March 27, 2009 - 8:36am
Fibrament burning bottom of loaf
Hello,
I recently got a fibrament baking stone. It works AWESOME for pizza. With artisan loaves (like baguettes, or sourdough boules) I get great oven spring, but the bottom gets burned way before the rest of the loaf is done. Any suggestions?
-Adam
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I have this stone and use it for bread and pizza. I've never had an issue. I usually bake artisan breads at 500 and then bring it down to 475F after I stop squirting the water in.
What temperatures are you using?
Frosty
Forgot to say that I have an electric oven that I preheat at 500 then turn down to 450 for SD breads.
--Pamela
Maybe for your oven you need to move the stone up a rack or two.
--Pamela
I will second Pamela's sugsestion..I have known a few bakers that used standard fire bricks in their ovens with no troubles at all like you are describing..Fire bricks are far thicker than the thickness of home baking stones..The thickest of which I have heard of are 3/4" thick..An oven full of fire bricks would probably triple the thermal mass of a 21" x 13" x 3/4" baking stone..
Bruce
Adam
Just to check myself I went online to find out the size of a standard fire brick, or refractory brick..The size is 9" x 4.5" x 2.5"..If I replaced my current 15.5" x 14.5" x 7/16" baking stone with fire bricks that were 2.5" thick and that occupied the same 224.75 sq. in. that my stone does; then I would expect the following changes in my oven..
1. Take 4-5 times longer to pre-heat as the fire bricks would have over 4.5 times the thermal mass than my much thinner baking stone has..
2. Maintain a much more even oven temperature as the greater thermal mass would allow the oven's temperature to be far less effected by the opening and closing of the door..
3. Bake breads several minutes quicker as the greater thermal mass would transfer the heat into the dough more evenly and consistently..The bricks would loose very little of their temperature as the dough absorbed heat from the initial application of the dough to the bricks..My stone, on the other hand would lose heat over 4.5 as quickly from the initial application of the dough to the stone, due to its thinness, and its far lower thermal mass..
4. Take 4-5 times as long to cool down..
Greater thermal mass is an advantage in hearth baking, especially when you need to bake more than a single oven's worth of bread..Are you taking the temperature of your breads to check for doneness??..
Bruce
I used to use an inexpensive pizza stone with no burning problems. Since I got the fibrament, my oven spring has improved, but I'm having the burning problems. I use a home made cloche (I made it from an upside down flower pot) for baking. This makes it difficult to raise the rack to a higher level. I have been pre-heating the oven to 500 degrees and then lowering the temp to 450 when the dough goes in. I'm thinking that maybe the stone stays too hot for too long. Perhaps I should preheat to 400-450 and then raise the temp when the dough goes in. That way the stone temp won't exeed the oven temp by as much , making for more even baking? Thoughts?
-Adam