Announcement

**banhxeo76** · 05-11-2012, 09:06 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I brought The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart as a guide to bake bread because I have never bake bread successfully ever before. However, there was a big learning curve for me. You see, the way I cook, I tend to improvised and make a lot of change based on how I feel like a jazz musician. The food that I cooked on the stove will never taste the exactly same because I never use measurement spoon/cup. It is just the way I cook.

Unfortunately, I tried to do that with baking bread as well. Well, let me tell you something (one of many New Orleanians sayings), it just wouldn’t work. You have to follow each step faithfully and there is no short cut when it comes to baking bread. So, I have to change my approach on how to do thing which was a struggle for me because I am not wired to be a baker I supposed. However, the smell of heaven is enough motivation just is keeping me on course to bake the prefect bread, well....most of the time.

About 6 weeks ago, I attempted to bake my first bread by baking baguette by using a very wet dough. The hydration was about 70% and it was retarded in the refrigerator for two nights. Since I was only baking only 6 baguettes, I figured that I don’t need a big fire. Let me tell you, wet dough is very hard to handle and it was more like long skinny ciabatta than a typical baguette. The reason why I want to try this recipe is because Reinhart stated that it was the best baguette that he have ever tasted when he was in Paris…the center of the universe for BREAD. It was a mistake because it was hard to handle especially for beginning like myself and most likely, I may have skip a lot of important step to get it right. After the WFO is heated for 90 minutes of medium fire, and saturated for another 1 hours, the temperature was about 500 F. I figured that I don't need a big fire because I have small going on from a couple of days ago. I noticed that the dough has not risen much so I waited another 20 minutes for the dough to rise. After, 15 minutes, I notice the temperature has drop to 475 F which was rather fast with the door closed. So, I just went ahead put in the not fully rise dough in the oven. And use a spray bottle to get some water into the oven at the beginning. Of course, the bottle spray is a joke because you can’t get enough moisture inside on the oven with a bottle spray. However, I figured that I don’t need to spray much water anyway because my dough was very wet and my oven was cooling down a little too fast for additional water. By the time I close the door, the temperature has dropped to 380 F. Not a good thing. After it was slow cook in the WFO for 45 minutes, it looked very pale compare to one in the photo of the cookbook. After I let it rest, I tried to eat but it was just okay. No, it was awful. I was very disappointed. I tried it with olive oil and butter and it was a disgrace to oil olive and butter if you ask me. By the time my wife and daughter tried it, it was too hard. So, I just dumped it into the trash can. I was ashamed and embarrassed. I refused to take any picture but I wish I did so that I can post here. I was humble by this experience because I believe I am a good cook. Then, I realized that I just have to let it go and learn from this experience. I am sure that a baker in France where I had a tasted of heaven took him years to learn the art of baking hearth bread. Will I ever get to get to taste that bread again? I will ….I will eat that damn bread again my friend.
So, the main problem here is that I was just too cheap on the wood. I was using less wood like I did for pizza. I latter realized that you actually need more wood for bread than you need for pizza. Heat management is something I need to be patience with. There is a learning curve with WFO. You really need to have a patience of a saint to be a great baker. I have a new profound respect for all of the bakers and I have greater respect for bakers who only bake bread with WFO. Peter R Reinhart mentioned in The Bread Baker's Apprentice that he feels confident that you can bake great bread in your gas oven by following his instruction. However, you are on own when it comes to WFO as baking device. He does agree that WFO give you better result for bread. I believe that WFO is the only way you can produce a hearth bread from the old world.

**kmrice** · 05-11-2012, 09:39 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Welcome to this forum. There is a wealth of information here and a lot of great people with excellent advice to give.

Your problem could be insufficient insulation or thermal mass, a damp oven, or not enough heat.

I don't know how you built your oven, but unless it has enough thermal mass to hold the heat (thick walls) and insulation (under the floor and over the vault) it won't hold heat well.

Since I take it your oven is fairly new, it may not be be fully dried. Mortar starts out with a lot of water in it and the oven should be slowly dried with small fires over a week or so to dry it out without excessive cracks, and then fully fired up to get out all of the moisture. My oven didn't really get completely dried and hit its stride until I had done small fires and then fired it to pizza temps five or six times, maybe longer. So, your results may improve, perhaps a lot.

I don't think you fired the oven nearly long enough. If you just heat it to bread temperature and then try to bake, it will cool off immediately, as you saw. You have to get the oven fully heat soaked. With my dome this means heating it to pizza temp (900 - 1,000 f dome, 700 - 800 f floor) and then keeping it there for another hour. I then spread the fire and close it up for an hour. I then remove the fire and wait for the oven to slowly cool off to a 550 f floor temp. Then I bake. This takes several hours (during which I make the dough), but the oven will hold its temp long enough for at least three bakes (last one at about 450 - 475 f floor temp).

Unless you are fully loading the oven (about 15 pounds in my case) you do need steam for the first 10 minutes or so, even with very high hydration. With a fully loaded oven the bread produces enough steam to do the job. Try putting a towel in a baking dish (not glass) covering it with boiling water, and putting it in the oven before you load the dough. Remove it after about 10 minutes.

Good luck. Really great bread does take quite a bit of experience, but very good bread, far better than store bought, isn't that hard. If you post pictures of your bread, whole loaves and cut open to show the crust, there are people here who can do an amazing job of diagnosing what you could do better.

Karl

**texassourdough** · 05-11-2012, 11:28 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

You are encountering multiple problems. Among which may be a "green" (wet) oven!

First, you doesn't appear that you know or understand your oven yet - how much wood it takes/how long to heat load, etc. I know nothing of your oven, how it is constructed (refractory, brick, ??, barrel vault, igoo), insulation, etc. but a normal igloo should clear in 45 min or so and be ready to bake pizza in only in about an hour. Barrel vaults routinely take somewhat longer. If you stop firing at that point the refractory away from the oven will still be cool and will pull heat from the hot oven and thus the oven cools way too fast. You claim you read Bread Builders. REREAD THE OVEN MANAGEMENT SECTIONS. You have to fire long enough to push heat into the refractory so the heat can be released back to the oven to bake the bread. Refractory is not a great conductor. It takes time to heat load - figure at least two hours, maybe three, of firing to get enough heat to do one batch of bread. And you need to establish a standard so you can anticipate WHEN the oven will be at the temp you want to bake at. As it suggests in Bread Builders, you will fire the oven, remove the coals and the bulk of the ashes, and close it up for a period of time - probably 45 minutes to an hour so the heat can equalize through the refractory. Simultaneously you are proofing the bread so both the dough and the oven will be at the right state at the same time. Then you mop the oven to humidify it and remove more of the ash, and load the bread. If you are to have any consistent success you have to do the dough and oven prep CONSISTENTLY so they can be predictable. This is NOT a good activity for people who want to "do their own thing" and vary either process. You need to find something that works for you and repeat it until you understand both the oven and the bread.

How much bread do you want to do? You will never (in my experience) get a great crust with less than 12 pounds of bread in a 1 meter oven for the humidity won't be high enough and spraying (again in my experience) cools the oven interior too much and doesn't tgive the right results either (but others on this forum will likely disagree).

70% hydration is not particularly high for open crumb artisanal baguettes, even with King Arthur AP flour. And baguettes are the hardest bread to make so --- start with boules and ciabatta - things that don't demand a lot of skill. Save baguettes for after you have the proofing/oven under control - especially since you claim to aspire to make world class baguettes like those you got in France!

Creative cooking is open to "doing your thing", bread is NOT - particularly with respect to flour choice/consistency, dough development, handling, forming, bulk fermentation, and proofing times if you want to have consistent, world class results. There can be some variation in hydration, and you can add small amounts of flours like teff, WW, rye, etc. or seeds/nuts, but... even that variation invites inconsistent results until you KNOW your flour and yeast/levain.

You have to be disciplined to make great bread consistently. While a WFO is the ideal, one can easily make great bread in a conventional oven. Cloches are very close to a WFO in results. Open baking on a stone can work but preferably in an electric oven (gas ovens tend to be too dry due to air flow through the oven related to keeping the flame going). Your perceived gap between WFO and conventional ovens is I think far too large. I consider my indoor breads to be quite interchangeable with my WFO breads.

Reading your posts I am forced to conclude you need to incorporate a lot more discipline in your baking if you are to achieve your goals (without a great deal of frustration).

Karl's comments are good.

I would actually encourage you to bake indoors until you can reliably predict when the dough will be ready to baked three to four hours in advance (say four or five if it is a barrel vault). You need at least that lead time to have the oven ready! Until you can predict the dough you are in a world of uncertainty. While baking indoors, you can solve your oven issues. If you must use gas, get a cloche. They are amazing - or bake on a stone under a stainless bowl (for the first 15 to 20 minutes). (Aluminum roasting pans can be used for short baguettes.)

This is all doable. That you have not been able to do it doesn't mean it can't reasonably be done!

Good Luck!
Jay

**banhxeo76** · 05-11-2012, 12:00 PM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Karl & Jay,

I go agree that part of the problem was perhaps my WFO was too green when I first attempt to bake bread. In addition, my fire was not big enough or heat long enough for baking bread. At that time, I went against my knowledge from what I learn from reading books and this forum. However like a typical idiot, I did things against the conventional wisdom and hopefully, I will learn from it. Thank for your wealth of knowledge and words of encouragement.

As for my WFO design, the diameter of the cooking floor is 40". I have 2" ceramic insulation board and on top the board is 5" firebrick for cooking surface/hearth (by double stack 2.5" firebricks). My WFO has 4 1/2" firebrick for wall and dome and it also have 2" of concrete cladding on the dome and wall. I finish it off with 3" insulation around the wall and 4" of insulation on the top portion of the dome. The height of my door is 11" and the width of the door is 19". The height inside my dome is 17.40" is gave me the ideal 63% ratio to the door. So, the mass thickness on the floor is about 5" and 6.5" on the wall and dome and I don't think my mass is the problem. The problem is just not enough heat and poor heat management.

**texassourdough** · 05-11-2012, 01:36 PM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Hi Tu!

Your oven is PROBABLY not going to cause you problems. Your mass sounds good and your insulation is good though I question that your hearth floor has enough mass to gracefully bake more than one batch of bread without recharging. The Scott design puts the floor on 6 inches of cement (as I recall) with insulating cement (cement and vermiculite) below to increase mass. (It has a lot of mass and the design leaks heat out of the hearth a lot more than the FB design.) Firebrick only on top of insulation board should be great for pizza and one batch of bread but....multiples may be a problem - or may not, only time and experience will tell. Your dome mass sounds good for at least two batches. Given your description I would expect a big fire to heat it to pizza temp in an hour. Another hour will probably have it adequately loaded for a batch of bread. But...like I said earlier, it is important to be consistent so you can learn to predict oven temps. It will probably take a few firings to get a good feel for how your oven cools after the fire is removed (and how long it takes to heat load it to a reasonable level).

Be sure your oven is dry and well cured before you start building big, hot fires to load the oven. Fast heating does encourage cracks! Also, beware of rain if your oven is not covered. I am in San Antonio which is relatively dry but I am going to build a roof over my igloo to keep it dry and reduce my drying out/wet oven events. In NO I would think it would be almost impossible to keep an oven truly dry if it is not covered. And a wet oven can really screw up your baking (I can usually overcome it for pizza but when it is wet I can't get it hot enough to bake bread).

Hang in there! It will eventually come together. If you aren't using a scale...get one. It will save you a lot of heartache and confusion.

Good luck!
Jay

**banhxeo76** · 05-11-2012, 01:54 PM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Well, after 4 weeks of not dealing with my fear of baking bread, I finally take the jump again last Saturday. I prepare to cook two different type of bread. I make some dough for ciabatta and dough for baguettes. This time, I was prepared to let go of the way I usually do things and to bake the bread like a machine by following each steps. I read the instructions a lot of time and try to visualize the process in head a few times. The night before the bake, I cooked my pizza for family for dinner.

I wake up on Saturday morning to take out the poolish and pate fermentee out of the refrigerator that has been in refrigerator for two days. After letting them sit on the counter for 60 minutes, poolish for the ciabatta smell and look very much alive. I proceed to mixed. I mixed the pate fermentee with the new dough for baguette and proceed to the poolish with some more dough for ciabatta. I first mixed the dough by using the kitchenaid mixer and proceed to the counter to mix by hand when it gets too tough for the kitchenaid mixer. At that moment, I was imagining that Alan Scott is standing right next to me and telling me that I am doing a good job. I would knead the dough until the interior temperature was at 79 F. After I done with the dough, I just let them rest for two hours.

I headed to my back yard and started the fire. A very big fire if you care to know. A type of fire that my kids would say ?Wowww?so cool!? At this time, I believe that my WFO is cured because it has been fire for the 12th times at least. The heat retention had improved significantly and my WFO air temperature would usually be at 200 F 4 days later. I continue to feed more wood after 45 minutes of burning and by this time, most of the soot had already down to the side of the oven.

After two hours of dough resting, I carefully pour the ciabatta dough onto the counter and fold like envelope. Then I proceed to the baguette dough by separating the dough into 6 pieces and shape the baguettes. At this time, Alan Scott raised his right hand to give high five me (yeah, I need to get out more). Shaping the baguette was a lot of fun. I placed the shaped baguettes onto the floured cloth and let it rise one last time for 75 minutes. Make a quick trip to back yard stop the spread out the embers all over the floor and the close the door to kill the fire. I went back to the ciabatta and fold again and let it rest on the parchment paper. At this time, I was thinking ?So, this is what is like to be a baker?.Damn, that is a lot work and I am only baking 9 breads!? But it is definitely labor of love.

I head back WFO and remove all of the embers and ashes from the WFO. I then mopped the floor with a damp towel and closed the door again. The air temperature was reading at 675 F.

Went back inside the house and the shaped baguettes was rising beautifully on the table. At that moment, I can just hear Alan Scott said ?Bloody mate, you are the man!? Check on the ciabatta on the other table and I just couldn?t be happier. And then..

**banhxeo76** · 05-11-2012, 01:54 PM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

After 15 minutes with the door last closed, the WFO air temperature maintained at 675 F. I was then a little concern the dough may be ready within 30 minutes and this oven is way too damn hot for my baguettes. I opened up the door again and proceed to mop the floor again and spray water inside the WFO with a garden sprayer (so much better than the bottle sprayer). Keep the door open to drop the temp for 15 minutes. Went back inside the house and the baguettes is almost ready for oven. I was like, fudge (but I didn’t exactly say fudge). I slash the baguettes with blade. Went back outside and spray some more water inside the WFO to cool it down and place a cast iron skillet pan inside of the oven. Then I closed the door and the air temperature was reading at 600 F. I keep the door closed to let the heat saturated for 15 minutes. Got back inside the house the all six baguettes are screaming at me “Get me in the oven dude” all at the same time. Alan Scott is nowhere to be found for wisdom or word of encouragement. At this time, I decided the baguettes must go in before it started to sink down. I opened the door and loaded all 6 baguettes inside of the oven and pour a cup of water onto the cast iron skillet pan and closed the door. After 30 seconds, I opened the door and spray some water with the garden sprayer for 10 seconds. Then I closed the door. Out of nowhere, Coach Bela Karolyi is screaming at me “Tu, you can do it!” Limply like Kerri Strug, I just replied “Yes, coach!” After another 30 seconds, I opened the door for the last spray for 10 seconds.

Then I just time set the timer for 10 minutes so that I can check on the baguette. The recipe stated that the cooking time is for 20 minutes and rotate the bread at halfway. However, I didn’t put the high heat WFO into consideration and waited exactly 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I opened and it was burnt! Then I can just hear Alan Scott said “You idiot!”

Even though it was burnt, I still eat it anyway. Despite the fact that it has a burnt taste to it, it was really good. I swear, if I only let it bake for 5 to 7 minutes, it would have been prefect! Of course, the ciabatta went in next and I bake the ciabatta at 550 F and cut the recommended baking time by 1/3. A lot better result! Although the ciabatta looks a lot better than the baguettes, the burnt baguettes taste so much better. The baguettes' crust was really good. I will battle it again. Bagel and Baguettes tommorow!

**vtsteve** · 05-13-2012, 06:05 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

They're not burnt - that's a full bake. Seriously, as you discovered, the caramelized notes really add to the experience. Congratulations!

**Polo** · 05-13-2012, 08:02 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Originally posted by banhxeo76 View Post

After 15 minutes with the door last closed, the WFO air temperature maintained at 675 F. I was then a little concern the dough may be ready within 30 minutes and this oven is way too damn hot for my baguettes. I opened up the door again and proceed to mop the floor again and spray water inside the WFO with a garden sprayer (so much better than the bottle sprayer). Keep the door open to drop the temp for 15 minutes. Went back inside the house and the baguettes is almost ready for oven. I was like, fudge (but I didn?t exactly say fudge). I slash the baguettes with blade. Went back outside and spray some more water inside the WFO to cool it down and place a cast iron skillet pan inside of the oven. Then I closed the door and the air temperature was reading at 600 F. I keep the door closed to let the heat saturated for 15 minutes. Got back inside the house the all six baguettes are screaming at me ?Get me in the oven dude? all at the same time. Alan Scott is nowhere to be found for wisdom or word of encouragement. At this time, I decided the baguettes must go in before it started to sink down. I opened the door and loaded all 6 baguettes inside of the oven and pour a cup of water onto the cast iron skillet pan and closed the door. After 30 seconds, I opened the door and spray some water with the garden sprayer for 10 seconds. Then I closed the door. Out of nowhere, Coach Bela Karolyi is screaming at me ?Tu, you can do it!? Limply like Kerri Strug, I just replied ?Yes, coach!? After another 30 seconds, I opened the door for the last spray for 10 seconds.

Then I just time set the timer for 10 minutes so that I can check on the baguette. The recipe stated that the cooking time is for 20 minutes and rotate the bread at halfway. However, I didn?t put the high heat WFO into consideration and waited exactly 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I opened and it was burnt! Then I can just hear Alan Scott said ?You idiot!?

Even though it was burnt, I still eat it anyway. Despite the fact that it has a burnt taste to it, it was really good. I swear, if I only let it bake for 5 to 7 minutes, it would have been prefect! Of course, the ciabatta went in next and I bake the ciabatta at 550 F and cut the recommended baking time by 1/3. A lot better result! Although the ciabatta looks a lot better than the baguettes, the burnt baguettes taste so much better. The baguettes' crust was really good. I will battle it again. Bagel and Baguettes tommorow!

Tu,
Your journey reminds me quite a bit of my own. I built a high mass AS barrel vault oven, and I too have been caught in the "waiting for oven to cool" trap. I learned to try and keep good notes on temperature profiles and cooling curves. While that helped me a great deal, I still make mistakes. As you go on your starter will mature and you will learn what to expect from it as well.

Keep plugging away and you'll be baking great baguettes in not time.

**kmrice** · 05-14-2012, 06:29 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

You need to fire up the oven first, then start making the bread. To fully charge the oven will take 2 - 3 hours, at least. Cooling down to baking temp - 550 f or so, will take about as long.

I normally fire up the oven at 8:00, spread the fire and close the door at 11:00 . remove the fire at 12:00 and bake my first batch at 3:30.This gets my oven very, perhaps fully, charged.

Speeding things up by firing for less time results in an oven which loses heat too quickly. Speeding things up by trying to bake sooner burns the bread. Remember that if the oven is properly charged, opening the door and swabbing will only cool the deck temporarily. The deck will go right back up in temperature.

With all bread, time is your friend. With bread and a WFO, time is your best friend.

Karl

**SableSprings** · 05-14-2012, 09:19 PM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

The wonderful fact that all our ovens are unique poses a difficult task for giving exact timing/firing directions to a fellow baker. I found that until I did several graphs of heat loading and retention in my oven, I really didn't have a manageable situation. I started taking both hourly hearth and dome temperatures during the firing process, through equalization, baking, and finally long after the bread was done. I've added one of my graphs below as a possible guide in developing your own oven's heat characteristics. Every one here has given you great guidelines, but you need to develop your own oven's "pulse".

(Note that I start a small fire in the oven the night before a bake to begin driving heat into the brick...almost always have a 200-300?F base at 7 am for the main firing.)

**banhxeo76** · 05-17-2012, 07:38 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

I went at it again and .....not so good again.

There is a minor improvement because the bread was not brunt like it was last time. The bottom of the baguette burnt a little which still could be improved. I bake the bread on top of parchment paper and I imagine that it would burned even more if it wasn't for the parchment paper.

However, the taste of the baguette was not as good as last time, even though it was burnt last time. I think I may have over retarded the pate fermentee this time because it was left in the refrigerator close to 4 days. I think it was a little too sour for baguette. Next time, I will ferment the dough no more than 48 hours.

As far as the bagel, I definitely over fermented the dough for the bagel as well. I shaped the dough last Wednesday and it was beautifully shaped. Place in the refrigerator for 4 days as well. After one day, the shape looked similar to the prior day but after day two, it started to sink down. Of course by day four, it was like a disk rather than a bagel.

Mike and Karl, started at fire 7 am and don’t get to bake bread not until at 2 or 3 pm. Wow, that is a lot of heating time. So far, I have been pushing my dough in the WFO around 11:30 am (started the fire at 6:30 am) and I thought that was more than enough time to heat the oven. No wonder bakers go to bed at 6:00 PM. I guess I should just forget about eating bread for lunch and just move eating bread time to dinner instead. Yeah, I am still learning the profile for my WFO and I might was well do a detailed profile study on it as well.

**kmrice** · 05-17-2012, 08:42 AM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

As Mike says, all our ovens are different. That said, to use them properly they need to be well charged with heat, not just brought up to bake temperature. Mike's method of starting a fire the night before should certainly speed this up.

Then, the ovens need to rest to even out the heat, and get down to baking temperature. I spread the fire and leave it in for an hour, then remove it and wait several hours.

In my oven, if I were to start at 6:30, I would not be able to bake properly until about 1:00 - probably too late to bake loaf bread for lunch.

You can make pita or naan at a much higher temperature if you need bread for lunch. These flat breads bake at pizza temperatures - around 750 f deck and 900 f dome.

I think you are very over retarding your dough. I can get away with a four day retard for pizza, but it isn't as good as a shorter retard, and I think a four day retard with bread would be much too long.

Good luck. You'll get the hang of it.

Karl

P.S. Those baguettes aren't really burned, just a little charred. I'd consider that much charring quite acceptable, if not ideal.

**Polo** · 05-17-2012, 02:28 PM

Re: My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Just as a hint. Due to the higher mass of my oven, I will have a pre-warming fire the night before I bake. That allows me a little more flexibility the next day.

P.S. I am still learning as well, but I agree with Karl that four days is way too long for bread dough to retard in the fridge. If I use too high of a percentage of starter I will have trouble with anything over twenty-four hours

Announcement

My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

My journey to prefect Hearth Bread

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment