Oven spring in professional deck oven
I've just recently started doing some baking in a professional deck oven, its a mono oven 4 years old with a steam system. I was quite excited about baking in it, as I've only every really used my old domestic gas oven at home. My basic white sourdough (800g of dough, 75% hydration, 4 hours bulk ferment, 12+ hours cold prove in banetons), is something I get consisten results with when baking at home using the dutch oven. I always get good oven spring and great looking blooms.
So when I started doing it in the professional oven, I thought I'd be on to a good thing, but the results are really inconsisted. Infact, most of the loaves don't bloom at all, I get loaves with a failed slash that puffs up a bit but never forms a nice ear or rip. I've tried a few different temperaturses 260, 230 and 240 degrees C but results are always poor.
I thought that I'd get better results in the professional oven, with better heat transfer and the steam system but I can't seem to crack it. Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong? Too much steam, too little steam, wrong heat? Any help would be greatly apprecieated.
Try lowering hydration to 67%. The dough is too slack without having the side support of the Dutch Oven. Steam for the first 10-15 minutes. 230 dC should suffice till you're able to "tune" the recipe.
Wild-Yeast
I've got to disagree with this. I have baked many many breads 75%+ hydration in professional ovens with excellent results. Great oven spring and great ears. A professional deck oven would be my weapon of choice for anything high hydration due to the incredible heat retention and transfer abilities.
I think it's more likely a steam issue. Too much or too little steam can keep ears from opening. Try playing with the amount of steam you're giving the bread.
Changing ovens can be like moving from the tropics to the arctic or the other way around. Baking multiple loaves in a deck oven will be an entirely different experience from baking a loaf or two in a home oven. Listen to the oven and pay close attention as you need to learn from the oven. You may have to make significant changes to your bread formulas such as the good suggestion made by Wild-Yeast. You should expect a learning period before your final product is all that you want it to be.
Jeff
I've had the opporunity to bake in a deck oven since last summer and found that it made me learn how to shape better--it's still a work in progress :). David's suggestions here are spot on and sum it up better than I ever could!
If you are up to it, try lowering your hydration (65-67% like wild yeast suggests) and hand shaping. Batards and boules were easier than baguettes. Once you comfortable, you can start pushing your hydration back up. I make a mixed poolish/starter sourdough (similar to a tartine bread) and, at this point, baguettes at 75% are doable, but challenging and 80% really separates the pros from the weekend warriors.
After your retard, how are you handling your dough?
Thanks Guys, I've just dropped the hydration by 5% so will let you know how it goes. The advice is great, I guess I just need time and patients, to figure out the oven. I tried some straight yeast dough at 65% hydration and they all came out fine.
@peterS I do all my shaping by hand, I think its pretty good, although I've never had a true expert grade my work so I may not be as good as I think I am. After retarding, the loaves stay in their banatons for about 30 mins to bring them up to room temp, they then go straight into the oven.
Practicing with straight dough is dope.
LOL (I am reading Eddie Huang's memoir Fresh Off the Boat)
A lot has been written on this forum about baking off cold dough; I don't recall a definitive conclusion one way or the other on it. Personally, I've found cold dough, especially at higher hyrdations, to be easier to manage and score. I also suspect that it helps form a nicer ear (grigne). An experienced friend told me that they always did that at her bakery--more for commercial reasons, but in her opinion quality did not suffer. I suppose that it could result in the core temperature being lower longer while the crust forms at only a relatively slightly lower rate, but good steam should help with that.
Completely agree with your thoughts. A cold dough is much easier to score and get a good ear on. I love baking loaves right out of the fridge.
Thanks for all the help. Results are much better now with a drop in hydtration, I'm getting very consistent results.
Going from a pot to free-form in a deck oven is also a test of shaping skills. The sides of a pot will support a dough; in a deck oven it is going to spread if it isn't well shaped. Lowering the hydration will firm a dough making it easier to shape. If/when you decide to try higher hydrationa again, make sure you tightly form your dough. Bannetons, brotforms or couches help retain the shape as will the (slight) surface drying that occurs during proofing.
After all these years, how are things going with that deck oven? I have been having similar issues and essentially I have a gun to my head because my customers are used to fancy ears and I can't make them anymore in my commercial deck oven. I'd love to get some pointers. Thanks in advance!
bumping this thread, as I’m in the same boat!
What is your recipe/formula? If you are new to a deck oven/free baked loaves, it's possible the hydration needs to be reduced or flour type needs to change. A change in method (if you changed your method) may require a change in recipe/formula. What do you think?
I am using the basic country loaf from Tartine. I reduce hydration by 5% to 70%. After banging my head against the wall, I think I may have figured it out. My gluten network is underdeveloped. I’ve never passed the window pane test. Also the speed of fermentation is too rapid. I’m going to try and better control my temperature by building a proofing box out of a refrigerator with hot and cold controls. That should help. I will also use my starter when it is less mature to give me more time to develop the gluten. Any thought? Can you over develop the gluten?
You can indeed over develop gluten by overmixing, but it's generally pretty hard to due without a commercial mixer. Anyone mentioning dropping hydration for better oven spring isn't experienced in working with high hydration loaves. I have a professional deck oven and regularly run 94-96% hydration not including my leaven - but it does require significant practice and attention to detail with various mixing techniques, fermentation types, and flour blends to find out what ultimately works best for you and your set up.
I am using a mixer. Right now I do 5 minutes at a slow temp and I add cold water to the mix to avoid overheating the dough. The two theories I have is that my oven isn’t warm enough, in which, I think I ruled out this week. I increased the temps 20C and had the same results. I’ve increased the humidity, same results. My only other thought is that my starter has become sluggish from being refrigerated between batches. I make two to three batches a week. 8-12 loaves per batch. I will feed my starter twice a day and not refrigerate to see if things don’t change in a week. I’m getting a new double deck oven and a hot/cold proofer this week, maybe that changes things.