Plugging oven vents with foil
I've got an old eye-level oven (Defy) for which there is no setting to turn off the convection fan. I usually bake in a dutch oven because of this.
When I've baked on the baking steel, it has always felt like my trays of water are dried out in the 20 minutes of steaming time, and although I can see bubbling on the bread which indicates there was some moisture during the early part of the baking it has always felt like there may not have been enough.
I read somewhere about blocking the oven vents with aluminium foil and it seemed to have worked much better in my most recent bakes on the steel. There are two side vents on the door, I tried blocking the bottom one more thoroughly and the top one more loosely, so during baking you can see a steady stream of steam coming from the top vent.
Plugs are only added before baking and removed after 20 minutes along with the trays I'm using which are now a lot fuller than they were before at time of removal.
So, it seems to have been a good technique, although I must admit to being nervous that there would be a steam buildup of some kind in the oven.
Has anyone else done similar?
I have tried to plug mine a few times when I was doing an open bake with different steaming options, and I was having some thermal gradient issues. I think those vents are strategically placed for thermal distribution purposes so by plugging them up it might change the air flow and in turn changing a thermal dynamic aspect of the oven. This is just a guess as I don't know that for sure. I don't do an open bake nowadays, so I am glad I don't have to deal with that anymore.
I’ve always been too scared to try anything like that with my oven Jon. I thought I had read something in the forums here warning against it, but I cannot find that reference.
Benny
If so, the only question would be how it may affect the oven's temperature control.
If a gas oven, you do NOT want to block the vents since they also give the spent combustion gases a route to escape. If they can’t, the burner flame might snuff out.
One other thought: 20 minutes is plenty long for steaming. Longer won’t necessarily improve the bread. Better to have lots of steam for the first 5-10 minutes.
Paul
Thanks Paul, yes electric oven. Thanks for the advice!
Interesting advice about 15 minutes. What would be the effect of going "too long" with steam (20 minutes in this case), would it be that the bread can keep on opening up for too long, or the crust would get leathery or something like that?
I would probably watch through the glass door to monitor the oven spring, but once again, old oven and issues with the oven light, so difficult to do.
but here's what the King Arthur site has to say about steaming too long:
"If steam is so great, why finish in a dry oven?Steam is vital during the oven-spring period so that the surface of the loaf remains moist and expands easily. However, once the yeast has died and the loaf is set, moisture is no longer a friend to your bread. Too much moisture throughout the bake can lead to a thick, rubbery crust."
In general terms, then, remove the steam once oven-spring has finished.
For something with a small cross section, like a baguette, 5-10 minutes of steam may suffice. For a larger loaf, such as a boule or a batard, maybe 10-15 minutes or 15-20 minutes might do. You may have to do some observations to see how things play out with your oven and the breads you make before settling on an optimal duration for steaming the oven.
Hope this helps.
Paul
I’ve recently been doing time lapse videos of some of my bakes since I switched to open steam baking. While doing so I noticed that the bloom and oven spring were still going on when I vented the oven to start “dry” baking. So because of that I’ve extended steam baking from 20 to 25 mins. Now whether or not that makes much of a difference in the overall rise and bloom I cannot be certain. However, I am more convinced that the crust is thinner with open steam baking and maybe a bit thinner yet with the extended steam baking. All anecdotal I realize.
Benny
The burner might not be the only thing to snuff out!
I have a GE electric oven and I plug the upper vent with a towel before I pour water in my steam pan. I make sure it's as tight as possible and don't lose any steam. After my steaming (I've recently dropped from 20 to 15 minutes), the first thing I do is remove the towel. If I have a nice plume of steam roll out, I know I had enough in there during the bake.
Thanks Troy, curious to know - the door of your oven opens downwards, or to the side? Mine opens to the side and there is a top and bottom vent in the oven door itself. What is your oven layout like - only top vents?
Jon, It’s a large, single door that opens down.
I think there may be a vent in the door, but I never see steam rolling out. I need to check that closer.
I only have one vent that I plug in the top.