different oven
Hello all, Need some help again I'm afraid. I was lucky enough to have access to a professional kitchen yesterday with a fantastic steam/bread oven. I baked some sourdough there, which normally at home, rises well, bursting through its crust and comes out airy and quite light with big holes. However in the pro' oven at the resturant it came out with a beautiful even colour but didn't rise so well, and was much denser than normally is the case. Perhaps I didn't get the pro' oven hot enough when it went in? As it gets to temp' (in this case 250) very quickly indeed I didn't think of getting the oven rampant hot to start, which I do at home. Is that where I went wrong ? Needless to say I'd greatly appreciate any advice.
Thanks for reading
James
Always a treat to figure out an unfamiliar oven's traits, isn't it?
Yes, it is possible that the oven indicated it had reached temperature before it was well and truly heated. I'm assuming that you bake your bread at 250 (Celsius, right?) at home, as well.
Was the restaurant's oven a convection model? How about yours at home? What kind of steaming capability did the restaurant's oven have? Were you able to make use of that? I'm also curious to know whether the pro oven might have been a deck type, where the bread bakes on a hearth, or if you were baking the bread on baking sheets which were placed on the oven's racks. How might that compare to your home oven?
I've only had one experience using a commercial oven (a convection type), so I probably won't be a font of information. Maybe some other posters with more experience can chime in, once you tell us a little more about the characteristics of your home oven and the restaurant's oven.
Paul
At last a response to my living hell!
Yes that's right I do bake sourdough loaves for around 30 -35 mins, five at 250 and down to 220 for the remainder. The commercial oven is electric of course, and has the convection function optional, yes, which I had on. It has a button for steaming which when pressed comes on for about 30 seconds or so; needless to say I used this with glee and am delighted with the results as far as developing crust goes. The oven has four shelves with wire racks that you lay shelves on. I put my loaves on the top one.
The colour of the bread is wonderfully even and rich golden. However, (and I did some more today ), I'm still not getting that 'burst through' like I was getting in my pretty ordinary, domestic gas oven baked on a pizza stone, well preheated to max' temp' and spritzed with water every 10 min's, which gave a great rise and a lighter crumb structure.
I don't know, perhaps my ferment's getting tired perhaps? I've been using a blender to refresh it instead of by hand recently, do you think that has had an effect?
Best regards.
James