December 21, 2008 - 3:03pm
My commercial gas oven
I recently purchased a commercial gas stove, with a lovely huge oven - but now, my bread doesn't brown well; it comes out looking anemic. It still tastes good, but doesn't look wonderful. I've tried a pre-heating the oven 25-50 degrees above that called for, in the recipe (and lowering back to the prescribed temperature, (and not)). The top simply won't brown - the bottom does. I've tried it with & without the baking stone. I simply cannot achieve the lovely golden brown that my small electric oven used to provide. Any ideas?
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Have you tried moving the rack to a higher position? Are you using an oven thermometer to confirm the oven thermostat is accurate? Have you tried leaving the bread in longer?
If it is a new oven, you might contact the manufacturer to see if it has any suggestions.
Hello,
I may have had a similar problem. I posted about it a while back. You can check it out here.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6196/help-chalky-crusted-baguette
However, I think it comes down to this. A gas oven is constanly venting. I has to in order to release the CO2 created during the combustion of the gas. The problem this makes for bakers is that all your precious steam is vented right out of the oven also!
There are a couple of solutions. First and easiest is to moisten the dough just before you put it in the oven. Give it a good spritz with your mister. Get it nice and wet. This worked for me and I no longer get the problem you can see in the pictures at the above link.
Another solution I have tried is a home made cloche. If you poke around on this site you can find a photo of it.
A third possibility is to put a deep pan over your loaf (upside down) in the oven. This will capture the steam released as the water in your dough evaporates.
All three of these solutions have helped me and my gas oven a lot.
Good luck! Hope this helps.
-Adam
You did not say what type of bread you are baking but here is my method for baking whole grain sourdough breads in my home gas oven. I preheat the oven for one hour, with a stone , to 550° F (this is as high as the oven temperature goes). 5 minutes prior to putting the bread in the oven I put a pan in the bottom of the oven with 12 ounces of water in it. The bread then goes in the 550° oven and I wait 10 minutes before turning down the temperature. This makes for beautifully browned loaves.
Jeff