Best way to steam a deck oven with no steam injection?

Barry,

I added steam by using a pressure cooker that sits next to the oven.  I ran a line from the cooker into the heat chamber to release steam under the stone deck.  10 minutes of steam prior to putting the dough in with the top heat closed.  When the loaves go in I open the top heat to let the steamy air in.  This is certainly not ideal and not very powerful but it does help.  Using this method it is not possible to introduce too much steam.  I turn the steam off after 10 minutes.

Your temperature sounds right, if you are getting excess oven spring, your loaves are underporoofed.

The new oven demands that you learn all that you can from it.  You need to become friends with the oven and realize that it will bake quite differently from the Aga.  It is an ongoing learning process and may even cause you to alter some of your bread formulae to make them work better in this oven.

I use the top heat to control the browning of the crust.  It is open about 60% for the first half of the bake, I then rotate the position of the loaves on the deck and open the top heat 100%.  In the last few minutes, if the loaves lack crust color, I turn the thermostat up high to generate a hot flow of air over the loaves to brown them.

I hope that this helps.  I baked some very questionable and inferior loaves for about a month after switching ovens in a situation similar to yours.  Your new oven can do the job, you just need to find out how.

Jeff

I have a electric deck oven and have been using a cast iron skillet filled with 1/4" of water put in while the oven comes up to temperature when I do not have enough bread to fill the oven.  The best steaming I have ever achieved is to simply turn the oven up to between 550F-600F and load the deck full of bread then mist with water.  I will then open the door and dampener to release the steam and close the door while leaving the damper open for the rest of the bake.  I have been thinking about installing a brass nozzle (mist) with a 1/4" copper line run through a solenoid valve.  The copper line will hopefully be run close enough to the elements and be long enough by coiling, that by the time the water reaches the nozzle it will be hot enough to create a mist/steam.  If any one has tried doing something like this it would be nice to know if it worked.

I have very successfully used a combination of the iron skillet with lava rocks and Sylvia's steamy terrycloth towels (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20162/oven-steaming-my-new-favorite-way).  It makes LOTS of steam.

Good luck.

Glenn

Hi Barry,

I bake regularly in a Tom Chandley Oven very similar (From your description) to yours c.1990 with stone floor but no steam injection.

1. How best to steam the oven?                                                                                                                                                                                     I have been using a (1 Litre) plastic water bottle - The type you would see sports persons drinking from - It is great for squirting as much as you want, deep into the oven, onto the stone hearth - Really cheap and effective. 

2.  How much steam do I try and introduce and when?                                                                                                                                          I usually load 6 or 8 loaves (Depending on their shape/size) on a tray and when I am ready to bake I close the damper, open the deck and squirt in about 250ml of water then close the deck to pre steam the oven. I then decant my loaves from their bannetons onto the tray, slash them with the required pattern and get the tray as close to the oven as possible ready to put it in as soon as possible after I have opened the deck and squirted in another 250ml of water - Get that tray in as fast as possible and close the deck. I guess this might be a problem for you if you are loading several loaves (One at a time) with a peel onto the hearth as the time it takes you to do that will allow most of the steam to escape (Into your face and on your hands/arms). If you do not wish to use trays then I recommend pre steaming the oven as above then spray the loaves themselves before you put them in. 

3. How do I best handle the 'top' and 'bottom' heat settings?                                                                                                                             Like you, I am baking usually around about 225/230C and, for baking on aluminium trays, I find that top heat 7 and bottom heat 5 is about right for most of my hearth breads - Buns a little higher temperature, large loaves may have to have lower temperature after 20 minutes or so to pevent crust burning. I have to say however that I have baked in two simlar Tom Chandley ovens in different locations and, whilst there was not much difference in performance, I do have to play around with top/bottom settings to obtain best results depending on the breads and whether I bake directly on the sole plate, an aluminium tray or a cast iron tray. You will need to experiment to find the best settings for your oven/loaves to achieve the simultaneous perfect crust (That's the way you want it) with a perfectly baked crumb (Again, to your requirements - not anyone else')

Hope this helps.

Brian 

Hi Barry.

You can try what I use.  I get good results and without the fuss and mess of using ice, water, spray methods.  Here is the link to my past post:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30020/my-steaming-method

Here's a link to a recent bake that used this roaster steaming method:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/30937/todays-jh-5-grain-levain-bake

If you have any questions, please feel free to message me.

John

Steam Generator.jpg

I searched the internet and chanced upon a site called Vevor US which sells a relatively inexpensive sauna type steam maker . Stainless Steel, Auto fill, timer and auto drain capable with a coupon I found on line $124. delivered.

I got it hooked up yesterday and the results were, after a 5 minute preheat, a full oven of steam in less than 1 minute.

Simple is better prevailed and I used an old 30A RV plug labeled "for RV use only" LOL ..to get the 220v into the box.

I insulated the 1/2" copper pipe and ran it in through the back of the oven. No fancy drilled SS distributor pipe.

The directions say that the generator can make steam for an hour so I imagine I could have gotten away with a smaller version but the 4kw model I found on another site was actually more expensive.

I didn't look carefully enough at the details when I ordered it but this least expensive unit came with a control panel without the timer. The timer was important so I wrote them to see if I could order their other controller with timer.

If someone in the forum already did this and posted it and I didn't see it, I apologize. I'm just so excited about the results that I had to share .

This is the best work-around I could come up with and as we all know, for a home bakery, a real steam deck oven is just way too expensive.

The results were great. Since up until now I have been using a Dutch Oven in my home kitchen I'm used to timing the first part of the bake anyway so I am less hung up on getting the control panel with the timer now. I just press the off button and open the vent and it works perfectly.

Hi Lance,