1st Attempt At Tartine Country Loaf
So I recently purchase some new toys (brotform and lame) among others and was eager to not only use them but to try the much anticipated Tartine Country Loaf. I decided to half the recipe b/c it is just me and my wife and want to make sure the method produced a favorable result. This is my fist attempt at making a loaf with my 2 weeek old starter. I am extremely please with my result and being a perfectionist in nature there is one thing I would like to improve. Next time I want to produce a deeper brown crust. I used the DO method and with that being said, to obtain a deeper browning would I need to increase the time cooking with the lid on or off? I preheated my DO/oven for 40min on 500 then lowered the temp to 450 when I lower the loaf and placed it back in the oven. Baked for 15min covered and 25min uncovered until interal temp was 205-210. Without further adeui I present my results. Any feedback/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Beautiful loaf, just the way it is! Congratulations!
In order for browning to increase, humidity has to drop and temp has to be over 150°C so to answer your Q simply, that would mean no trapped steam, lid off encourages browning. A trick to try is to remove the baked loaf completely from the DO and place back in the oven on the rack to brown longer.
Research: Maillard reaction.
Very nice looking bread. For more browning you could turn the oven up high for the last 5-6 minutes of baking to put more heat on the surface of the loaf. As Mini suggested, do this with the loaf out of your dutch oven. Also follow Mini's advice and research Maillard.
For a first attempt (or any attempt), your bread looks great.
Jeff
I too remove the bread completely from the DO 5 minutes after the lid comes off. The bread finishes on the stone which is in the oven all the time. Baking to 205 F usually gets the crust nice and brown. You example for a new starter is quite good as it is. Also, once the lid comes off, switch the oven to convection if you have it too.
Nice baking.
I'd say that was a great loaf of bread, not just an attempt but a true success. Nice open crumb too - Bravo!
I learned something here too. I've only used the dutch oven twice and like you wanted more browning. Now I know to take the loaf out of the DO to bake on the stone and maybe turn up the heat a notch.
Thanks
Linda
Thanks guys for all of your comments. I am still in awe that I created something this beautiful and tasty. This was the first time that I have had excellent oven spring which doubled. My starter has performed very well. I feed it every 12hrs and contemplating about putting it in the fridge b/c I am using more flour than I would like. At 2 weeks old, do you recommend I put it in the fridge or wait another 2 weeks like I am planning on doing? I will definatly follow the suggestions about pulling the DO and finishing off on the stone. The loaf has a mild sour flavor which I enjoy but would really like a sour loaf so I can determine a middle ground in terms of sourness. Any suggestions as how to increase sourness?
starter to peak under 24 hrs. That way you're feeding once a day. I would not put it in the fridge yet if you want to develop the more sour bacteria. (at this stage of starter development) Give it another week or two.
Meanwhile play with your starter elaborations to get more sour, like ripening longer or using less starter in you favorite recipe for longer rises. Lots of conflicting ideas to try. (starters vary)
You can reduce the size of your starter to just 20g starter to feed keeping control over the amount of discard.
:) Mini
Been doing some reading and I have decided that with my discarded when feeding I am going to create a firm starter at 50% hydration. In the Tartine loaf that I made, I only used 1 tbsp, so I believe that this contributed to the mild sour taste.....but I want more, lol. I keep my starters at a reasonable size, about 4 oz after feeding. Hopefully my firm starter experiments will help contribute to a more complex sour profile.