May 20, 2011 - 12:44pm
Quick! I need help in the next 20 minutes!
My bread is on it's final rise and Mr. Hamelman says to steam the oven when loading the bread, I had planned to use a pumping personal mister to steam the oven (I've never tried this before) but realized that water may hit the stone and cause it to break. Should I try it or go with the sure thing with a pan of water?
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If it's a composite pizza stone spray away, but aim for the ovwn walls, avoid the bulb.
If you do a search on this site, you will find several gentle but very effective ways to steam your home oven. The one I use involves placing a disposable, aluminum loaf pan filled with medium size river rocks next to the baking stone. The rocks get hot at the same time as the stone heats up. About 10 minutes before I want to put the bread in the oven, I quickly soak a large washcloth or small kitchen hand towel in water and then fold it to fit in the loaf pan and lay it on the rocks and shut the door. It takes about five minutes for it to start steaming the oven. The moisture in the towel will last for at least 15 minutes and provide constant steam for the first part of the bake, giving you good oven spring. After the the first ten minutes of baking, you quickly pop open the oven door and use a fork to life out the wet towel and set it in the sink to cool, closing the oven door and continuing the bake. Good luck.
That is a trick I never tried. How wet do you make the towel? Is it supposed to drip on the rocks? Or do the rocks just act like a hanger and a source of radiant heat?
I put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven as others have mentioned here. But if I've forgotten to do that, I put the loaf in the oven, spray the sides of the oven, and put a little in the empty pan at the bottom of the oven. Be careful if you do the latter though because you get a blast of steam. I have never broken my baking stone from this activity.
-Arlene