The Fresh Loaf

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New oven, need advice

MichaelLily's picture
MichaelLily

New oven, need advice

Tomorrow I will be baking high hydration hearth bread in a Roto-Flex pizza oven.  Most of the decks are steel, and I have never baked on steel.

My bread is about 90% hydration.  I need advice on temperature and hearth temperature.  I usually bake in my wood fired oven at 500 degrees.  I also baked in a Bakers Pride deck oven at about 500 degrees.

Should I use a lower temp, like 475 or 450 since I believe steel transfers heat better than tile?

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

Michael,   I would use the same temp, but consider transferring the dough to a pizza screen or parchment paper midway through the bake.  The steel will definitely transfer the heat to the bottom of the dough much quicker than tile ( which is why some like to use a steel for pizza ) but that should not effect anything other than the very bottom of the loaf.  Nice oven by the way - post some photos of your bake.

MichaelLily's picture
MichaelLily

I set up a cool steaming rig in there and run it at 450 for bread.  It's a gas oven and I've had some pretty good success with it at those temps.  I don't know how to attach pics here, but look up "duluth's best bread" on google images for some of my bakes.