March 16, 2009 - 12:06am
Lousy product
I decided to try no knead bread and found the perfect covered pot at Goodwill - heavy, fired clay with a gorgeous cobalt blue glaze outside and creamy white inside, for $8.50. I noticed and bought a new product at the supermarket - Crisco non-stick spray with flour. I sprayed the inside of the pot and pre-heated to 500 degrees. When I opened the oven and took off the lid, black smoke poured out of the pot, and left a glaze-like brown residue on that beautiful white surface. So I called thir toll-free customer service number and complained. They finally agreed that the can said "for all types of baking", and that their own research showed that 400 degrees was the uppeer limit. They are sending me a check for $20.00
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Hi,
Sorry to hear about your pot. Is it permantly etched in? Can you try soaking some baking soda in the pot for a few days and see if that helps? I don't use any spray, I make my own non-spray version. Crisco, flour and oil. I may have seen the recipe here as well, if anyone can advise? If not, post again, and when I am home (at work, on my break right now), I will look for the recipe. Try using this in the future, it works well for all my baking needs and is far cheaper than the cans. Also, I have never ruined any equipment using it ...:-)
peace,
ivyb
ny
to get off the brown was good old kitchen clenser or soft scrub with bleach. Bleach helps break down the fat. ...elbow grease.
If all else fails you could get some sodium hydroxide (AKA caustic soda or lye) and disolve it in some COLD water in the pot, then gently heat the pot and simmer for 10 minutes. That should shift it. Alternatively a good dose of dishwasher powder (or I've heard denture cleaner tablets) used the same way.
CAUTION sodium hydroxide is a dangerous, corrosive chemical. Handle with extreme care, use rubber gloves & goggles, no aluminium utensils, dispose with a lot of extra water to dilute it. When disolving the pellets, add slowly to cold water, stiring all the time. Read all the instructions and cautions etc on the package.
Scary, but it will work on glass, ceramic, stainless steel or enamel ware (not aluminium), I've done it several times.
There is a further discussion of lye at http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10877/lye-bagels, but note here we are using it at a much higher concentration.
First, I don't think it is entirely fair to blame the product and call it lousy. You decided for some reason to spray oil on the inside surface of your pot, knowing it would be 500F. I don't recall seeing in any of the No Knead methods, application of oil to the pot. What occurred was predictable.
Finding the phrase of "good for all types of baking" on the can doesn't resolve the user from having to use common sense. It's generous of them to offer you two times what you paid for the item.
Oven cleaner would be my first chemical attempt to remove the burned oil. Or. Since it is a fired piece you should be able to leave it in the oven during a cleaning cycle if the scrubbing doesn't work. I do that with my baking stone now and then and it comes out like new.
Eric
The flour sprays - these things are designed for cake baking and do not do well at extremely high temps. I just did a post on this on my own blog. These sprays are full of chemistry simply classed as "propellants" on the label and also contain alchohol. I know the stuff will leave residue on loaves, never thought of it in terms of damaging the vessel.
As noted above, the actual product is not to blame here, just the marketing and lack of proper support information. They really should have stated "for cakes, miffins, and quick breads, or something like that. MOst of this baking takes place at 400 or under anyway. It is understandable that bread baking was not a consideration here - so many are afraid of it anyway. We successfully use the flour sprays for certain cakes all the time, but never ever for breads.
For greasing a vessel or pan, stick to plain old solid shortening like Crisco. Never use any of the flavored stuff since the coloring is just more chemistry at work. Use a small square of paper towel, waxed paper, or even plactic wrap for application. It really doesn't take any loger than spraying since greasing a bread loaf pan is not as touchy as greasing a pan for cakes. Even if you miss a spot, it's not a big deal like it is for cakes.
I am sorry to be a little harsh here with my comments, but common sense should have dictated that putting ANY type of fat in a 500 degree oven was going to cause the fat to smoke, and quickly start to burn..This would occur regardless of whether the fat was connected to a piece of meat, or in your case applied to the inside of a cooking vessel..The flour in the pan spray only exacerbated matters, with the flour being more prone to burn than the fat..
When we bake breads in 500F-550F ovens we are essentially searing the outer crust with the heat of the oven, the very same as we do with a cut of meat..We are attempting to seal in the moisture of the food being cooked by very quickly caramelizing the outer surface of the food with the high heat..The difference with hearth breads compared to other foods cooked in these high temperatures is that we introduce steam into the hot oven in order to keep the outer surface of the bread pliable so that full oven spring / rise can hopefully occur before the caramelization of the crust begins in earnest..
Placing pan spray, especially pan spray containing flour, into the pot was a total NO-NO..You would have had problems with this had the oven been at even 350F, much less 500F..
Bruce
There's a reason that man invented parchment paper, and it's not to make treasure maps when you're a kid.
Parchment or non-stick foil are great for transferring the dough into the hot pot, but you don't need any oil to keep the bread from sticking at these temperatures. I've made the no knead bread in cast iron, enameled, pyrex, Corningware, and aluminum pots, as well as in flower pots. The bread has never stuck. I'd try the cleaning hints posted above, then just use your pot dry.
I bought a roll of Reynold's parchment, and it seems to turn brown and crispy in the oven fairly easily. I've seen instructions for moving your bread over onto a pizza stone and leaving the parchment paper beneath it - I can only imagine that at very high temperatures that this is going to set this particular brand on fire.
I'm interested in cooking on my pizza stone - but I'm not always the most co-ordinated of people, and haven't quite figured out how I'm going to get room-temp floppy bread onto a pizza stone without having a mess on my hands (or more likely, the door and bottom of my electric range.).
Thoughts?
Oh, and to OP: Fill your vessel with very, very hot water for about 30 mins. Then mix up 1/2 baking soda and 1/2 salt. Use this to scrub. Rinse, scrub with JUST baking soda and then rinse with vinegar. I find the vinegar helps 'lift.' You're probably going to have to do this numerous times.
Spray the parchment with Pam and you'll be able to separate the pizza from the parchment.
--Pamela
Just yank it out like the old 'yank the table cloth out from beneath the plate' trick, you mean? Could work. Thanks.
I'm seriously drooling over a SuperPeel so that I can also get my pizza OFF my stone. I have an electric oven, and that stone gets so hot there's just no real good, flat place to put it that's stable enough to cut the pizza on, and yet getting the pizza off the stone is also... well, a challenge.
Just lift up the pizza with your peel and grab the paper with your other hand--the paper isn't hot enough to burn you (at least it's never burned me)--and pull it out.
I've got an electric oven too, although tonight I'm making pizza on the BBQ. My old thrice-cracked stone is out there now. I'm hoping things will go well with these pizzas because everything else I baked today was a disaster.
--Pamela
Since the Crisco oil spray clearly wasn't "lousy" or defective, and the pot was blackened by the OP's inattention, inexperience, or carelessness, I question the ethics of accepting $20 from Crisco. They are an innocent party.
My suggestion is that the $20 be donated to Mercy Corps, in which Floyd, our benefactor, is so deeply involved.
Just my opinion...
I think it more than likely that the product lable has just now undergone a slight revision. Product liability is a very serious business.
Nestle, the famous European company now owns the Crisco Brand (anyone remember the infant formula incident by the same company?). Crisco was the original transfat producer. They had to reformulate in 2007 when faced by an outright ban on their product. So Cogito45's 20 bucks seems comparatively cheap against the legal representation required otherwise. If I were a judgemental type I wouldn't feel all that bad for them.
Anyone remember the short and smokey life of styrofoam pizza boxes. . . ,?
+Wild-Yeast
The J. M. Smucker Co. owns the Crisco brand.
You're right. That one slipped by me.
+Wild-Yeast
Hi, I had to chime in here! Floyd, you are involved with Mercy Corps? My daughter works for them, so of course, I perked right up there! Have you been to their new museum in Manhattan yet? :-)
peace,
ivy, ny
Floyd works for them (doing internet fund raising stuff) here in the Portland office. He hasnt been to NY but has worked with the team doing the museum.
Yeah, my team built the Action Center website and we worked on the technology for a few of the exhibits there like the Global Status Wall, but I have not been to the museum yet.
I am impressed! Your website is first class, the museum is fabulous. That wall is fantastic and I have seen adults "stay put" by it for quite a spell as well. Anyone who comes to NY, go and take the trip. Anyone LIVING in NY, talk to your children's teacher about taking a class trip there!
peace,
ivy
I find they leave a sticky brown residue on my baking utensils, even when used for conventional baking at lower temperatures--takes too much elbow grease to clean them off. Instead, I use silicone mats, oil or butter I rub on with its own wrapper.
For cakes, I use "cake release" found in craft stores and other stores where they sell cake decorating supplies. It has flour in it and works the very best for my cake pans that have all sorts of crevices like the bundt pan and the rose-shaped bundt pan.
I also use the cake release with great results in loaf pans when making sticky wet bread doughs like ABin5 dough or quick breads. Otherwise, I generally never use anything for breads, and I never have a problem. The very hot temperatures seem to form an immediate crust so doughs do not stick to the baking vessels.
mix the following one part shortening one part oil and one part ap flout in a mixer till soft and light
buy a 4 dollar grease brush here http://www.webstaurantstore.com/round-boar-bristle-pastry-brush/27140380.html
and you will never use any thing elce again
Costco in canada has great parchment. but we live in arizona partime and can't buy it here???????. Like 11.00 for a three month supply if you us it alot. Would mail it to anyone interested but probably would cost too much to mail. Haven't investigated
Reynolds Parchment is only "rated" to be baked at temperatures at or below 420 degrees and we tend to use higher temperatures. I was noticing my atsthma was getting bad when baking bread at higher temps, I think it was both burning flour and burning parchment (parchment paper is treated with silicone and who knows what bleaching agents--I don't think my lungs need that). I know there are other brands of parchment paper that are unbleached and rated for higher temps but that's more to buy and store.
I got a Super Peel (www.superpeel.com) to alleviate these problems, but the super peel also needs a good amount of flour to work well. So now I'm doing a combo. I use parchment paper, but trim the paper very close around the bread before baking. The dough keeps the parchment under it moist enough so that it doesn't burn and my asthma is not reacting.
Then, because I really like the Super Peel--since I, too, am rather uncoordinated--I use the Super Peel, sans flour, to transfer the dough on the trimmed parchment to the stone in the oven.
One of these days I'm going to experiment by replaing the canvas "belt" on the super peel with parchment paper. The challenge will be securing the parchment so that it does not slip.
According to the Super Peel website, you can replace the canvas belt with waxed paper to transfer things like messy frosted cake layers, so I think that it just might work with parchment paper and I'd have the best of both worlds without stuff to irritate my lungs.
That's exactly what I do: trim away any excess paper and you won't have any burning issue.
--Pamela
Just in case not everybody read Bruce's opus on parchment, here is the link:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10708/parchment-paper#comment-57153
--Pamela