Bread

OTT it may be, but it will definitely produce a better loaf. There's a reason modern bread ovens are steam injected. And tbh, if I could afford a decent oven I'd definitely have one.

What oven is it @dancing james ?

I find our steam oven most useful for canning tomatoes and such. It's good for bread, and you can cook two loaves at once which is nice, but it only goes to 220, which is a bit of a pain. Need to get a big steel sheet to preheat in the hotter oven first I think

I had a complete new kitchen installed a couple of weeks ago.

So two different ovens installed

B48FT78N1B - Full-Steam Oven
B58VT68N0B - Vario-Steam Oven

First bake was with the full steam oven.

At some point I’ll do two identical loaves, one in each oven to compare

@dancing james Fair point! Re timings, I don't trust it and use a thermometer instead. I bake until they're 99C inside, then let them rest for a bit before I cut them (more necessary with rye breads than white loaves)

Always let the bread cool! As tempting as it is to dive right in you'll lose a suprising amount of moisture if you cut the loaf when it's still hot.

Timings wise I find 35 mins at max temp (oven says 250 degrees but no thermometer so who knows actual temp), preheated for at least half an hour, is enough. I used to use the temp probe to check the loaf was up to 90 odd degrees but found it was consistently up to temp so stopped bothering and just rely on a timer to tell me when to take it out.

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/standard-dough-rising-bucket

anyone know where i can get something like this for cheaps, with the markings. I'm trying to keep track or rising rates etc and want the markings ...

Buy any large container. Get some water and a sharpie. Measure water. Pour amount of water into container. Mark on container. Repeat till you have all the measurements.

Rye and plain loaves.

Rye done yesterday, one was baked in a tin, the other freeform, but had stuck to the cloth it was proved in.

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Is Bertinet's Dough still the goto starter bread book or has been superseded?

Forkish - flour, water, salt, yeast is my go to.

He’s also got some great videos demonstrating the techniques on YouTube.

https://m.youtube.com/user/KensArtisan/feed

Well, it's been a while since I've made bread. To be honest I tend not to eat much of it nowadays because of carbs.

However, I'm on call this weekend so can't go anywhere so I thought let's try Dan Lepard's basic white loaf.

It's nicely chewy. Not sure if it should have risen more or had bigger holes but it's a start.

Looks fine to me.

Getting back into baking bread. Started a rye starter a week ago and the first try wasn't a great success. Bread wasn't properly cooked in the middle, near the bottom.

This is what I did:

• First prove: 12 hours;
  
• Basket prove: 45 mins (might be too short I think);
  
• Fan oven on 250C with baking stone on rack and metal tray (for ice cubes->steam) at bottom;
  
• Chucked a handful of ice cubes in the metal tray;
  
• In at 250C for 15 minutes;
  
• Turned down to 225C for 40 minutes.
  
  

I didn't use a thermometer to check temp inside the loaf but will do next time. The crust/flour on crust started to burn so I took it out after 55 minutes in total.

I'm thinking of making some or all of the following changes:

• Basket prove for longer, probably 75 - 90 minutes
  
• Turn down from 250C earlier, maybe after 5-10 minutes
  
• Turn down to lower temp (200C-210C)
  
• Bake for longer (at lower temp), ~ 60-70 minutes
  
  

Any tips from the more experienced greatly appreciated.

On a positive note (>>> Look what I got in the post....), the joy of buying STUFF:

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The crust/flour on crust started to burn

If your oven has the option then use only the lower heating element when cooking, and don't use the fan setting. I find mine will burn bread if the upper element is used, and the crust dries out really quickly with the fan going.

Uncooked after an hour in the oven sounds odd to me. Was it a particularly big loaf and was the oven pre-heated properly with the baking tray/stone/whatever in the oven too?

The oven was preheated with metal tray and baking stone in it. The loaf wasn't particularly large either, no, wet weight 1kg.

The fan oven doesn't have a non-fan option, nor can I split the heating elements. But I could try in the smaller oven (non-fan) although the baking stone won't fit in there.

Trial and error I guess!

PS: Getting one of these - that should negate the fan effect:

What are people storing flour in? What is the volume of 25kg of flour?

Are there good large airtight containers?

Probably best to get a commercial food storage container. Nisbet stock a range:
https://www.nisbets.co.uk/kitchenware-and-knives/food-storage/dry-food-storage/bulk-storage-containers/_/a33-4

For 25kg of flour you'd be alright with a 50l container.

Flour should be fresh, buy smaller quantities more often. Or get grains and milk your own.

It appears flour should last 6 months. Is that about right?

I’m still working through a 25kg bag of 00 that I’ve had about a year. Seems fine to me, just been in the sack with the top rolled down. I’m sure it’s degrading to some extent, but nothing that has been noticeable.

It will, but like coffee beans the quality doesn't improve by being stored that long after having been ground.
If you're going for economies of scale, you're better off buying whole grains and and a flour grinder - which is basically my dream setup.

Dorset Knob, for a traditional throwing contest at my friends stag.

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Does anyone else use Jim Lahey's No Knead method?

I love how quick and easy it is, pretty much fool proof too

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Sounds like you did everything right ... Odd that you ended up with uncooked dough. I'm sure you can cook bread in a fan oven, just for me I found the crust dried out too quickly and ended up being really hard.

Yeah, still unsure of the reason. It might have been a combination of things, e.g. throwing too many ice cubes in, leaving the door open too long, dough too wet.
Getting set up to bake again tomorrow. Sounds like the time should be about right, so I won't change that, but I'll use the cast iron pot to mitigate effects of fan.