The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Baking stone on oven floor and massive failure

junehawk's picture
junehawk

Baking stone on oven floor and massive failure

So, I spent the last two days plus this morning working on the pate fermentee baguettes from Crust and Crumb. I was reading the bit about oven prep and decided to try putting the baking stone on the oven floor (I have a gas range).

Well, it was a massive, massive failure. The bread bottoms were scorched within the first ten minutes. I tried saving it, or at least finish baking see the crumb so I turned the loaves upside down. That was scorched to within 5 minutes.

Moral of the story, I am never putting the stone on the oven floor again.

I don't even know how I'm going to clean the stone now and get the scorched bread parts off.

 

BrianShaw's picture
BrianShaw

How hot were you burning that oven?????  In a residential gas oven I find the stone on the lowest rack position to be best.

as for the stone, scrape it with a metal spatula or wide putty/drywall knife. Get the bumps of burn leveled. Don’t worry about residual staining. After scraping, cook the stone a bit then scrape again. 

Benito's picture
Benito

Sorry to hear about the bursts baguettes, I’ve done that too when I tried to bake on the lowest rack thinking I could improve oven spring.  I now only have the baking steel on the oven floor when I’m not using it.

If you are working on baguettes we have a Community Bake on baguettes you should join in.

Benny

ciabatta's picture
ciabatta

Sorry on the scorched baguettes, they look promising too.  I always use a laser temperature gun to check my stone and dutch ovens.  i also have a little thermometer hanging inside the oven. you can get laser temp gun for under $30 on amazon now. i think well worth it. i also heat up my dutch oven on the stove to help bring it to temp in between bakes. very helpful to be able to read the temp.

junehawk's picture
junehawk

My oven burns neither hot nor cold (I have a couple of thermometers in there) and haven't had issues baking bread on the second rack from the bottom. When I realized the bread was burning I took the surface temp of the stone with a laser thermometer and it was something like 585F. Wild.

Live and learn.

BTW, the crumb was great and delicious, so I'm not giving up on this recipe.