December 2, 2018 - 3:31am
terracotta tuscan oven
Hase anyone any experience of using these. Its a bit like the rommertopf can be used for bread they turn up on auction sites and look ok thanks
Share
Hase anyone any experience of using these. Its a bit like the rommertopf can be used for bread they turn up on auction sites and look ok thanks
Hello. I am also looking for experiences using the Terracotta Tuscan Oven. I found one at a Goodwill store and was super excited to bake some bread in it. I put it in the oven to preheat, with the thought of dropping the bread in the terracotta Tuscan Oven and baking the bread covered for the first 15 min or so, then uncovered. After a short while at 450°F, a very strong smell of something like paint solvent started to come out of the oven and I got scared of using it with bread. The bottom of my Tuscan Oven is glazed. I believe they may not all be glazed. That is the part that appeared to be emitting most of the smell. I am not sure if it is that the oven had never been used and needed to go through this. I may try again, but honestly I am pretty scared of introducing some toxins to the bread.
That would make it look glazed when it really isn't. Mine is glazed but I did have one in the past that wasn't glazed.
One idea might be to burn off whatever it is in a self cleaning oven. When you put the oven on self clean, include your pot and let the heat burn off whatever it is. It theoretically shouldn't hurt the pot since is is terra cotta and it was fired at a much higher temperature than your oven goes to for self-cleaning. I haven't done this with a terra cotta pot but I have done it with a really dirty pizza stone. It came out brand new looking.
Then again, if it is varnish... maybe you'll end up with a fire in there....
I should have asked this later, but would you soak the terracotta container on water? Instructions for a Romertopf recommend first soaking on water before you bake. However, those instructions are typically related to cooking stews and the like. Is soaking necessary when baking a high hydration bread?
Thanks! I appreciate the collective wisdom of the forum.
when I use it. I also put it in a cold oven to heat up and put room temperature dough in it once it was hot.