December 23, 2011 - 7:02am
Bread won't brown properly
I can't seem to get my SD bread to brown properly. It ends up being cooked inside to over 205 degrees. but outside is pale. I bake it at 450 20 minutes covered with aluminin roasting pan to make crisp crust. Then turn down to 425 uncovered until inside temp is about 205. It just never gets that goden color I've seen on other breads. The inside is cooked just fine and crust is crispy. Should I just cook until outside color looks to what I want, but probably over cooking the dough. I have check oven temp and its fine. Bread ferments for about 4 hrs. I'm also using baking stone preheated up about an hour before
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Do you have a well calibrated oven thermostat? Are you sure that 425°F is really? I suspect not, but there are a number of things you can do:
Don't reduce the oven temp when you take off the cover.
Bake without the cover (or at least take it off sooner) and see what the color is.
Add some sugar to the dough.
Add some diastatic malt to the dough.
Brush on some unsweeted condensed milk just before baking.
First thing I'd try is turning up the oven a little (and correspondingly reducing the time). Maybe 475F initially, then turn down to 450F?
You can also affect crust color by modifying the ingredients a little. Any sort of sweetener will make the crust darker (molasses works very well). A tiny bit (1/4 teaspoon per loaf or less) of diastatic malt will too (my understanding is it breaks down the flour enzymatically to produce the equivalent of sweetener). My experience is a very small amount of diastatic malt has such a huge impact on the crust and on fermentation that it's easy to get "too much" (if it's way too much, the crumb will remain "gummy" no matter how you bake it).
I've found that poor crust color (washed out, dull, pale color, refuses to brown) is usually the result of an over proofed dough. Maybe get the shaped loaves into the oven at something under doubled?
I checked the oven temperature again and found that is was off by about 25 degrees. I have adjusted for it and also placed a weight on top of alumin roasting pan to hold in moisture in, since then my bread is finally browning right nice color with plenty of blisters.