Steam
I have an LG gas oven. It has a vent that immediatly and continuously exhausts all air and moisture from the oven as well as all the combustion gasses used to heat the oven. When I try to use steam, all the steam goes rushing out of the exhaust vent in a flash and therefore I get little or no benefit from using any of the steam production methods suggested on the web or here for that matter.
The oven manual states that the vent should never be blocked for any reason because dangerous conditions will ensue. Given that the vent is used to exhaust burnt gasses as well as provide oxygen for the oven burners, I can see why they say that.
I have seen posts here that point out that commercial bakers only use steam for few minutes. While that is true, my research shows that those short times are for conventional white bread baked on a conveyor belt system with the steam injected at the beginning of the bake (Stage1) and as the bread moves along the conveyor, the effective steam drops like a stone as the bread moves away. See the graphs here https://www.readingthermal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Digital-Humidity-Sensor.pdf
This does not help me much because I am trying to bake a Ciabatta style bread with a crispy, thick, fragile crust that will easiy crunch when eaten.
I have successfully baked great no knead bread in a dutch oven for years and baked great Pan de Cristal (see King Arthur recipe) but have abjectly failed to make a truly great ciabatta with a thick, crispy, easily crunched crust.
As I have mentioned in another post, my target bread is from the Bonefish Grill as pictured here.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks
You can try using a turkey roaster or other light weight pan maybe aluminum pan to cover your dough which will act like the Dutch oven.
Hi Isand66,
Thanks for the reply. I have tried that technique but got poor results. No real improvement in crust. At least for me.
I have a convection only electric oven with a similar problem. I preheat to 500F, put in the bread, pour boiling water into an old cast iron frying pan on the bottom of the oven then turn the oven off for 10 minutes and finally turn it back on to finish baking.
Hi plevee,
Thanks for the reply. How well does this system work?
I am looking for a thick, fragile, crunchy crust. Any hope? I am really tired of leathery or hard crusts that are no pleasure for me to chew on.
I have already started testing my oven with this scheme. I cranked 'er up to 500F, opened up the door for as long as it would take to load up the bread and turned off the oven. Temp declined to about 330F. Is this about like yours? In any event, what temps do you use? Especially when turning back on.
Have you tried this with small ciabatta or dinner rolls? If so, what was the crust like? Any recipes?
Thanks for any help you can give.
I mainly bake lean SD boules, pan loaves and some rolls. My oven temp drops below 400F but I do the rest of the bake at 400F. I preheat to 500 with clay baking stone for 40mins, 10 mins off, ~25 at 400F, all convection - and these timings are for 2# boules.
I get good oven spring and crisp crusts. I've never tried ciabatta. I'm no expert - unlike many other Fresh Loafers and I'm sure they will help more. I only use recipes loosely and go by feel. Good luck.
Don't sell yourself short! You are an expert in my eyes. Thanks for the info. I am going to try some experiments now and see how it goes. Thank you.
Back in the days before I had a steam injection oven, I used an inverted graniteware roasting pan over my pizza stone. I would place ice cubes around the dough after loading, then cover with the roaster. Great results. Have used a similar setup at my son’s natural gas oven when we visit. Almost as good as a Dutch oven but better geometry for batards and baguettes and less dangerous handling.
While it is quite pricey, the Fourneau Grande works very well, less dangerous than a DO, and less moving of heavy objects, and you are not limited to boules like most DO.
https://www.fourneauoven.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwitShBhA6EiwAq3RqA2zmlL_HS-9OTr1YkBUBQljzNNbcPP1teoeyLL4XoNdGFrXm60PaLBoCfz4QAvD_BwE