September 29, 2015 - 12:05am
Dutch oven: hot or cold
How important is it to heat the dutch oven before putting in the dough?
I really prefer placing it in while cold and putting them both in the oven, but apparently it's better to drop the dough into a pre-heated dutch oven. Does anyone have some kind of comparison or reference of how big is the difference?
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I don't think it will work cold. Think about how much energy is going to go into the cold cast iron while it gets hot enough to bake your bread. And it would have to heat the air inside the dutch oven before it started baking the upper crust, meanwhile the bottom of the crust would be exposed directly to the heat much sooner. It would probably overproof and fall flat before the crust set.
I preheat the oven itself to 450, then preheat the dutch oven for 30 min to make sure it is heat soaked. THEN I bake in it.
But hey, you won't know for sure until you try it! Let's us know how it works.
..replicate the conditions in a commercial bakery oven rather than a domestic one. Baking from cold would defeat that. The DO is used for two reasons: first, the cast iron is a great heat reservoir which means - as rgconnor says - you're not baking in an oven which has just spilled all that precious heat when the door was opened; and, second, that with the lid on, you can get somewhere close to the steam conditions in a commercial oven. If the the DO is cold, you won't get that initial steam and instant heat you need for great oven spring and crust.
Hope that helps.
Thanshin, you might want to try it each way and see how it works on your loaf. A few posters here have tried using a cold dutch oven and found no big difference from a hot dutch oven, other than the obvious safety of loading dough in a cold dutch oven. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20746/hot-versus-cold-dutch-oven-baking-experiment
Cold DO baking and Cold DO's going into a cold oven too! No big whoops and it works fine. You have to add time to the bake under the lid and even more time to the cold oven start. I have better spring and bloom with a hot DO. I think that is because I can time the proof perfectly and the immediate heat helps a bit but you can get some great looking loaves out of a cold DO and or Cold DO and scold oven too!
Happy baking
I can vouch that all three methods work just fine. I haven't tried doing side by side comparisons, so I can't speak directly to how much the results differed, but I will say that nothing jumped out as blatantly different.
Personally, I like to use a hot dutch oven. However, there is a video of a Chad Robertson masterclass where he uses a cold DO in a hot oven.
Chad Robertson masterclass i Meyers Madhus
where the handle was taken off. I use an aluminum foil plug for the stem hole in my Chinese sand clay pot:-)
Although I don't use a D.O., what jumps out at me is placing dough, in whatever state, into a cold D.O. will have the effect of the dough continuing to proof, and it will do so until it approaches that magic temperature of ~140dF, where the yeast go into their final death spirals and go bonkers. Also, keep in mind that the bulk of a boule will continue to insulate the center of the dough so that center continues proofing for those very few minutes more, until it too hits the go-bonkers zone and the yeast die.
Of course this will happen in a hot D.O. also, but the timings for that seem to be quite well established for baking. Trial and error, as well as someone's already tested observations, will be your friend.
alan
Sometime last winter, I did an experiment that (as it turns out) was very similar to the one 'dmsnyder' did back in 2010. I got very similar results as well.
The computer that contains those exact notes is not in front of me at the moment, but I can tell you basically what was what.
Flour 1400 g, six sevenths AP, one seventh White Whole Wheat flour. Appropriate dry active yeast, salt and water to 75% hydration. Preferment and retard ferment approx 24 hrs. Split and formed dough in two before retard.
In the morning, spray oiled inside of cold DO and loaded in one cold dough. Put on lid, placed in a cold oven. Turned oven on to 450F. After 30 minutes, removed lid and continued bake. Bread done in about 50-55 minutes. Should have taken the lid off earlier. Top not brown enough, tho the bread is fully baked.
Removed 2nd half of dough from fridge, sprayed oil into a now 'hot' DO, added dough, lid, into hot oven. After 30 minutes, removed lid and continued bake. At about 40-45 minutes, bread done. Top, nicely browned.
When cooled and cut into, both breads were identical, other that a thicker, browner crust on the 'hot' DO loaf.
I think the whole DO idea came to me from Forkish' book. The whole hot DO was fairly dangerous I thought and was just looking for a safer way.
To me, either way works just fine.
Wait... the loaves were the same but different?
The differences were pretty much exactly as expected, the cold DO did not form the same sort of crust and took longer to cook. If you like a softer crust, it sounds like a cold DO is the way to go. I may use the cold DO method for one of the loaves tomorrow, my wife likes her crust a little less crunchy than I do.
The hot DO goes back to Jim Leahy and the No Kneed Bread, not Ken Forkish:
http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread
rgconner -
Not to get snippy, but I didn't say Forkish invented it, I said 'the idea came to me from Forkish. Heck, I first read about it and did it from an old Boy Scout manual at a campfire about 55 years ago (in the pouring rain no less).
The crust on the bottom and sides was the same. The top crust was a little lighter and thinner (and I believe) only due to operator error.
It sounds like you're going to try this for yourself. I am very interested in your results. I think dabrownman is on the right track for adjustments in time and technique. His history report is also spot on (I swore I would never use that phrase).
I recommend as he does, taking the lid off before 30 minutes to let that top crust get thicker and darken.
Let me know how it comes out.
As did many Fresh Lofians. The bread comes out almost identical as long as you get the timing right. Generally speaking, if going into a cold DO and into a cold oven you wait till the oven beeps it is the temperature you preset for baking and then start the clock for steaming with the lid on. If going into a hot oven but a cold DO then you time 15 minutes before timing the steaming portion. In my case I have to deduct about 3-5 minutes, depending on the bread, from the normal steaming time both ways for it to come out right but your oven will vary - you just have to experiment around with it. But, a hot DO and hot oven will give you more control with less guesswork and why so many do it that way.
The great thing about this is if you want to bake two loaves of bread but don't have room for two DO's in your oven, you can start cold and bake 2 loaves faster than waiting for the oven and DO to heat up. it is much more efficient and works just fine.
The Dutch process for making DO's was better than the English one so the Dutch name stuck - and they were ovens so they were used like one from the very beginning. They were perfected in the 17th century and even the colonialists in the the USA were using them for stewing, braising, baking etc by the later part of 1600's. So no modern baker, even famous ones of any kind, invented baking bread in a DO since it had been done for hundreds of years before any were born.
Happy baking .
I use a combo cooker and heat the big portion that I use as a lid and do not heat the smaller portion that I put the bread on. I have tried both being cold, but my timing was wrong so it didn't work right. Instead of playing with the timing (and final proof timing as well), I just heat the one portion since it takes the same amount of time anyway. I have heated both and saw no difference. If I do a second loaf it will be hot of course. If I was using a traditional dutch oven then I might play around more.
I have never tried a cold oven.
Standard Forkish Poolish bread, commercial yeast, Shepard's AP flour. 30 min on, 15 min off.
500g loaves.
The one on the right is the cold DO, the one on the left is hot. Baked side by side.
The hot one comes out exactly like every other loaf I have made, good oven spring, even surface.
The cold one is flatter, shorter, and for some reason burnt. It also stuck to the pan something ugly. That is consistent with the "hot pan, cold food" rule for cooking.
The underside shows sign of a flying crust, and is burnt. Over proofing of dough is the only reason I can think of for the behavior of the cold DO. My original postulation was that the cold oven would not set the crust fast enough and the oven spring would become over proofed before the crust set.
Have not cut open for crumb, but I suspect both have decent crumb. Both loaves occupy about the same volume, so the density should be the same.
Either way, very fascinating results.
rgconner - thank you so much for doing this. Fascinating indeed.
First, some obvious observations. From the top view the cold on right is very pretty, the one I would want. The hot on the left, not so much, but still nice.
From the side view, cold on right is nice, but hot on left is the one I would buy. As either stands alone, I would take either. Of course the real proof is in the eats, which I'm sure you'll share shortly.
To the nitty gritty. Uhhm, I just want to make sure I understand your process correctly. When you say that they were baked side by side, I assume you mean that they both went into a hot oven, and that it is just that the one on the right was put into a cold DO and the one on the left into a hot DO. Do I have that correct?
Also, that they both got the same treatment, 30 minutes lid on and 15 minutes lid off, yes? All at the same time.
I have more to ask, but need to know these things first (so that I don't look like a complete idiot - after all, I'm still missing a few pieces).
Great job.
Dobie
Yes, to reduce variables they were baked in the same pre-heated oven on the same rack.
I have oval DOs so I can do that. Left was preheated, right was cold DO
The color is a little off on the pictures I think, the cold is definitely a "bolder bake" but the underside needs to be scraped to be edible.
And I needed to practically chip the loaf off the cold DO.
that it is just different hot or cold.
Which you prefer is up to the baker and what they like. The crumb shot does not show clear signs of over proofing, it may have been the sticking to the pan that kept it from rising just like the other one.
I have enamel coated DOs, so a plain one with a good patina on it would probably stick less, if at all.
Thanks for the crumb shot. They both look great, with obvious differences.
Just for the record, your test varied from mine in a few ways.
I baked my cold one first (and into a cold oven, not hot), which might have affected the rise (and the difference in rise between my two was not nearly what you experienced - mine was minimal at most).
Our proportions of dough to DO capacity must have been different as well. I think my DO is a 6 qt (also enamaled) and the dough was about 1000 g, each. My bread had about two inches up from the base, where it was rising against the DO wall, making the bottom resemble a 'cake' like structure, which I'm not seeing in yours - which look like they might have been baked freeform on a stone.
Also, your crumb is more open than mine was (and what I would have hoped for), but that is just operator error on my part I think.
I also did place an oiled circle of parchment paper on the bottom of each and both popped out without effort.
All in all, a fascinating result. Your results are not only amazing as bread, but amazing in that I can't figure out the difference between your two and mine. I will ponder.
Thanks again, great work.
Dobie
Are pretty big. I inherited them from my Mother in Law after she passed, and they are 6.5 Qt ovals which means I can make batards instead of rounds and you are right, they don't touch the sides. A 1Kg will occasionally touch the lid though...
She also left me a 15 quart Le Crueset monster of a DO. I have baked a 2KG batard in it, I could probably push 3KG.
Starting with a cold oven is unorthodox.
Every oven takes a different amount of time to reach a given temp. Mine turns on both the broiler and the main burner to heat up, then only the lower to maintain temps. If you stick something in there cold, it gets broiled during the warm up cycle.
The old one it replaced, from the late 60s, took a good 30 to 45 min to reach 450.
I envy your enameled cast. In particular, I've been searching yard sales for quite a while for an oval but I'm still empty handed. A 15 qt Le Crueset, I've never even heard of. And it all comes with some history, which I like. My own round is from dearly departed MILaw and I cherish it.
Yes, I suppose 'starting with a cold oven is unorthodox' but I did it for three reasons. First, I didn't know any better. Second, why waste heat, and third, I thought that the heat might accelerate the rise until it reached the point of 'bake'. I actually think that worked out and explains why my hot DO and cold DO breads had very similar heights whereas yours were quite different. And you're right, this would be very oven-centric.
As to why your cold DO bread's top crust was so much better browned than mine, I don't know. It was 30 min lid on & 15 off, right?
Maybe the reason the bottom crust of your cold DO bread was overdone was because in your hot oven, only the bottom fire was going. But why wouldn't it have had the same effect on the bottom of the hot DO loaf? I don't know. Thus I ponder.
I don't know the fireing cycle of my oven, but I will check it out. Is your's gas (as mine) or electric?
Thanks again, Dobie
I don't evny them, I had to lose my MIL to inherit them.
But they do remind me of her every time I cook with them, she loved my cooking. Especially the Christmas Biscotti.
As for the bottom crust, I think it is because it is sticking. Stuck food burns.
could be the humidity, a cold DO in a hot oven, I get low rise breads and the ear almost always never forms. It kind of just melts into the crust but you can see the score marks. Other than that, they're all good!
A cold DO in a cold oven though, gives me pancake bread, as my gas-fired oven takes about 30 mins just to get to baking temp.
Hi WhollyBread
It's probably not the humidity, I also live in a fairly humid area, but I don't think it would have much affect on the inside of a DO.
More likely it would be the 30 minutes to baking temp. Mine is about half that.
While my cold DO into a cold oven and a hot DO into a hot oven didn't differ tremendously, I would say the hot was slightly better. Some day I will try a cold DO into a hot oven, just for the heck of it.
As to the ear not lifting, I can't offer any advice. I've only recently been having any success at all with scoring and I don't want to jinx it. But I think the long heat-up probably would be the cause. When you bake this same bread with more conventional methods (hot DO into hot oven or on a sheet pan or hot stone), you have no problems? That would be good to know either way.
I will say that I've recently returned to Hot in Hot, just to remove that issue from the equation of the breads I've been baking. It is a little hairy and scary tho, but doable.
I've also taken to removing the loaf from the DO and letting it finish for the last 8-10 minutes bare on the oven rack. I forget who suggested that, but I do that pretty much all the time now, no matter how or what I'm baking with good success..
Thanks for the feedback.
dobie
gives me ears to be proud of, oh yes. And a deep and dark crust that remains crispy for many hours. The hot DO has given me the odd burn every now and then and I could always use parchment but the folds in the paper create some wavy patterns in the bread that I'm not particularly fond of.
WhollyBread
Good to know Hot and Hot works for you. I've been finding the same.
Regarding parchment, I usually just cut out a circle to match the bottom of the DO which leaves me with no patterns (other than on the bottom), yet a good release (used, when in doubt).
You know, not parchment up the sides, so to speak. I don't know if that's what you mean, but that's what I do sometimes (depending on the dough).
Thanks
dobie