September 24, 2015 - 4:56pm
Baking time/ internal temp/ crust?
I've been using Peter Reinhart's pre-ferment method from his Whole Grain Breads book.
I have an oven thermometer and a thermometer for taking internal loaf temp. Baking stone and pan for water.
My loafs seem to be spot on for time in the oven and the internal bread temp (about 200 degrees).
But at that point, the crusts on my loaves aren't overly brown or crusty. They are more pale.
Should I increase time in the oven to get a nice crust, or will increased time in the oven dry out the inside?
I did order a cloche that will be coming soon, hoping that will help...
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I would try increasing the temperature by 25 or 50 degrees F and see if you get the browning you want.
What is your oven temp? Temperatures need to be high enough to bring about the Maillard reaction. The curst will be hotter than the inside because of water evaporation, so it is finding that balance.
Some of PR recipes in his Whole Grain book call for heating the oven to 425 degrees, then lowering to 350 when putting the loaf in. Others call for heating to 500 degrees, then dropping the temp down to 450 for baking.
The 100% lean whole wheat bread I made the other day was made at the 500 degree/drop to 450 degree oven, and baked for about 20 minutes (with a pan for water to create steam) then I rotated the loaf 180 degrees and continued baking for 25 minutes. Still got a blond crust but the internal temp was 204 degrees.
Does it matter where the oven thermometer is in the oven? I have it hanging off the back "shelf" of the oven. Should it be on the pizza stone?
205 F on the inside but using a thermometer can also be problematic in that,even baked to that temperature, the crumb can come out gummy sometimes. So I bake to 207 - 210 F now but always thump the bottom of the loaf to make sure it sounds hollow. IF the loaf still isn't brown at that time, then you need too up the temperature a bit,
Happy baking
How is your oven being used? Fan/bottom heat/top heat/top and bottom heat? They all produce different results. Where in the oven are your loaves?
There are lots of adjustments that you might make but, essentially, when the centre of the loaf reaches the target temperature, when you pull the loaf is down to how dark you like your crust. The crumb won't suffer if it has to wait a while for the crust.
dabrownman- thanks for the tip, I'll keep baking until the loaf gets a higher internal temp. I haven't found the insides of mine gummy at 198-204, but good to know I can go higher.
Jon OBrien- Hmm, there are so many variables. I'm using a Viking professional oven on "Bake", it heats using both top and bottom element, then during bake I'm pretty sure it only uses the bottom element. It also has a convection feature which I've never used. There are 6 rack locations, I have the pizza stone on the rack the 3rd from the bottom, which is essentially in the middle of the oven. The temp knob is pretty loosey goosey, so i have an oven thermometer at the back of the oven on a little "shelf" where the fan for convection is housed, which is equivalent to the top rack (maybe I should move the thermometer to the pizza stone on the third rack?).
If the oven's designed to hold loaves on several levels then it's outside my experience.
The only things I could suggest are turning the heat up, moving the stone higher in the oven or leaving loaves in longer. If you can find a way to get some top heat during baking that might help, too. Perhaps another stone immediately above your loaves, so that you're baking between two stones. That won't help if you want to bake on several levels at once, of course.
I agree with the post suggesting to increase the heat. Another thought is to keep the temperature the same but use convection after the steaming is done (do not use convection while steaming as it will vent out the steam). As with most things in bread, you need to watch the bread/dough and not the clock. So if the crumb is done but the crust is not, then increase the temperature. If the crust burns and the inside is not cooked, use lower temperatures and increase time.
Since convection cooks more affectively, normally the quick adjustment is to lower the temperature by 25 degrees. So instead of going up 25 degrees, you can just try convection first (or increase by 25 and use convection too). It might take some experimentation and you can always crank up the heat at the end if you need to. Overcooking the crumb is not a terrible thing even if it is not ideal. I would rather have color to my crust then pull it out too early.
In FLOUR WATER SALT YEAST, Ken Forkish provides no reference to the desired internal temperature of the loaves. He aims solely for the color and texture of the crust; he further encourages bakers to experiment with the baking times in order to develop a feel.
This initially scared me, since I was only familiar with Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice at the time. Reinhart's desired internal temperature occurs long before Forkish's desired crust color appears. Fortunately, there is a wide range of baking times which produce excellent loaves.
Unless your loaf is a huge mass in the oven - and I mean 20 lb turkey mass - convection will give you a much better bake all around. It will brown your crust evenly and generally reduce the incidence of "hotspots" in an oven substantially.
Having said that I think I am correct in saying that convection is recommended with caution for more delicate or higher sugar bakes for the same reasons.
Thank you all for the suggestions.
I've now baked 3 different lean whole wheat loaves since posting my original question
The method that has worked best for me was Maverick's suggestion for trying the convection setting on my oven, which I had never done before.
I used: convection for heating 1 hour before baking, 500 degrees. Then turned off convection and turned heat down to 450 degrees, put loaf in oven and poured water for steam. After 20 minutes, rotated loaf and turned convection back on. This method gave me a nice brown crust, not as brown as some crusts I've seen, but definitely better and nice loaves. Inside temp got to 212 degrees.
Thanks!
Glad it worked out. Crust color is a personal choice. If you are hitting 212 internal anyway, then feel free to crank up the heat more if you want it even darker.
Radiant heat tends to give you better colour than convection, convection heat is about the efficient transfer of heat which is kind of the reverse of windchill. Normally you dial the temperature of an oven back 25˚F or more when baking with a convection oven which can be a problem for getting a nice crust.
Gerhard