February 19, 2015 - 8:02am
Scoring for a Wood-Fired Oven
I am relatively successful in obtaining a good-looking loaf with decent ears when baking in a conventional oven but since I have started baking in a wood-fired oven I have managed to make some delicious bread but, although I score in exactly the same way, I have not managed to get the loaves to develop ears at all. Can anyone tell me how I should alter my technique for a wood-fired oven? This happens with various recipes although I mostly follow Chad Robertson´s Basic Country Loaf.
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A photo of your "problem loaves" would help with the diagnosis, but insufficient steam would be my first guess.
David
I've managed with a few wood-fired oven bakeries in the past few years. I do not know the type you are using, but I've used Allen Scott style and know that without a bit of steam (garden sprayer), my loaves tended not to really open as well as a deck oven -due to the fact that it was a extremely dry, hot oven, only relying on the loaves themselves to generate steam.
If I loaded 60 loaves into the oven and forgot to steam, I would see 'ears', but a bit different crust then I would with a properly steamed oven. Of course if the loaf is properly proofed and hits a 500 degree deck, it'll bloom nicely, but it could set quicker with a high dome temp and no steam.
Sorry - I should have taken photos. Certainly will next time.
I am using a small dome oven with internal diameter of 80 cm and baking 3 or 4 loaves at a time. I have used a garden sprayer before loading and placed a pan with water in the oven for first 10 minutes.
The scoring does leave a pattern - a 2-3 cm "track" - but I would love to be able to create "ears". I also find I am not getting as good a rise as I do in a conventional oven.
http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/bread-scoring-with-confidence/
2nd Arlo's comment about steam. I have a big oven (44" cooking surface) and started with a 2-gallon garden sprayer, I got little spring and no ears. We now use a sprayer hooked up to a hose and I'm seeing much better results. I also find when my oven is hotter, its harder to get expansion. I'm assuming a hotter oven would mean the crust sets faster, restricting the loaf's expansion. If you have a Dutch oven, try one loaf in that with the other loaves loaded normally.
When I took the wood fired oven class at SFBI, we baked in both the deck oven and WFO, they never told us to score differently.
Many thanks for the tips. I am guessing that my oven is too dry and perhaps a little too hot. As I find the temperature falls quite rapidly, despite closing the door and chimney, I tend to load the oven at a higher than ideal temperature (550+ deck temperature). I will experiment with lower loading temperature and more steam. I generally use a dutch oven when baking in a conventional oven with great results; it is these results I hope to emulate in the WFO.