cast iron versus stone thoughts
Last night whilst loading my 4 batard into my baneton, I decided to try one of them in a cast iron pot and the other 3 to be chilled till morning and baked off on a stone. I normally bake them all off on a stone, but thought I'd try one just to see the difference. I found the difference to be stark. Firstly, I had a hard time scoring where I prefer to score as the side of the hot cast iron was in the way. That lead to a terrible score and a tear in the top. The worst of it was the bottom burned, despite my taking it out of the cast iron pot at the 15 (of 40) minute bake. The damage was done..The whole thing ended up looking a pile of sadness.
My husband still ate 75% of the loaf as a late night snack (before I could make decent pics of it) The one bite I had was gummy and kind of gross textured (to what I prefer) Normally my loaves are light and fluffy with a slight gelatinous mouth feel.
Crust from the cast iron bake:
Crumb from cast iron:
Crust from stone bake:
Crumb from stone bake:
I knew I preferred to bake on stone, but now I'm 110% sure!
These are the same recipe, went through the bulk together and were shaped at the same time. Only difference is the stone baked had a 15 hour very cold retard at 2C, whilst the cast iron proved for the optimum time and went in when it should have been ideal for baking. My diagnosis is the cast iron had a terrible score and the energy escaped wildly, and unreliably . The Stone bake was scored properly and allowed the energy to escape exactly as I wanted and guided with my score.
Great crumb and crust were achieved on the stone baked loaves. Usually I score the loaf before loading it onto the cast iron using the help of parchment paper to avoid burns. I have done most bakes on cast iron with good results, but have recently installed a granite slab in the oven. I started experimenting with it and the results have been good. I may start using more the stone than DO in the future as well for convenience. p
I have posted on this before, but feel pretty strongly about it. When you think about the ovens people really want to use, they are clay, brick materials. Nobody thinks, if only I could bake in a cast iron oven. The reason being, metal conducts heat at such a different rate. You will find lots of posts here about burned bottoms in cast iron containers. With just as many tricks on how to get it to work. Stones, clay, brick. retain a lot of heat and release it in a slower way much more conducive to great breads and pizza. I would choose a stone or a clay cloche any day over metal. There is always someone that disagrees with me on this premise, and then I usually see them post about "oh if I only had that wood fire oven for my bread" and guess what, you know that oven isn't made of cast iron.