I Can Never Get the Crust Right!
I am trying to bake S.F. sourdough and I can never get the crust to come out just right.
It always turns out too pale, too shiny, hard as concrete, or not crispy enough. I can never get a nice shade of chestnut brown.
I have tried Dutch ovens, pans of water, spray bottles, baking stones, a sheet of 1/4" aluminum (baking steel) but my crusts always disappoint.
To save energy I bake in a toaster oven. We had a big electricity scare in California around 2000 and the state was always telling us to conserve electricity. The governor at the time was actually going door to door handing out compact fluorescent light bulbs and we were having brownouts. It turns out some guys were illegally gaming the California electricity supply. They never went to jail.
My big oven is cavernous. It seems wasteful to bake a small boule in an oven designed to hold two thanksgiving turkeys -- there is so much wasted space.
I may not be preheating the toaster oven sufficiently. With the small heating elements, it seems to take longer to come up to temperature than the big oven. I aim for a temperature of 425 F. I have checked the temperature of both ovens with an oven thermometer and they are accurate. Some people recommend baking at a temperature of 500 F.
The toaster oven had some definite hot spots surrounding the heating elements. The 1/4" aluminum plate took care of them. I used to have a problem with burning bottoms, but a small pizza stone took care of that.
In a Dutch oven, the crusts don't get really brown (I suppose they would if I baked them for a long time, like 1 1/2 hours). I am reluctant to handle the lid of a D.O. which is 400 degrees Fahrenheit to remove it half way through the bake.
I used to spray the loaves with water. That may have been why the crusts were turning to concrete.
I should try making some yeasted loaves just for test bakes. SD involves such long proofing times.
I may just forget about saving energy and bake in the big oven. (SHRUG)
Thoughts?
I haven't tried:
- An inverted metal bowl over the loaf (lighter and easier to remove during the bake)
- Chad Robertson's covered cooker (may be easier to remove the lid)
- Ninja cooker
I could try putting a cast-iron stove-burner diffuser on top of my 2-quart D.O. (it might be easier to remove)
Use your real oven….it is much better insulated so you may not be saving that much electricity by using the little toaster oven. Plan a few other uses for your oven to increase efficiency. Have something baked for dinner that night, make some cookies, make several loaves and freeze a few. If you fill that 'cavernous' space, you'll get more baking/cooking from the energy you use.
To run a valid comparison of energy usage, take the wattage of appliance multiplied be the amount on time, including preheat, will give you WHrs, or watt hours, which will allow you to compare apples to apples.
The wattage rating is on the appliance ID sticker. On my toaster oven is impressed in the metal back and shows 1800 watts which if run for one hour means I've used 1800 WHrs or 1.8 KWh which you can compare to the charge on your electric bill to get an approximate cost comparison.
I can't give an actual comparison for myself because I use gas. But IMOHO, screw the energy efficient czars for bread baking. Use the correct tool for the job and bake in your big oven. Get a pair of oven safe gloves for working with your hot DO. My husband bought me a pair of welding gloves at Home Cheapo....for $11..wasn't that sweet? They work great!
I pretty much follow Hamelman's recipe and bake at 460 with steam for fifteen minutes using the wet towels in a baking tray right below the baking steel for steam. After the initial period of bake, the tray comes out (beware of the blast of steam when you open the oven door) and I finish the bake at 420 in convection mode. Baking time varies with a full loaf vs batard to get the desired final internal temperature of 205F. I have an electric oven and our bill is really not all that high given all the baking that I do (we spend more on air conditioning in the summer months than anything else).
I've done the testing, and the toaster oven saves maybe 25 to 33 percent, so the energy savings aren't that great. The toaster oven takes longer to come up to temperature and that cuts into the energy savings.
HI Mixinator... I've tried a few things over the past little while searching for the perfect crust. I'm sure I'll die still searching but whatever.
Anyway my observations are thus: The clay baker option (either Romertoph or Sassafras) doesn't give as nice a crust as cast iron.
The steam obviously is critical and the temperature. I preheat to 500 degrees with my DO in the oven and plop my bread dough in to a hot DO when ready. I use parchment paper for the transfer. I spritz water on the loaf just once or twice before putting the lid on the DO. I do the first 15 mins covered at 460 degrees and then remove the lid and drop the temperature some depending on what I am baking. Usually will bake for another 35 minutes minimum - again depending on flour.
The biggest downside for me of the DO is the limitation in shape. I don't put steam trays in the oven easily. I'm afraid of breaking another oven glass. But if I want to learn other shapes I'm going to have to practice more with steam.
The photo I have included I baked last night. I followed the instruction for Tartine style loaf on weekendbakery.com and that was the result. (And yes that is probably the Wonder Bread in the background that my husband is addicted to).
I for one commend you for saving energy. It may not be a lot when you look at it per loaf, but I suspect this isn't the only way you try to conserve, and if more people used a bit less here and there...
I'm curious about your hesitation to remove the lid from your DO. You still have to take it off in mid-bake if you bake in your regular oven, which might well be even hotter. In my regular oven, usually at 450, I remove the DO lid using either a leather pot-holder or a small silicone one. In your toaster oven, I assume you have far less headroom. But would it be difficult to take the entire DO out, remove the lid and then return the unlidded DO to complete the bake? It seems like this shouldn't take more than a few seconds, which doesn't seem nearly enough to make a meaningful difference in the result. That said, I do wonder if the shorter distance between the loaf and the top elements in your toaster oven might make a difference compared to using a regular oven.
The D.O. will be 400+ degrees and it's heavy cast iron. I might have better luck removing the lid in the big oven.
You can't bake bread out in the open in a regular toaster oven. I found a model made by Oster which has a "warm" setting in which the upper heating elements remain off. If you try to bake bread out in the open in a toaster oven where the upper elements stay on, they WILL incinerate the top of the loaf. The roof of the toaster oven will be 400+ degrees even with the upper heating elements off.
OK, now I have my test results. The big oven uses 0.7 kWH and the toaster oven uses 0.57 kWH, a difference of 0.13 kWH. I pay 13 cents per kWH, so the big oven costs 1.7 cents more to use than the toaster oven for a one-hour bake. The big oven has a larger volume to heat but is better insulated, so the difference isn't that great.
This isn't a valid test because the thermostat will be cycling the heating elements on and off during that hour. At certain times it will be using the rated power and at other times it will be using 0. You really have to use a kWH meter.
on the patio outside every summer when the AZ summers heat the kitchen and i don't want to heatt the kitchen to hellish proportions. My toater oven puts the best crust on bread and every it as good as Big Old Betsy - the GE.
Something is wrong with your toaster oven it it takes longer to heat up than the big one. My toaster oven heats to 500 F in 7 minutes flat and the GE takes 37 minutes. My toaster oven is 1500 watts and the GE is 3000 watts so the the toaster oven uses half the electricity if it rums for the same amount of time - but it runs for much less time since it preheats and reheats heats so much faster..
The reason the toaster oven can put better crust on bread is that it is such a small space to steam. I use 2 Pyrex measuring cups half full of water and a kitchen dish rag rolled up in each one, placed catty corner for a mini version of Sylvia's steaming towels
I have also used a small DO With the handle taken off and hole plugged, which works fine if you remove the lid after 15 minutes of baking - not taking the lid off will bake for weird crusts. I have also used overturned SS bowl used as a cloche with the bread on parchment on the bottom of the broiler pan that came with the oven. The kid comes of at 15 minutes too. This method is by far the easiest and it works well enough. IF the bread gets to brown on the top I just cover it with foil or just turn it over so the bottom is up.
Do not spray your bread with water! Bad crust will result. You just need to experiment some more to get it just right. I like you wanting to same energy too!
Happy Mini Oven baking
I made a yeasted test loaf today (shorter proofing time than sourdough!) and baked it in the big oven at 450F. 30 minutes into the bake, the D.O. lid came off. After 60 minutes it had a beautiful chestnut-brown crust, nice and crispy with no burnt bottom! I did spray the loaf with water beforehand to make absolutely sure there would be steam for this test bake. Next test I may omit the spraying. The loaf sat in a small ceramic dish lined with parchment inside the D.O. to act as a thermal insulator to keep the bottom from burning.
Here is what I need to get, just the thing for lifting Dutch oven lids:
http://www.amazon.com/Texsport-CAST-IRON-LID-LIFTER/dp/B0000AUT69/ref=cm_wl_huc_item
or pot holder may be all you need. In my stove oven, I have ample headroom to reach in, remove the DO lid and put it on the rack beside the DO. The length of time I'm holding the lid is maybe 1 second, or 2 at most so I've never felt enough heat to consider using anything more than an oven mitt or pot holder.
I've seen this type of lid lifter. I don't think it's what you want since it's used in situations like campfire cooking where there's nothing above the DO, which means you have loots of room to hook the lid and pull it straight upward. In your oven, you'd probably have to hold the lifter in a more horizontal position, where you'd need more force / strength to remove the lid than if you were pulling it straight up.
I baked pizza yesterday in my regular oven. The crust was pale, but the temperature of the oven was high. I think the dough was fermented too long. I noticed this recently whenever I let the dough over-ferment, the crust always comes out this weird pale color, but the bottom crust is brown.
I never have a problem with browning when the bulk fermentation wasn't long. Maybe try reducing the bulk fermentation time.
Over fermenting is definitely not good for browning as all the sugar is used up by the yeast but a long slow fermentation will actually increase the browning as the enzymes have time to convert starch to sugars. In my experience a cold fermented pizza dough browns much nicer than a dough made 60 to 90 minutes before the pizza gets baked. Some people add sugar to enhance the colour and to give the yeast more food but it isn't necessary if the enzymes are allowed to do their job.
Gerhard
Yes, I left the bowl out at room temperature. I went to take a nap. When I woke up, the weather got warmer. After baking the pizza, I noticed the crust had this weird gray pale color. The texture was awful, too. The crust was hard and leathery.
Oh well. I learn from my mistake and, hopefully, won't make the same mistake next time.
The lid of my 5-quart D.O. is kind of heavy, and it would seem even heavier exerting leverage at the end of a lid lifter, so ix-nay on the lifter.
They are excellent for lifting hot things and I use mine all the time sliding oven racks in and out and handling the steam tray.
I have a pair of Ove Gloves and do use them.
I recently took delivery of a covered terra cotta baking vessel but didn't use it until today, and now I just love it. The ceramic is so much lighter and easier to handle in a hot oven than cast iron. I remove the lid halfway through the bake using the Ove Gloves.
What I didn't realize at first is that it is mandatory that any source of steam be gone for the last half (or so) of the bake and that the oven be completely dry. If you're going to have a steam vessel inside the oven, one way to achieve this is to use only enough water that it will have completely evaporated about halfway through the bake, leaving a totally dry oven. In my toaster oven, 1/2 cup of water poured into the crumb tray makes loads of steam and it is all gone after about 30 minutes. Alternatively, one can simply reach in and remove any steaming apparatus, be it a water tray, lava rocks, rolled-up towels, nuts and bolts, inverted bowl, etc.
Today's test bake was done in the toaster oven with the terra cotta baker and with the previously-described aluminum plate removed, so I'm back to energy-saving mode. The result was great. The baker seals well to trap steam inside. I took a tip from dabrownman and rather than spraying the loaf itself, I spray the inside of the lid with water as a source of steam in addition to the moisture already in the dough.
Referring to this comment:
Jeffrey Skilling was caught and sentenced to 24 years in prison. Just FYI.
According to that Wikipedia article, Skilling "was convicted of federal felony charges relating to Enron's financial collapse".
He wasn't convicted specifically of gaming the California electricity supply. That was a couple of other guys.
I finally got a loaf with a great, brown, crispy crust! No Dutch overn, just right out in the open in the big oven. There was steam for the first 15 minutes of the bake, then the steam pan was removed.
The secret? Less starter. Too much starter was giving me a pale, thick, hard crust. For this bake I used only 10 gm starter to 1 cup flour in refreshing the starter. The smaller quantity of starter didn't seem to affect the flavor much.
Progress!