stone and flour on seam side made it easy to separate loaf from stone with no residue. The batards are ~ 800 g each. Thank you for help!

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Have you tried baking the breads on your preheated stone using the aluminum roasting pan as a steam cover?

Also, are you removing the aluminum cover from the cast iron half way through the bake?

This should be a simple fix.

Dan

 

love's picture
love

No. Why didn't I think of that?? It would be a sure tell. 

Yes, I do remove the cover and yet no top browning.

 

 

DesigningWoman's picture
DesigningWoman

do you use rice flour in your bannetons? Sometimes it's also a matter of dusting off the excess rice flour once you've turned your loaves out of their baskets before loading. 

Just my two cents…

Carole

love's picture
love

Yes, but the crust browns nicely under the rice flour where the dough touches the pan. So I think we can rule that out as a factor.

bikeprof's picture
bikeprof

The fact that you do get good color on the lower sections, and that you have had good results with the inverted bowl and pizza stone combo suggests it is not fermentation, but your baking setup.  There must be something going on with it, and the results suggest to me that the lack of a good seal (along with possible drafts - open the oven door much? or uneven oven heat...or an oven that vents a bit too well) might explain what we are seeing.  

A big part of the magic of the inverted bowl/combo cooker/dutch oven is from the sealed environment...

love's picture
love

Yes, I tend to agree. The thing about the aluminum roasters is that they really do not seal at all around a cast iron skillet, especially around the handle. Strangely, despite this, they do enable decent oven spring. (But they certainly can't hold any steam pressure, which is perhaps the key. Or, perhaps the oven spring effect comes from the heat shielding of the aluminum preventing heat from drying out the top crust, rather than from steam keeping it moist.)

Uneven oven heat seemed to be one part of the puzzle as well - browning was improved if I put a cookie sheet on the rack over top of the bread - but it's uncertain, as I have had so few successes with good crust.

The sealed environment seems to be a critical factor but I suspect that my oven heats only from the bottom which also affects things. For example I always have to lay down a cookie sheet on the rack below the bread-vessel or I get burnt bottoms. It's clear that where the bread touches the CI skillet, where moisture is sealed in and heat is directly conducted from black metal, the crust is deeply and richly colored, which as I see it really narrows us down to heat and moisture as factors.

My concern is that I purchase dutch ovens or some similar solution and then it turns out that due to the bottom heating, I still don't get top browning because of the height of the DO.

I will have to try some of the suggestions mentioned in this thread. Really appreciate the assistance from everyone!

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

before and during the bake. 

See if this thread gives you some kind ideas...

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/51099/4-coffee-filter-banneton#comment-375654

mohr's picture
mohr

I just had this problem and tried to troubleshoot it (and ended up here), but I also came across this blog post:

https://www.jorgencarlsen.com/journal/crust

"If you over-steam your oven, water will actually accumulate on the loaves, preventing blisters from forming and leaving a matte and dull look to your loaves. One sign of this is if the flour on the outside of your loaves is turning yellow and not staying white it could actually be turning into a dough itself from the excess water caused by over-steaming."

It's possible that it's a combo of too much flour on the surface + steam turning the flour to dough! I believe this is what happened to me, as I went a bit wild with my spray bottle in the oven in hopes that I could coax an unruly loaf to rise. It did, but it's also as dull as yours. I hope this info can help in the future, if it applies to you!

Butterman's picture
Butterman

This was very helpful mohr. Thank you for posting it. I am scaling up from a single loaf in a dutch oven to doing two loaves at a time on an aluminum sheet pan and a cast iron skillet below for steam. I didn't bake long enough and based on your post I did see some yellowing of the flour on top which would indicate I over steamed. Going to adjust and retest. Thanks again.