Burned bottom, pale top
Hey,
so I set out to try Peter Reinhart's recipe for a Whole Wheat bread (from his book Baking Artisan Bread).
Well, I followed the recipe exactly like it should, but ran into lots of problems.
The bread was going great till I put it in the oven.
First, I had zero oven spring (even though it was rising quite good before). Second, the bottom got completely burned and it all got really glued to my loaf pan. Third, the color of the top of the bread was not anywhere as near as his bread on the book...
What I did was, pre-heat the oven and the baking steel (45 min). I have a thermometer and it was showing the perfect temperature (230ºC).
I put the bread on the loaf pan and the loaf pan on top of the baking steel. And baked it for the time he said.
Like I said, there was no oven spring, the top was kinda pale and the bottom got burned.
Did I make a mistake in putting the loaf pan on the baking steel? Should I not use the baking steel for this?
Any help, please, I'm so frustrated...
Here are some pics of this disaster...
1. no rise (just 3 finger high)
2. pale top:
3. bottom burned and broken:
4. Close-up texture of the crumb: