Forno Bravo Forum: The Wood-Fired Oven Community - Bread Making - Questions Galore! Page 1 of 3 1 23 > Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page Forno Bravo Forum: The Wood-Fired Oven Community
- - Bread Making - Questions Galore!
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DavidK 02-10-2006 02:13 PM Bread Making - Questions Galore! OK, so I baked my first loaves of bread. Tasted great but left me with many ??? Bear with me... The facts:
It was raining miserably, and the oven took a while to come up to temp but, when it got "white hot" (about an hour) I raked out the coals and set about baking. The air temp above the floor was between 4 & 5 missisippi's, the air temp in the dome (above door height) was "OUCH!!", and the reading on my door thermometer was 260 (I installed a grill thermometer through the wooden door-it's accurate, I checked!). In goes two loaves of a basic hearth bread. Within 10 to maybe 15 minutes I had a beautiful brown crust on very squat loaves. I left it in a full 45 minutes tented w/ tin foil and the door blocking the outer oven opening but not the chimney vent to drop the temp. After that batch, I threw in a Pillsbury french loaf and let it go normally. Results:
hearth bread never really rose so the inside was very dense. Tasted great. French loaf baked very slowly but turned out well. My deductions. I needed to let the oven temp even out before throwing in the bread.
By leaving the vent open, the heat dissipated quickly leaving the temp. cooler than optimal for the french loaf. Questions :confused: Should I leave the fire blazing longer so that more heat is stored in what thermal mass I have? (since my mortar layer over the bricks isn't more than an inch, that's not much v. a alan scott oven) Or when I get to "white hot" bricks, have I reached max thermal storage potential (more or less)? How do I guage the "correct" temp/time to throw in the bread? The oven seemed perfect at cooking height but clearly, the "ouch" temps above are radiated down when the door is closed. What else should I know??? Sorry for the long post and many thanks if you got this far... james 02-13-2006 12:09 PM Day of baking bread Hi David, You inspired me to bake yesterday and I had a great time. I will make a another couple of postings on recipes and how the oven worked, but here are some general ideas. 1. You should continue
Forno Bravo Forum: The Wood-Fired Oven Community - Bread Making - Questions Galore! Page 1 of 3 1 23 > Show 40 post(s) from this thread on one page Forno Bravo Forum: The Wood-Fired Oven Community
- - Bread Making - Questions Galore!
(http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f11/bread-making-questions-galore-406.html)
DavidK 02-10-2006 02:13 PM Bread Making - Questions Galore! OK, so I baked my first loaves of bread. Tasted great but left me with many ??? Bear with me... The facts:
It was raining miserably, and the oven took a while to come up to temp but, when it got "white hot" (about an hour) I raked out the coals and set about baking. The air temp above the floor was between 4 & 5 missisippi's, the air temp in the dome (above door height) was "OUCH!!", and the reading on my door thermometer was 260 (I installed a grill thermometer through the wooden door-it's accurate, I checked!). In goes two loaves of a basic hearth bread. Within 10 to maybe 15 minutes I had a beautiful brown crust on very squat loaves. I left it in a full 45 minutes tented w/ tin foil and the door blocking the outer oven opening but not the chimney vent to drop the temp. After that batch, I threw in a Pillsbury fren
ch loaf and let it go normally. Results:
hearth bread never really rose so the inside was very dense. Tasted great. French loaf baked very slowly but turned out well. My deductions. I needed to let the oven temp even out before throwing in the bread.
By leaving the vent open, the heat dissipated quickly leaving the temp. cooler than optimal for the french loaf. Questions :confused: Should I leave the fire blazing longer so that more heat is stored in what thermal mass I have? (since my mortar layer over the bricks isn't more than an inch, that's not much v. a alan scott oven) Or when I get to "white hot" bricks, have I reached max thermal storage potential (more or less)? How do I guage the "correct" temp/time to throw in the bread? The oven seemed perfect at cooking height but clearly, the "ouch" temps above are radiated down when the door is closed. What else should I know??? Sorry for the long post and many thanks if you got this far... james 02-13-2006 12:09 PM Day of baking bread Hi David, You inspired me to bake yesterday and I had a great time. I will make a another couple of postings on recipes and how the oven worked, but here are some general ideas. 1. You should continue