July 20, 2009 - 6:56am
Beautiful loaves, pale bottoms
I've been baking San Joaquin Sourdough with great results. I use a baking stone, transferring via parchment. Oven is at 550, turned lower after the formed loaves are loaded. I had a wonderful ear on my first batch and was so excited that I tried again. My slashes weren't as nice because I didn't get the same beautiful ears. Something to work on for consistency, I guess. Anyhow, one thing consistently wrong with my loaves is the pale bottoms. The crust is a beautiful dark gold, crusty and chewy, but the bottoms are always pale. Any clues how to remedy this?
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Are you preheating the stone fully? Some members preheat the stone for a good hour before loading. I try to give mine at least 20-30 mins just to try to save some energy. Try moving the stone down a level. If the stone is too close to the upper coil, the loaves will brown much faster than the bottom. How long are you baking the loaves for?
Sephie
Sounds like you are letting your oven reach its temp and then baking which will result in a cooler than optimal stone.