Help needed with problems after switching ovens and technique
My wife has been baking sourdough bread from a few years and produces good bread
Previously she was doing it in dutch ovens in a standard house oven. She would raise the bread in a bowl covered with a towel in a closet for some time at 80 degrees F, then in loafs on a baking sheet covered with towel for some time at same conditions in the closet then bake in preheated ovens for about an hour at 450 F. This produced great crust.
We just purchased very cheap a nu vu op-2 oven proofer combo (the type used in subway) and have not had good results with the crust.
She raised the dough in a bowl in the proofer at 80 like previous and on sheets like previous but without using the humidity generator in the proofer. Should she be using the humidity in the proofer?
She is baking in the convection oven on top at 450.She is concerned the blowing air in the convection oven is causing the poor crust also the bottom was slightly burned. She suggested turning of the blower in the convection part of the oven. Is this a good idea or will the oven even work correctly?
Any suggestions on how we could cook sourdough bread in this oven with good results would be greatly appreciated. If it is not possible we will have to go back to the dutch ovens.
The pic show the bad loaf with the good loaves in the corner.
Any help is appreciated
Any advice on being
and maybe that's the best this oven can do. Convection will dry out the crust in the absence of steam and my SOP is to bake WITHOUT convection on a steel at 450dF with steam for the first fifteen minutes and then turn the heat down to 420dF and turn on the convection. This results in the desired crust. Also, you might want to check with a good oven thermometer that you are indeed getting this heated up to 450dF.
Yes I have been doing some research and I believe we will need to make some type of steam injection system. Next project I guess. Thank you for your advice. We did get a good thrmometer.