Loaf 91 – Lean (Not) for Gifts

Posted on Dec 23, 2012 in loaves

These loaves and the next batch (Loaf 92 – 9 Grain) were meant to be family gifts for the holiday, but our travels were aborted due to weather problems. From a gifting standpoint I was relieved, as these loaves didn’t turn out as visually pleasing as I would have liked them to be.

The seam along the top didn’t split open to create nice ears. This was either due to how I scored these loaves (I may have held the scoring blade vertically rather than at an angle), or over-proofed, or due to a different method I was trying out to generate the steam in the oven.

The Steam Experiment

To get a nice oven pop and crisp crust, you need steam in the oven for the first 15 minutes of baking. I’ve done this in the past by simply pouring hot water into a roasting drip pan that was preheated along with the oven. This makes a nice amount of steam, but it takes awhile for all the water to vaporize.

I saw a video online where the baker used a cast iron frying pan filled with lava rocks. Due to the massive surface area that the rocks have, the water vaporizes extremely fast and efficiently.

Don’t try this! Lava rocks are not a good choice! The shock of the water causes the lava rocks to fracture slightly, and the steam carries with it a fine pumice dust. The bottom of the oven had a layer of this dust on it, I’m pretty sure it didn’t made it up to the bread. (There wasn’t any evidence that it had on the bread, walls of the oven, or the pizza stone.)

Conclusion

I actually think that the reason it didn’t open up is because the loaves were over-proofed. Looking back at Loaf 39, where I tested different proofing times, I saw that longer proofs pop less. My kitchen is generally cold, and I discovered that our ovens have a defrost mode that heats the oven to the low 80s. My proofing time was in line with the 2+ hour rise time I generally do in a colder kitchen.