The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Steam techniques?

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Steam techniques?

What techniques and gear do y'all use to generate steam in your oven?

Here are mine:

A crummy old brownie pan that I punched 5 holes in the bottom of...

which I place below my baking stone for preheating. When I put my bread in the oven I pour a cup of hot water in the pan, some of which evaporates immediately and some of which drips onto the bottom of the oven and evaporates there.

And:

a 1 dollar laundry squirt bottle which I use to squirt the door and walls of the oven with water (careful to avoid the light bulb, which I have blown up more than once).

I hear an iron skillet works better to evaporate water quickly than a brownie pan, but I'm also quite certain that that is a quick way to ruin a skillet for any other purpose. As I have only one skillet I am sticking with my brownie pan until I find another one at a garage sale or thrift shop.

Does anyone else have any good tricks?

hellonwhls's picture
hellonwhls

We don't have a steam injected oven at work and I surely don't have one at home, either. I got this idea from the bakery owner and it works like a charm in both places, spray the loaf itself just before placing in the oven, then spray the inside of a roasting pan (lid or bottom) and invert it over the loaf. We leave it on for about 10 minutes.

“A woman should be ashamed to have poor bread, far more so, than to speak bad grammar, or to have a dress out of the fashion.