September 8, 2017 - 10:03am
Bread and baguettes in a commercial convection oven?
As I am trying to find a solid oven set up I have access to a commercial convection oven in a restaurant after hours with the stipulation that I try to get some baguettes with a very open crumb up and running in exchange.
That being said, I know a deck oven is the ideal and I am unable to find much info on people baking bread well in a convection oven that lacks steam and moves a lot of air. Any one familiar with successful baking in these types of ovens? Have a good baguette recipe to try?
Thanks for the time!
J
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Some of my posts - I bske baguettes in a gas oven and been through all sorts of trials to get them to come out right - if you are interested I can give you some info on mods that help :)
Maybe explain some of the things you've already tried as this is not simple task - it took me nearly 1000 loaves to start getting consistent results (that might help get an idea of what's worked for you and what hasn't )
I have one of your posts saved that I have been looking at for a couple weeks now and saw that you put a lot of trial into baguettes! To answer your question I have 0 baguettes under my belt. I am trying to gather some information and try to make better mistakes in my baguette trials. I do have a lot other sourdough loaf experience but am unsure how much that translates.
I also have not used a convection oven and have been using a home gas oven. I am a bit intimidated by a commercial convection oven since deck ovens are the standard bread oven.
Essentially I am going into this blind and hoping to build some ideas to work with to hopefully round the learning curve down some.
Coz its 'deceptively difficult' but yes my set is gas so here's a few notes.
- I wouldn't even try without a good stone - I use two decks 22 inches by 12 inches basalt tile untreated - you can get these at stone yards for dirt cheap.
- getting an open crumb. Two import and things to note - slow controlled yeast development and a lot of 'shocking' heat to the loaf in the first 5 mknutes of its development in the oven. What I mean by controlled yeast (assuming of course you are switching now to commercial baker's yeast) is that the crumb tends to become foamy as yeast development speeds up and increases - you're gonna want to introduce a small quantity for example a max of 0.8% of fresh yeast and that means like 0.2-0.3% of IDY. If you opt for cold retard, youd start with an initial bulk at RT (72ish degree C for 1.5 hours with a couple stretch and folds) the objective here is to get about 1.5x rise if its doubled after 1.5 hours because of higher ambient temps then youb are now on a path to a foamy crumb so keep in mind that watching the development here is critical and eventually you will know exactly how dough feels before it goes to cold regard. Let it ferment in the refrigerator for 6-24 hour and by that time you should now see about 2x rise and you've done the job of 'yeast control' but its not over because now come shaping and final proof.
Shaping etc - This takes a lot of practice - a cylinder is a tricky shape so I recommend watching tons of vids of the pros - about all in can say here is be gentle and don't rush it just get used to the feeling of the dough as you elongate. This is where you are setting up for a visibly appealing exterior and this all was my biggest challenge and frankly slashing techniques won't do a bit of difference if surface tension is not just right. The objectkve is to puff the loaf to maximum height and force the scores to explode open. This require that when they hit the deck they blow up with every ounce of energy contained in the co2 pockets so proofing times are really important - 40 minutes of final proofing at around 72 is just about right and if you take too much time prepping, before you known it the loaf is overproofing and you end up with long pancakes. At final proof I usually set the timer for 30 minutes as slightly underproofed is a much better option that slightly overproofed.
If all of these steps fall into place you can save yourself a lot of mistakes - with the gas oven make sure not to use convention mode and prepare a rolled up towel to plug vents and that will trap steam pretty well. Prolly kill the oven vefore warranty expires but so what ;) good loavesbare worth it !!!
As another note stronger flours aka bread flours and high protein do not make for better baguettes - the more delicate the flour the better and if you can find flour grown and milled in france even better -
Well there's a few notes wrapping up some key points I have learned - hopfully this helps. Please let us know how things go !