Any experience w/ Kitchenaid range w/ steam tray (not steam assist)
We just got a new Kitchenaid range that has a steam tray. This isn't proper steam assist, just a tray that slides like a little drawer under one of the oven racks that can be filled with water. Ambient heat produces steam, presumably anyway.
Does anyone have experience with this model? I have been making Lahey bread, and Forkish's bread w/ starter in a dutch oven but I was going to try to graduate to baguettes. Recipes I've read advise water soaked rags and other techniques, but since I have this tray all built in I'm going to start with that.
So if you've used this before I appreciate hearing about your experience with it. If not I'll post my experience when I give it a go next week.
Also, first post here, thanks everyone for all the great tips and good stories to be found here.
Congrats on your purchase. Make sure you post your results, there are a lot of inquiries about Kitchenaid and their ovens. I would start with the heated moist rags on the steam tray if it were my oven, but probably a good idea to start with whatever Kitchenaid suggests
@ barryvabeach - Sadly, kitchenaid doesn't give much advice. The oven user guide says "Use 'Steam Bake' when baking bread, fish, roasts, add water to tray and press 'steam bake'."
That's about it. It doesn't say what that means, other than add water to the tray. The only thing I can think of that is different between 'bake' and 'steam bake' is maybe it doesn't turn on the convection fan, as it says it might "to make the oven cook more efficiently" even when it isn't in convection mode. Whatever that means.
I made a stab at baguettes today. I made too much dough, so I got to try a couple attempts. I tried with just water in the tray and water and towels in the tray.
There was a noticable change in water level, so for certain there was evaporation going on, but I couldn't really see anything, and certainly not steam coming from the vent as has been talk about in my book and by other forum posters.
I've only ever baked in a dutch oven before, this was my first steam attempt. So it's hard to say if I had enough steam or not, since I don't really know what it would be like without any at all.
As far as the oven other than that it seemed to perform very well. Temperature was spot on compared to my small oven thermometer. The oven light is particularly good in this oven, which is a nice change compared to my last one. Other than that, well it cooks bread, so I guess it's good, right?
First let me say that I have a 10 year old Bosch oven/range, so I don't know particularly about you KitchenAid oven.
From personal experience with varied ovens, I can assure you that even cold water added to your tray should be steaming by the time the oven comes up to a normal baking temperature.
I would think that if there was significant steam coming out of the vent, that the convection fan must be on. I've learned on this forum (I don't remember who or where) that steam for baking is best accomplished with the convection fan off (other-wise it just vents out the precious steam).
I'm sure you know that as well as when you are baking in a DO with lid (ala Lahey and Forkish), you are baking with steam, generated from the dough itself. Ahh, but baguettes in a DO, diffucult at best.
Most of the people that I have heard make reference to wet towels have at least a background in Wood Fired Ovens. The wet towels are used to mop the ashes off the baking deck, and for simplicity's sake, remain inside to help produce steam.
I've heard others speak of using lava rocks in their steaming tray but I don't know why.
If there is an advantage to using wet towels or lava rocks in the steam tray of a conventional oven rather than just plain water, I would sure like to know.
I do know that when filling your steam tray by any method, that you need to be carefull not to splash cold water onto a hot glass oven door (a fairly expensive and debilitating repair, I've been told). Some folks lay a dry kitchen towel over the glass when filling to prevent mishaps.
If your KitchenAid steaming drawer operates smoothly enough to allow adding water and yet prevents the splashing, that would be a good thing. Does it?
I would not be fond of an oven feature that determined on it's own when to turn the convection fan on or off. I would prefer that choice be left to me.
Like you said, if it cooks bread... it's good. I agree.
One of the rare times I've ever bought an 'extended warranty' was for my Bosch. Even rarer yet, the oven needed repair a month before the warranty expired, not (as usual) a month later. $1200 of parts (list price) and a good 10 hours of a service person's labor later, the thing was essentially rebuilt from top to bottom. Finally, I won one.
But I know this Bosch will only last so long, thus my interest in your KitchenAid experiences.
What I like in particular about the Bosch is it's 'proofing' mode. I can heat the oven to between 85 and 140F therein. Does the KitchenAid have a similar feature?
Thanks and good luck.
dobie
If you're not injecting live steam into the oven cavity, the amount of steam in an oven is proportional to the surface area of the water bath. Filling pans with lava rocks and nuts and bolts is just silliness. Towels help increase the exposed surface area of the water bath provided they are pleated or rolled up. Or just use a bigger pan.
Steam is invisible. At 425 F, don't expect to see a visible cloud of water vapor. When I open my oven door to remove the water pan, the steam hits me right in the face. You can't see it, but you know you've been hit by a blast of steam. And your glasses fog up a little.
At some point you want to remove the source of steam. Most people do this about 20 minutes into the bake.
Mixinator,
I'll go along with what you say except for the silliness of the lava rocks part. I use Sylvia's Steaming Towel 15 minutes before loading the dough and then immediately dump two near boiling cups of water over a pan filled with lava rocks. As the lava rocks and pan live in the oven permanently, this produces an incredible amount of steam instantly. Both of these steam sources sit just above the oven floor and just below the baking deck.
I'll release the steam after ~12-14 minutes when I also rotate the breads inside of the oven.
And yes, watch that you don't give your face a nasty steam bath upon opening the oven door. Keep your head away.
CalBaker, thanks for the update. I take it that the tray you added water to does not go in the oven compartment, it goes into something else and then is heated before it gets sprayed into the oven compartment?
Dobie, the tray with lava rocks, or heavy pieces of metal is to help convert water into steam. If you took one gram of water and heated it from room temperature to one degree higher ( in Celsius) you would need 8 calories of energy. On the other hand, if you took one gram of water at 100 C ( 212 F ) and wanted to change it into steam, you would need 540 calories - a lot more energy. So if you dump water in an oven, it robs some heat from the oven to heat the water up to 100 C ( 212 F ) and a ton more energy to convert it into steam. Some bakers try to minimize that energy consumption by putting lava rocks, or heavy pieces of metal in a tray, so there is a reserve of energy to boil the water. The other trick some use is to take rags, soak them in water, and microwave them so they are steaming, then put them in the oven. That is why there should be an advantage is the oven has a separate heating element heating the water into steam, rather then just spraying room temperature water into the oven.
mixinator and barryvabeach -
Thank you for the very informative replies. Answered a lot of questions I had.
What I do is take that speckled, enamel-coated pan (that most ovens come with) and put it on the oven floor, pour in a little less than 2 cups of hot tap water and turn the oven on to pre-heat.
As long as I begin my bake close to when the oven comes up to temp, I have found that the water in the pan is simmering, a blast of steam in fact does fog my glasses when I put the dough in and after 10-12 minutes, the water is gone.
So, I think my way is less efficient power-consumption wise but is so easy, safe and effective that I'll probably stay with it.
I've tried spraying the dough with water and baking it under a large pan that just contains it, but didn't notice much (if any) difference.
Of course, I'm usually baking one batch and done. If I were doing consecutive batches, I think some of the other techniques you folks mentioned might be very useful.
Thanks again -
dobie
For the nuts-and-bolts idea to work the way you describe, you would have to preheat them.
I find it easier to place about 1/2 C of water in a Pyrex vessel and preheat the water in the microwave while the oven is off, then pour the hot water into a shallow pan and turn the oven on. The pan is positioned directly above the electric heating element. I get plenty of steam this way.
3 minutes in the microwave bring 1/2 C water from room temperature to about 185 F.
I've never tried the lava rocks, but I have a question about them for those of you who do: What about the smell? I remember doing a project for school many years ago in which we took granite landscaping rocks and boiled them to "sterlize" them. Then they were used in a Thanksgiving play about Stone Soup. (Cute morality story about sharing.)
I remember distinctly the smell of the granite when the water came to a boil. It had a very earthy smell, just as if I was digging in the garden. Do the lava rocks have any smell when they get hot and wet?
in my experience. But it doesn't have to be lava rocks. It can be nuts and bolts, river rocks, gold ingots, etc. But as Mixinator says, they are useless unless they are heated up during the pre bake oven heating cycle.
I haven't used the lava rocks, but used the ceramic ones they sell at Home Depot, no smell to speak of. I don't use that technique anymore, but when I did, I put the tray with the ceramic stones in the oven during preheat.