The Fresh Loaf

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Is oven type comes in play?

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Anonymous baker (not verified)

Is oven type comes in play?

Hi everyone,

So I've been trying to nail my sourdough many times but never seem to have the inside properly baked. The crust always turned out perfect, but some parts of the inside doesn't really bubbling up like what a sourdough suppose to be, and also very dense, usually the bottom part that always dense. I always make my dough with 70-75% hydration. My starter is 3 months old and very active, and the levain always passed the float test, fermenting 12-14 hours in the fridge, all the basics are right. Then I tried Ken Forkish's recipe by adding a little bit of dry active yeast and it worked, but I tried to venture without adding commercial yeast and the result turned out ugly again.

Then I tried it at my work place and it turned out perfect. This is where it struck me, my oven at home is a conventional oven with only one heat source from the bottom. My work oven is a convection oven. So I was wondering, is the oven type really comes in play here? I tried adding steam, doing with different bake time, lid on lid off, still the same and kind of frustrated, because the step by step process from the beginning til the proofing is all working normally without any problem.

I wish i have my failed sourdough picture to show everyone. So I hope to find the answer here, if any of you ever baked in a conventional oven and works just fine, what did you do differently?

Thank you.