January 12, 2022 - 11:41pm
Does the heat from DO lid reduce oven spring?
Hi,
My name is Frank and I am new here. This is my first post.
I've baking sourdough bread for a year now, using a Lodge combo cooker. The Lodge DO is not very high, so I was thinking maybe the strong heat from the lid makes the crust form early and reduces oven spring. What are your thoughts on this?
/Frank
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Hi Frank! Welcome to thefreshloaf!
Did you see this picture on the front page of this website?
Here you see how the top crust has formed early, therefore it opened on the side, due to the force of the continued oven spring. The crust might have formed, but it is not made of unbreakable iron all over, it has weaker, softer areas and the loaf will open up and spring in those areas.
Oven spring mostly depends on letting loaves rise a little or a lot prior to baking, underproofed or fully proofed, and on gluten development, how stretchy and thin it is, how well the layers of gluten glide, lubricated by water or fat, how much gas is trapped inside the dough.
Hard crust or even metal top encasing as in Pullman pans with covers do not affect the degree of the oven spring - of how hard and fast the gas would push from inside and how far the dough rises as it bakes.
To test your idea, you would have to bake two loaves from the same dough simultaneously in two DOs, one with a cold lid, and another one - with a preheated lid. You could go even further and bake one in a cold DO and another - in a preheated DO.
Thanks mariana for a good explanation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrKHO2xZTEU