Two new breads

[egalecki]

I baked these today- the lower right loaf is the same rye I've been making, but the 4 in the back are a multigrain from Hamelman and the two round ones in front are hazelnut and fig loaves, also from Hamelman. They smell so good I'm having trouble waiting for them to cool!

I'm finding that I have sort of a hot spot to the right front side of the oven- does anyone else seem to have a spot that gets hotter? It doesn't register as significantly hotter on the IR thermometer, but that area browns the bottom faster every time. I think next time I'll try putting more coals to the left and to the back and less in that area and see if I can even it out.

[james]

Re: Two new breads

Hazelnut/fig? Wow -- that sounds great. Let us know how that tastes, and what you are going to eat it with? Toasted?

How hot is your oven when you start a batch, and where is it when you take them out? How are the bottoms baking relative to the tops? Is everything coming in together, or is the bottom browning faster?

Way to go Elizabeth -- I have steel cut oat/flax seed batch going today. I like your choices.
James

[dusty]

Re: Two new breads

Wow!!! Those look fantastic! They seem to have browned better than mine did.

Congrads - let us know how they taste.

dusty

[egalecki]

Re: Two new breads

I'm eating the hazelnut/fig now, untoasted. Amazing. There's a little fennel seed and rosemary too. I think it's among the best "bread with stuff in it" breads I've ever eaten. I'm having it toasted tomorrow morning! Texture is really nice too- moist and not really heavy since it's only 1/2 whole wheat. If you have Bread, try it.

We ate some of the mulitgrain with dinner- it's also very tasty. I used "polenta" cornmeal as part of the soaker, which I made this morning (it's supposed to go overnight, but I forgot!). It could have used the overnight soak, since the cornmeal was a little gritty in spots. Four hours wasn't quite enough for cornmeal ground as large as that. Nice light texture though, for 1/2 whole wheat.

The oven floor was registering 550-560 when I put the bread in. The dome was a little hotter- about 600, I think. None of the breads to the back or to the left side got overly browned on the bottom. The tops are browning evenly throughout. I'm not sure about the temps when I took them out. I'll look at that next time.

I may be getting the coals spread unevenly- I'm right handed, and the left side of the oven is easier to get to for me.

This was the most bread at one time I've ever done- there wasn't any extra room in there!

[james]

Re: Two new breads

That is so cool. I am taking this as motivation to start expanding my range.
Thanks Elizabeth,
James

[gjbingham]

Re: Two new breads

Interesting question about hot spots. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why the circulation of heat and smoke in my oven always goes clockwise. I've yet to see it otherwise. I'm wondering if it is the wall somewhat close to the oven on the left side.

Knowing how your oven behaves is a large part of the battle of performing well with it. Your hot spots may just be knowledge that you can utilize when baking different types of bread that require different conditions for perfection. Then again, perhaps it is indeed, just the way you work it, or possibly a slightly different insulation effectiveness below the floor.

Work with what you've got. The bread looks wonderful to me!

[Frances]

Re: Two new breads

Hey, I know that one! Coreolis effect - rotation of the Earth, inertia of the smoke... erm, learnt all about it in school years and years ago, but you'll find a better explanation here:

Coriolis effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Geez, who would ever have thought that stuff would actually come in handy one day!! So oven builders in Australia and other parts of the Southern Hemisphere, does your smoke rotate counter clockwise?

Sorry to hijack the thread Elizabeth. Your bread looks fantastic! I need to try that haselnut and fig recipe (even if I end up making a little loaf only for me). It must taste amazing.

[egalecki]

Re: Two new breads

I can vouch for it toasted with a little butter now too. Good stuff. You do have to like all the ingredients, though. If you don't like fennel and rosemary, I think you could leave one or the other out- but I like it the way it is.

I have to write myself a reminder to check the floor temps carefully next time. I just shot the temps in several places yesterday, no real method to it. I am getting tired of having to trim off the overly browned parts of loaves, though, so I am determined to figure this out!

[james]

Re: Two new breads

Elizabeth, are you rotating your loaves once around the halfway point? No oven gives perfectly consistent heat.

I'm munching on toasted oat/flax bread with a little Irish butter. Not bad.
James

[egalecki]

Re: Two new breads

Irish butter makes everything better. I can get Amish butter here. It's also a good improver!

Yes, I do rotate the loaves. I also changed their positions when I noticed that several were getting more brown on the bottom than others. I actually had the oven open far more than I usually do when baking- doing three different recipes, one with eggs and oil, I had different finish temps I was shooting for.

Two of the loaves with egg and oil got overly brown and two of the same dough didn't. The only differences were the shaping (boule= ok, batard= brown) and where they began their bake.

All the loaves started on parchment, since I don't have nearly enough things to raise that much bread in. I just trimmed it a bit with scissors before I slid it on the peel.

I had the coals spread evenly (I thought, but I may have been wrong) over the surface for nearly an hour. Then I took them out and cleaned the floor (my new FB brush is fantastic!) and swabbed it with a wet towel. By that time, it was 650 inside. I left the door on a while- maybe 20 min? Then opened it again to let it cool down a little more. Then I steamed it and put the door back on while I got the dough ready to go in. I put it in, steamed again, put the door on, and left it 15 min. That's when I found the bottoms getting too brown.

I think I need to set the timer for 10 min., but I'm not sure it would have fixed the weird floor thing- but I would have saved myself a bit of trimming.

Do you all see anything I'm neglecting in the oven prep?

[dusty]

Re: Two new breads

I may be getting the coals spread unevenly- I'm right handed, and the left side of the oven is easier to get to for me.

Funny...I never thought of it before, but I am left handed and I always use the right side of the oven.

Hot spots:
One night I could swear I saw a glowing orange spot in my oven. It was very dark, no possibility of a light shining in, and a tennis-ball-sized area of the floor was a dull orange glow. I had just raked the coals to one side (the left, of course), but the fire was an hour old. They were very old, faint coals. AND, I have a witness - it wasn't just me.

Anyways, your bread pics and talk have convinced me that I need a new book. That is my next order of business.

I am inspired.

dusty

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: Two new breads

Do you all see anything I'm neglecting in the oven prep?

I don't see anything, it sounds like you do exactly what I do. My biggest problem to date is not letting the oven cool down enough. It takes several hours for it to get down to bread baking temp (I start around 550 dome) from pizza temps, and sometimes I just rush it...

[gjbingham]

Re: Two new breads

Elizabeth,
Be grateful that you have an oven floor that retains heat that well. Many do not.

Frances, I'm not buying one bit of the Coriolis effect explaination for the smoke in my dome, though I did read the wiki entry and crack a nice smile. Perhaps it works on a celestial scale, but in my oven? I think it more relates to a microclimate created by my dome in relation to the house. I'm sure that a flat angle iron entryway does nothing to improve the flow of smoke from dome to chimney.

Just my smelly opionion.

[Frances]

Re: Two new breads

One idea that came to mind while reading your baking schedule Elizabeth, is that I let the oven cool down more slowly. I spread the coals after it burns white and leave it for half an hour, maybe more, them remove (or push back) the coals, and then I leave the oven to cool down slowly with the door on for another hour or two (or however long it takes) until it reaches the right temp.

My thinking is that the way you do it maybe the surface of the bricks is the right temp when you put the bread it, but the inside of the bricks is actually hotter and as soon as you close the door that heat comes rushing to the surface again. I dunno, what does everybody else think, does that make sense?

Goerge, apparently the Coreolis effect really does work on smnall scale things, too. Say if you pull the plug in a bath, on the northern hemisphere the water will always turn clockwise, on the southern anti-clockwise. And on the equator it'll go one way or the other. Strange but true (or so I'm told). And railway tracks that go in North-South direction always have one side of the track that gets worn down faster than the other.

Dang, you'll have me with my head in the oven watching the smoke all the time now!

[egalecki]

Re: Two new breads

Well, George, with 3 1/2 inches of vermicrete plus 2 inches of board under it, that floor had better retain heat. Or else!

I think I'm not patient enough. If I'd left my door on after swabbing longer, maybe I'd have seen the temperature come back up a bit. That doesn't explain why I only burned the bottoms of some of the loaves, though. The others were perfect.

We'll see what happens next time!

Dusty, I really like Whole Grain Breads by Reinhart. If you're into the whole grain stuff, that's the one. If you just want a basic bread book, Bread by Hamelman is excellent too- but I also have Bread Baker's Apprentice and like it. Which books do you already own?