No more excuses to avoid convection baking
So far every time I had to bake a free form loaf I've always been undecided: convection or static? From cold or hot oven?
I'm incredibly cheap: I don't like wasting money for preheating the oven. Moreover I like the crust that I get with convection baking, but I don't like how the hot air prematurely dries the dough limiting oven spring.
I've been searching a solution, a method to get the best of both worlds. This is what I've come out with. Judge yourself if it worked :-)
And yes, absolutely convection baking from COLD oven.
A very long sheet of oven paper involved almost completely the dough to protect it from the hot air flow. At oven spring completed, when I saw the first spots of crust, I removed it.
I'm satisfied:-) Yet I feel that bread bakes better in fan-assisted mode rather than in convection mode. Convection blows hot air all on one side, so either you need a rotating dish (like in combination microwave ovens) or you need to turn the loaf every 20 minutes to prevent burning the side facing the fan.