December 22, 2016 - 4:09pm
Help with sourdough in MIWE condo
hello fellow bakers!
I have just purchased a MWIE condo deck oven and am really struggling with getting the steam quantity and temperature right to make great sourdough.
It is a digital model and you can set the quantity of steam up to 1 litre and the temperature of steam up to 250 degrees.
i will greatly appreciate and help or insight. Thanks!
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but whenever I was looking in bakeries while they were loading bread they were steaming for about 5-7 seconds, enough that the steam blew out of the oven. They also usually bake at 240 dC and don't reduce the temp at all. However, after approx 15-20 minutes the open the vent that the steam can escape and the crust starts forming.
Take this with a big precaution as I was just observer. As far as I know every baker dis some test bakes at the beginning to get the timings, steaming and temperatures in the right proportions.
Merry Christmas and happy baking with your oven!
Joze
Hello Seoul
You have purchased a mighty fine deck oven, could you be more specific about the issues you are experiencing.
How old of an oven did you purchase is it an older analog unit or a new one that allows a 5 stage baking program?, which deck size? do you have an inline water filter hooked up to the steam unit?
You have a fine oven capable of producing superb bread......however you must also peel decent bread into it to achieve good results.
It's a brand new digital model. 3 decks, 2 60x80x17cm and 1 60x80x22cm. the water line is connected to a filtered water system.
I am not a professional baker. I am a home baker who has been forced to dive into professional baking for my restaurant as here in Korea there is no great bread available any other way.
The dough is fine. I am getting fantastic results with the same dough baking inside a Dutch oven. However I have no clue with the temperature and steam settings to get similar results in the deck oven. The local reps have sold me the oven have no idea how to operate it and have never even heard of sourdough.
My scoring is not bursting well, the bottom of crust is soft and the bottom of the loaves are extremely domed making the loaves into a peculiar shape. I have experimented with many settings, my last attempt was 600mls of steam pre load, 600 mls of steam after loading. 250 degrees Celsius top and bottom for 20 minutes then valve steam and reduce to 220 until caramelised crust is achieved.
in diagnosing the problem.
I have a wood fired oven (WFO) and in that oven I never get the same results as I get when baking with Dutch oven. I attribute this to the fact that the atmosphere in the WFO is never so humid as in the DO although I throw several ice cubes in the cast-iron vessel in the oven after loading it.
When you say 600 ml of steam - is it 600ml of steam or 600 ml water? 600 ml of water would generate roughly about 1000 liters of steam what would be way too much for your oven. On the other hand 600 ml of steam is not enough for your oven either because the volume of your decks is roughly about 80 or 100 liters, so you need at least that amount of steam to be generated in order to fill the deck.
happy baking,
Joze
600mls of water. We have tried 200,300,400,500,600,700,800,900 and 1000 all with same terrible results!
So ive gone from baking sourdough like this for a year successfully in my Dutch oven.
Not only can I not bake bread anymore but I can't post images either!
http://s837.photobucket.com/user/checkoutwax/profile/
here you can see examples of the good bread I am used to making at home and the atrocious bread I am baking with my top of the line professional equipment!
is from MIWE oven and others are from home, correct?
Looking at your picture (if the first bread baked in MIWE) I would say that you have used too much steam. I compared your picture with pictures in book of famous French professor Raymond Calvel "The Taste of Bread" and I would say that that your bread is over steamed.
If you use only 200g of water you produce around 340 liters of steam and that is probably too much for the volume of one deck. I would reduce the amount of water used only to 60 to 80 grams what will produce enough steam to fill your deck.
Question: what happens if you don't use steam at all?
I know that sometimes people in such deck ovens use just a water spray to produce additional steam and I would assume that the amount of water used there is below 50g.
If you have run so many tests already I would suggest to run another set of tests where you increase the amount of water used for steaming from 0 to 175g in 25g increments. Start with 0, 25,50,75,100,125,150,175. I would expect that you will find that you need much less than 100g of water for optimal steaming. Just my assumption, but from your previous tests it looks like that the bread is over steamed and increasing the amount of water does not change the results to better.
Next question: is the deck full of bread when you run the test or there is only one or several loaves?
Try to bake at 240 dC all the time. If you reduce the temp during the bake, does it really decrease? Those ovens have quite a big thermal mass and they take a while to cool down. This is not your kitchen oven where you can easily decrease the temperature. Therefore decrease slightly the temp to 240 dC and use it up to the end of your bake. When you will find out the right amount of steaming you will also find the optimal temperature setting for your oven and amount of time you need to get the best possible bread.
Hope this will give you some ideas.
Joze
correct, the 4th loaf is an in scored loaf also baked in the deck oven.
Thank you for the insight! We are testing one loaf at a time but i think we should try filling the deck. Also the temperature of the steam needs to be set which gives another variable!
when you say grams do you mean mls?
The weight of water is 1000g/liter or 1g per milliliter. With water you can use either grams or milliliters, it actually means the same quantity. The difference is that gram is unit for weight while milliliter is unit for volume.But the end consequence is the same. So in terms of water you can express it in grams or milliliters the quantity will be the same.
1ml water = 1g
So I tried 10mls, 20mls, 30mls and 60mls. All were the same as before apart from the 30mls which was a little better. Now I am really pulling my hair out.
I also tried no steam and the result was worse.
Have you tried contacting a commercial bakery (say, in the States or Canada) that advertises 'artisan' breads, and asking them for advice? You could probably find one online that has an email address and would be open to questions.
So, having done a little reading, and thinking about this while in the shower (hey, I do some of my best thinking there!), I may have a suggestion.
For a little context, here's my line of thinking - I have set up my electric wall oven with two 'decks', being two slabs of granite on two of the oven shelves. I often bake four or up to eight loaves at a time so I use both decks. I usually pre-heat the oven to either 475F or 500F for at least 45 minutes before loading the bread, and steam is water poured into two trays of lava rocks on the bottom of the oven when loading the dough. One thing I have learned is that the loaves loaded onto the top deck sometimes do not burst as nicely as the same dough loaded onto the middle deck at the same time, and I think this is because the oven continues to pre-heat after loading (I keep the temperature at the original setting for five minutes before turning it down) and the loaves on the top deck are too close to the top element, which is still on. This means the top crust sets before the dough has finished springing. The cuts will look a lot like those on the loaf you posted that was baked in the new oven - flat and very brown and shiny in the 'open' part. This would also lead to the problem of the bottom of the loaf bulging. The top crust has set so the expansion tries to happen on the bottom of the loaf instead.
I understand the MIWE decks have separate temperature settings for the top and bottom elements. So here's what you might try - turn the bottom element / heat up a bit, and turn the top one down a bit. That might let the bottom crust set first and the expansion happen at the top of the loaf where the scoring is.
Edited to add: When you think about it, when baking bread in a Dutch oven, you have the dough in contact with the hot iron on the bottom, and a little bubble of cooler air 'insulating' the top of the loaf above the wet cool dough, even if you've pre-heated the lid of the pot. I think this contributes more to the lovely spring and burst of DO-baked loaves more than the small amount of (relatively cool) water vapour or steam that is trapped in the pot from the baking dough. The loaf sets on the bottom much more quickly than on the top, allowing the oven spring to go where it's supposed to.
Hope this helps!
Why not go to the source to figure this out, after all the Germans make fine ovens and very good bread. The miwe ovens can be preprogramed with up to five segments in a single bake program. I'm sure that they can actually send you a variety of programs, you could then enter this data, via usb stick directly into your oven.
Simply explain to Miwe in Germany that the folks that sold you the oven can't help you out, they will without a doubt come to your rescue, with programs and info on the recommended parameters for a variety of baked goods.
Hang in there
Hi, did you sort out your steam issues?
I agree fully with joc1954. You're using far too much steam with the condo--the pictures you provide are a very clear case for that. I wouldn't go above 200mL for any reason, personally, and I have only the 60x80x22cm decks that require a bit more. You'll probably be happy in the 60-80mL range, venting after 12-15min. I should add that it's good practice to vent manually as well, if possible, as simply opening the damper tends to diffuse the humidity very slowly. The Condo I use (previous generation from 2013) does not have the option to set steam temperature, but I would be inclined to set it at the lowest possible setting. Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Im having exactly the same issue and have tried with all possible steam setting options. Was a solution found for this?