Submitted by venkitac on July 19, 2009 - 6:33pm

Wetting surface of proofed loaf improves oven spring?

I made Hamemans Vermont Sourdough With Whole Wheat today (with one small change in recipe, 20% WW instead of 10% as Hamelman says). In addition to the usual steaming etc, this time I wet the surface of the loaf with my hand pretty liberally before scoring. It seemed to have improved my ovenspring tremendously, these cuts were about 1/2 inch deep, and as you can see, it came out pretty good. The left cut pretty much filled out completely:

 

 

I'll admit that I've not really had such good oven spring very regularly. Maybe this was blind luck, but I think wetting the surfce of the dough in addition to steaming helps. I'm sure the topic has come up on TFL before, and this is a repost in some way, but hey:)

 

Filed under:
user icon

great looking loaf

That's a great lookng loaf.  You might want to try scoring along the length of the loaf rather than across for some ears and maybe a bit more spring.  If you haven't seen it already, there's a great scoring tutorial put together by David:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10121/bread-scoring-tutorial-updated-122009

:-Paul

Thanks, Pablo. Pamela said

Thanks, Pablo. Pamela said the same in a different post, next time I'm going to try more "vertical" slashes.

user icon

If it turns out that wetting

If it turns out that wetting the loaf improves the oven spring - perhaps I'll give it a try.  Then I'd probably buy a spray bottle at the hardware store and use that.  That way I wouldn't flatten my bread while applying the water.

 

As for the slashing?  I cannot seem to do that so I just use a really sharp scissors and make cuts.

-Susie

Susie

if you are baking on a stone, don't spray water on it with the mister, or it may leave you with a huge, usless, cracked stone!

I usually spray my loaves....

When my high-hydration loaves are ready for the oven, I douse them liberally with a small spray bottle of distilled water, then slash with a wet blade.   They are on parchment, and transfer easily to the stone.  Once in the oven, I spritz into the oven also,...and again in approximately five minutes (closing the door quickly between sprays).  I just do this instead of adding a pan of water to the oven beneath the stone.   I think the "pre-oven spritz" makes the loaves bloom better as they tend to steam more.  It also helps with slashing.

I have similar results and a

I have similar results and a similar procedure.  After my final rise, I slash my loaves and then spritz them with water from a sprayer.  I get them nice and shiney and then into the oven.  I've not a had any problems with either of my stones (I use 2) spritzing when I put the loaves in and then again about 10 minutes later.  I also really like the carmel color and the crunch of the crust. 

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.