February 1, 2011 - 3:05pm
Blow outs
I was wondering how many of you experience occasional blow outs in your sourdough breads. On occasion I will have loaves that start out with normal oven spring, but then explode out the bottom. I think this may be insufficient steam, but it seems like either shaping or insufficient gluten development may have a hand in it as well. Sometimes, especially with boules, I will have a much more dramatic spring towards one side of the loaf than the other. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations.
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doing a TFL search using "blowouts, underproofing" and you'll find tons of reading material, including photos.
And some answers!
Hi, I had exactly the same problem with the cuts opening nicely and then suddenly closing over and the side or bottom splitting. I had recently bought a new gas oven, and didn't realize how efficiently it was getting rid of the small amount of steam I was generating in a pan at the bottom of the oven. I switched over to a towel steaming method (I can describe in more detail or you can search to find a lot of varieties of this) and that problem went away. But it exposed other problems, which I am still working on - shaping, scoring, and mainly getting the proofing right which has a lot to do with controlling temperature. Anyhow, it's hard to solve everything at once. It sounds like you definitely have a steam problem, and that is pretty easy to deal with, so do that and then see where you are. Good luck. -Varda