Baking Stones - Worthwhile? How to get them working!
I have been baking a basic rustic sourdough loaf for some time now using a cookie sheet and have had reasonable success. It doesn’t have the wild open crumb I see on this site sometimes but it tastes well and has a good texture. The next step, I thought, was to get a baking stone – perhaps this would give some extra rise and perhaps even develop the flavour. After much reading I bought a 12 x 15 x 1 1/8” cordierite stone. Yesterday I made my first loaf: I heated the stone to around 500°F (260°C), filled the oven with steam – and, except for a reduced baking time, it made no difference at all!
Could I ask you then: is there is something I am missing with regard to technique when using a stone? Should the dough be wetter? Are there recipes, or types of dough which benefit from a stone more than others? Should I turn off the oven’s heating element when I put the dough onto the stone? Is the very steamy oven I’ve been using up to now giving me all the benefit I’m going to get from increasing the rate of conductive heat transfer? (i.e. the extra fast conductive heat transfer from the stone provides no extra dividend?)
Many thanks in advance for any thoughts or experience you might be able to share.
The advantage of a baking stone is that it retains heat even after you open the oven door so that when bread is baking on top of it you have minimal temperature loss from the open oven while bread loading. Cookie sheets are very efficient at heat transfer so the only issue you confront is the temperature drop from the open oven. If you are quick loading it this can be minimized. I use the "magic bowl" method and a cookie sheet and get a nice rise and good crust when baking Hamelman's Vermont sourdough bread. I've compared this to the hot towels in a baking pan method that was discussed here and the results are equivalent. My oven is low and I would rather not be fooling around with cast iron skillets.
If it's more open crumb then the hydration %age needs to be higher. Can you share your recipe so we can see what the hydration is?
hester
Or was the oven temperature at 500F? I ask because a slab that big is going to take a while to get to full temperature throughout, probably upwards of an hour in most home ovens.
Paul
the preheating the stone takes a long time, I now just preheat for an hour and don't worry about it any more. If that still does not do the job then try covering the dough with a stainless steel bowl when you place it on the stone. The trapped steam might work better than your current steaming method. I practice my transfer skills so the oven door is open for as short a time as possible.
As far as I can tell using an infra-red thermometer the baking stone was itself at 500°F. I had left it in the oven to warm for well over an hour.
I would very much welcome a critique of my method which I have arrived at through a mixture of trial and error and reading blogs from this site adapting a range of people’s methods to my convenience. If you can see where there is room for development that would be exciting.
However my main question and the puzzlement which prompted my post was that the stone made so little difference. After a couple of days eating it I realise that the loaf is probably a bit softer and fresher. I measured the last loaf I did with the cookie sheet and the one on the baking stone was the same height and breadth – there is no extra spring at all.
Here is my method:
First thing in the morning of day 1 I take 150g of my 100% starter which is made up of a mixture of rye, white and wholemeal flour. (My starter is nearly two years old and rises to 2.5x volume when I feed it on a 1:2:2 basis.)
I mix this with 118g water and 200g of my flour which is made up as follows:
70% very strong Canadian white flour (14.5/100g protein)
17.5% dark rye flour
12.5% wholemeal
This makes a thick biga type mixture. I leave it for 6 hours. The room temperature is around 72°F at the moment and it will double in this time. I then mix this with the remainder of my flour and water.
The total weight of flour including that in the starter is 700g. The total amount of water gives me 72% hydration.
I leave this for 45 minutes and then do three stretch and folds at 45 minute intervals. I then leave it for two or three hours so it rises a bit then put it in the fridge overnight.
On day two I take it from the fridge and let it rise fully for another 6 hours or so. I then shape it using Forkish’s method preserving as much air in the dough as possible. I let this rise again for a couple of hours during which time I get the oven ready.
When the stone is hot I put half a cup of boiling water in an oven dish at the bottom of the oven. When I put the dough in the stone I put in another half cup.
Thanks again for your ideas.
I forgot to mention salt. I put 14g in when I mix the biga with the rest of the flour and water.
(I don't do autolysis on this remaining flour. I tried it but found that it gave the crumb a gummy texture and didn't have any special benefit. I simply cut up the biga, fold it into the dry flour and salt and then pour the water over it)