Burned bottom, pale top
Hey,
so I set out to try Peter Reinhart's recipe for a Whole Wheat bread (from his book Baking Artisan Bread).
Well, I followed the recipe exactly like it should, but ran into lots of problems.
The bread was going great till I put it in the oven.
First, I had zero oven spring (even though it was rising quite good before). Second, the bottom got completely burned and it all got really glued to my loaf pan. Third, the color of the top of the bread was not anywhere as near as his bread on the book...
What I did was, pre-heat the oven and the baking steel (45 min). I have a thermometer and it was showing the perfect temperature (230ºC).
I put the bread on the loaf pan and the loaf pan on top of the baking steel. And baked it for the time he said.
Like I said, there was no oven spring, the top was kinda pale and the bottom got burned.
Did I make a mistake in putting the loaf pan on the baking steel? Should I not use the baking steel for this?
Any help, please, I'm so frustrated...
Here are some pics of this disaster...
1. no rise (just 3 finger high)
2. pale top:
3. bottom burned and broken:
4. Close-up texture of the crumb:
but I get your point. How big is the steel? Is there plenty of room for the air in the oven to circulate? Try lowering the temp 10° I find that when baking on hot steel, it has to be a lower temp than ceramic or stone. Then bake slightly longer. ...or the steel is too low in the oven, can try to raise it one notch without changing the temp.
Now how much dough was in what size pan? It could be that the pan is too big or needs more dough to fill it out. The crumb looks decent. :)
I take it the cracking of the loaf had something to do with it sticking. Next time butter and dust the pan with flour, crumbs or seeds... and/or cut a small piece of parchment for the bottom <--- that may help keep the bottoms from browning faster than the top.
Edit: Seems to be your gas oven is still giving you problems http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/38692/pale-breads
Time to improvise... Try placing a dark baking sheet in the empty space above the baking loaf, this might reduce the oven space and send more radiating heat back down on the loaf, experiment with shiny vs dark baking sheets and trying them upside down so the edge can trap heat. Change the method of steaming to several small dishes or cans in each corner of the bottom or lowest shelf, which ever is hotter. Gas heats rather quickly so about half a cup warm water in each can (into the cold oven) should be enough to heat up to boil, steam and go dry 15 minutes into the bake (might have to play around.) That way you don't have to remove any steam trays and cool down the oven. Make sure the water is boiling when you load the oven.
Take 1/3 of this loaf (if still around) and crumble it (into Altus.) Make up another batch of dough immediately and work the crumbs into the dough when mixing it up. Might need a splash or two added water to make up for baked out moisture.
Follow the same directions and use the same sized pan or slightly smaller. Shape a nice domed loaf (no striking it flat in the pan) and bake again at the slightly lowered temp. You will get more loaf and more flavour. :)
Thanks for the replies, Mini Oven.
Yeah I have many issues with my oven... but before I put all the blame on it (I already do!) and go out and buy a new expensive one, I really wanna be sure that my oven is not worth anything... because it looked like it would be good when I bought it...
The steel is 16x14 inches. That makes it around 40x36cm according to google.
My oven is around 45x43cm (17.71x17 inches), so there is a bit of space on every side.
I put it on the middle rack, and will try it on the top next time.
So, the loaf pan is 28 x10 (width) x7,5 (height) cm. All in all my bread had 418g flour, 284g water.
While it was proofing it was rising pretty good, and it got almost to the brim of the loaf pan. But just a very slight touch on the dough would deflate it quite some (maybe that was my mistake? Because just before I loaded, I touched it on some places and it went down). But anyway, the oven spring was nil! Even if it had deflated just before the oven, shouldn't it have risen in the oven?
Well, I thought the crumb was also kinda dry, but maybe it's my frustration also hehe
Yeah the bottom is all messed up because I had to scrape it off the loaf pan, piece by piece :( I will probably use paper next time.
As for the bread, that light-colored top looks a lot like what happens when I've followed Reinhart's directions to cover the loaf with oiled plastic. The oil seems to impart a 'hazy' appearance to the top crust and prevent it from darkening.
Based on the write-up and the photos, it appears that the dough was in the early stages of over-proofing. That depression running the length of the loaf's top certainly looks that way. You also mention that there was no oven spring, even though the loaf had been rising well before baking. I'd second Mini's question about the dough quantity relative to the pan size. You may need more dough for that pan or a smaller pan for that dough.
I'm curious about the decision to use a steel beneath a panned loaf. It's certainly not necessary. How much it might have contributed to the bottom scorching, I can't say. What you may need, rather than a preheated steel, is a pair of baking sheets, stacked, as insulation beneath the loaf pan to deflect some of the heat radiating up from the bottom of the oven.
Best of luck with future bakes.
Paul
> I'm curious about the decision to use a steel beneath a panned loaf.
It could act as a heat reservoir, smoothing out any heat variation some ovens display. I use a stack of ceramic tiles in my oven, whether I'm baking a boule on them or sandwich loaves in tins. That way the oven's behaviour is more predictable.
What I don't see is a purpose or value in using it with a panned bread. Especially if the preheated thermal mass is contributing to the burning of the loaf's bottom.
Paul
My comment was in the context of loaves in tins. It could still serve as a stabilising heat reservoir. Whether or not that would offer any real advantage over putting the tins on the oven's normal shelf is another matter. I was just speculating on what purpose it might serve.
Would putting the tins on a steel/stone cause the bottom of the loaf to burn? Surely that wouldn't make the tins any hotter than the air circulating in the oven, nor any hotter than a loaf placed directly on the steel/stone would become.
A stone, even more so a steel, provides a loaf with a much higher heat input by conduction than can the surrounding air via convection even though both are the same temperature. That's great for hearth style breads because it drives a rapid upward expansion of the loaf which has no side restraints. A panned loaf can only grow vertically because the walls of the pan do not permit horizontal expansion. Thus, it doesn't require the thermal kick from the stone or steel to drive the loaf upwards. It might (and this is where I was headed with my earlier comment) even be unhelpful to have so much heat transfer occurring on just the bottom surface, especially since the pan walls initially reduce the amount of heat flowing into the other surfaces of the loaf. The bottom would cook and potentially burn before the rest of the loaf comes up to temperature. That might explain the OP's experience.
Can I prove this? Maybe with enough observations but not on the strength of my current information. Since the OP has had other challenges with their oven, it seems as though there might be benefit in shielding the loaf pans from heat from below, rather than enabling an even faster transfer of heat into the bottom of the loaf via a preheated steel. There's a simple way to find out: bake another batch that is identical except for the preheated steel.
Paul
Analogous to the water being the same temperature but the flow rate being greater. That would make sense.
Well for the steel being there, I had just read that it can contribute for a more even heat distribution.
But, now, thinking about it, they say it can cook pizza and so on in less than 5 minutes.
So I think it was not the best option indeed? I will try to do it without the steel.
As for the size of the dough, I think it was appropriated. I just followed Reinhart's recipe. And although he did use double of what I did, he also divided the dough in two and baked two breads.
I just cut everything in half and baked just 1 bread.
I never seem to get this proofing time correct...
The dense zone at the bottom, and the way it collapsed at your touch, indicates overproofing. Also, I think the pan was too large. I'm guessing that the pan was no more than half-full before your final proof, and it was doubled (or more) before it reached the top of the pan.
If you start with a pan about 2/3 full, and bake when the dough rises above the top of the pan, you'll have a better visual gauge of your final proof.You could try it with the steel on a shelf *above* the pan; that way you'd get the heat reservoir effect without the excess transfer through the bottom of the pan.
vtsteve, thanks for the tips. The pan was about half full indeed, maybe even a bit less, right after I loaded the dough to proof.
It never really reached till the very brim of the loaf pan, it got very close to it though.
I will try with the steel on top, and maybe stack two baking sheets underneath the loaf pan, as PMcCool said.
thanks guys for the help!