Steam idea - Has anybody tried this?
Lately I've been experimenting with steamimg methods. Before this I had been using a pan full of lava rocks, preheated with the oven, and pouring a cup of boiling water after loading the bread. It worked rather well, but the main problem was that it was really hard for me to get the oven hot enough with the rocks in --the most I could get was 230°C-- and then after I loaded the bread and poured the water there was a lot of steam immediately, but most of it vents shortly after, and the temperature droped about 20° or more, and the flame goes out so I have to reach under the burner with a lighter (wich is probably not very safe). Also, I burned my hand the last time I did it because I forgot to wear an oven mitt; so I decided it was time to look for a more efficient method and came up with this:
I plugged a plastic tube through the hole on the lid of this pressure cooker. I stuffed it with aluminum foil so that most of the steam goes through the tub, but some of it escapes through the sides, but still most of it makes its way to the oven. I insulated the last section of the tube, which goes inside the oven, with masking tape, and also cover it with a piece of cloth; and it goes in through the broiler door, beneath the flame.
I think it should work fine, I tried it before with the oven off and saw that after only a few minutes the oven is saturated with steam. And my favourite part is that with this method I can get the oven to 250°C or more and the steam doesn't cool it down at all. But when I tried baking some baguettes with it I got a very pale and thick crust. I pre-steamed for five minutes, then let it on five minutes more after loading the oven, turned the steam off and waited for 7 minutes before opening the door to vent it, then baked them for 18 min more (30 in total).
My only idea is that the paleness is due to an overproofing (they were also very flat), and that the thickness means it was too much? Maybe I should try steamming for 5 minutes and venting immediately?
I would like to know if anybody has tried this before and if they have any thoughts on why it isn't working well.
Comments
But I only have an electric kettle. Perhaps it would be good to invest in a stove top kettle. I need ideas on how to get steam into my oven. What kind of tubing would I need?
Maybe yu could make it work with the electric kettle, I actually got part of the idea from this post.
As for the tubing, I used a regular plastic tranparent tube, the kind they use in medical treatment (I'm not sure what it was doing in my kitchen, though). The heat from the steam won't melt it, it just becomes soft, but be careful with the heat from the oven and especially the door, just make sure it is not in direct contact with it. I used the maskinf tape to isolate it from the heat and a kitchen cloth to avoid direct contact with metal. A copper tube would probably work best.
That said, I'm still testing it, I can't really say that it works, though it seems to me to generate enough steam and a steady flow.
How creative of you! Never crossed my mind to have a hose down from a boiling pressure kettle. I, like many other here on TFL, use Sylvia's steaming towels, but you'd loose heat with that , as you've probably found.
Thick, crust can be a result of too much steam. 15 minutes under heavy steam is as much as bread can handle before crust starting to thicken. Pale crust, in your case, is a result of too much fermentation which consequently means that the yeast has consumed all sugars in the dough, and there are very little sugars remaining to color the dough crust.
Is it a gas oven?
Khalid
Thanks!
It is 6 am and its 26°C in my kitchen, so yeah, I think overfermentation has been the reason I've been gettin a lot of pale crusts lately. Yes, it is a gas oven and I tried that towel method once but between all that water and the time it takes to set up everything with the door open, it lost too much heat; it is also quite old, so you can imagine that heat loss is a big problem for me.
is what we used a lot of back in the days when I was a research biochemist. It comes in a variety of diameters and is quite strong. I'm unsure about it's heat resistance over the long term since we never used it for the purpose that you are doing but there are certain types that are approved for food processing use. Small ovens such as yours are always going to be a challenge to bake in because of potential heat loss.
I dock my boules and then spray them with water. Then I put them on my pizza stone and cover it with a Stainless Steel mixing bowl for half of the baking time. Then I remove the mixing bowl and let it brown. The bowl traps the steam inside and keeps the skin of your dough soft and pliable to maximize the oven spring.
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/food_pictures/17201990741" title="image by Brian Foreman, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7660/17201990741_529017f667_s.jpg" width="75" height="75" alt="image"></a>
For bagguettes I use a hotel pan with a baguette pan in it. Right before I put the hotel pan in the oven I dock the loaves and drop in 6 ice cubes and tightly seal the hotel pan with tin foil to trap the steam. I leave the foil on for half of the baking time.
I preheat a baking steel in the oven, and while that heats up, I soak a pizza stone in hot water in the sink. After about 35-50 minutes at 450-475 degrees, I put the pizza stone in the oven on the rack under the steel, wait about 5-7 minutes, and then put the bread in. I usually take the stone out after 20-30 minutes and finish baking without it.
I wonder how much water that stone absorbs. The thing with that kind of method is that liquid water has a temperature limit, that means that the more water you introduce into the oven, the harder it will be to get the oven to the high temp these kind of breads need. My method looks a little tricky, but the big advantage is that you are only introducing vapor into the oven, so it doesn't lower the temperature at all, wich makes a huge difference for old vented small gas ovens such as mine. Also, you are not limited to round boules.
Today I made some baguettes and the crust was great, thin, but very crispy and golden brown; thoug I did something else, I sprayed them lightly with water before loading them and left the steam tube for only 6 minutes and vented the oven. Together they worked great. (Plus, I managed to correct my problem with overfermenting and overproofing. Kudos for me!)
Anyway, thanks for all your comments. I'll leave this as my small contribution to the giant pool of knowledge that is TFL :)
Happy baking.
Pablo