The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

The Exploding Boule

mburns87's picture
mburns87

The Exploding Boule

Hey all, I'd love to get some community feedback on what happened here. Below is a photo of my most recent loaf. It went into a 475 degree oven (preheated to 500) on a stone with .5L of hot water poured into a cast iron pan and a few spritzes from a water bottle in the first couple minutes.

I decided to sit in front of the oven and watch how the loaf behaved, and didn't notice any perceptible rise after ~10 minutes or so. I figured it would probably end up on the flat side. The boule had other plans. At some point it clearly burst my scoring. I also noticed this in a second loaf from the same batch. When I watch DanAyo's video on under/overproofed bread it leads me to suspect these might have underproofed? 

 

eddieruko's picture
eddieruko

do you recall if you baked with seam up? or seam down?

mburns87's picture
mburns87

I loaded this so the seams were on the bottom. 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I love what I see. Now let’s hope the crumb doesn’t have huge holes.

Max, if you want to see more in-oven videos take a look at this post. I learn a lot by studying the time lapse videos. Seeing is believing.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/61659/ear-bloom-and-oven-spring-skin-deep-beauty

 

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

Mburns: are you using a convection oven?

 

mburns87's picture
mburns87

Nope! 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

underproofed gets my vote

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Mini, I know that under proofing is the common consensus, but many time lapse videos are telling me that properly proofed doughs can blow up in the oven and still produce gorgeous crumb.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I know we all hope for Max’s sake that it is a beaut!

The smell of baking bread is filling the house as I write this. A 2500g Miche looks super promising at this time.

Danny

slohcooker's picture
slohcooker

Two thoughts:

1) Do you have a gas or electric oven? Does the hot water and cast iron pan usually work for your loaves? One explanation could be that there isn't enough steam, so the crust hardens too quickly, but then the oven spring causes it burst elsewhere. If it's a gas oven, it's not designed to hold steam in, so you'd be better with a closed container system (like dutch oven or lid). Another thought -- you said you spritzed with a water bottle in the first couple minutes. Does that mean you re-opened the oven after a couple minutes to do the spritzing? That would've vented any steam you had in the oven, which defeats the purpose of the initial steaming.

2) By any chance did you score the loaf and let it sit for awhile before loading it in the oven? Seems unlikely, but that could've caused the outside to dry out and form a skin (including the scored parts), which held the loaf together until the oven spring burst it.