Why I still struggle getting a very nice oven spring?
Hi everyone, It's a few months I'm into yeast bread home baking, but I still struggle to get a nice ovenspring. I'm not using a Dutch oven, but before buying one I would like to be sure that everything else is fine and that the lack of oven spring is not caused by other factors.
This is the recipe that I'm currently using:
Poolish: 50g strong flour, 50g water, 1g dried yeast. Fermented for few hours until doubled in volume. Main dough: Poolish, 25 g of Rye flour, 38 g of whole wheat flour, 190 g of strong bread flour (350W - maybe too strong?), 175 g water, 1g of active dry yeast.
Once the poolish has doubled in volume at room temperature, I knead everything through the S&F Bertinet method and then I leave the dough to bulk ferment until doubled. (I also do some coil folds, 2 or 3 times, each one every 30 minutes during bulk fermentation) Then I divide and shape the bread and put in into a Banneton for proofing at room temperature until almost doubled in volume. I bake in the oven at 230°C (During the loading process the temperature always goes down below 200°C and I struggle to get it back to 230°C), with a cast iron surface, some hot water, some ice cubes and a reversed tray on top of the bread. I also spray the loaf and the interior of the oven with some water before closing the door. After 20 minutes I remove the steam but the bread struggles to open up nicely during those 20 minutes. Do you have any advice for me? Below you can see some results: the most "ovenspringed" loafs were scored twice: once before baking and once 2/3 minutes into baking
The last of your pictures seems to be missing. And we would like to see the crumb (maybe that's the missing picture?).
Your loaf seems fairly well expanded already. Are you trying to match some of the more dramatic examples that can be found?
I wouldn't worry about the temperature dropping. You want to delay cooking the crust too much, too soon, otherwise it will not be able to expand. You say you are baking on a cast iron surface. That will keep pumping heat into the loaf when the temperature drops initially, and that will encourage the loaf to rise. Hot oven air will eventually cook and brown the crust, but this should happen later rather than earlier in the bake cycle.
With my own oven, I can turn the temperature setting down to 150C for ten minutes after insertion (then I turn it back up) and get just as good or even better expansion. You might try that yourself.
Do you get steam billowing out of the oven after insertion? If not, you could look into getting more initial steam.
TomP
I didn't notice about the "reversed tray". Does that block out the steam? If so, the steam you generate may not do much.
I'm definitely trying your method with tonight's bread. Ah, sorry. Here are some pictures of the crumb.
The crumb looks very respectable, nothing to complain about at all.
Oops, now your pictures of the loaf have gone missing.
Ops, now it should work. Here is the loaf I just baked. Why now is it so flat?..
Good crumb, though. Flatness could be related to the shaping technique. The loaf needs to be able to hold its shape well as it softens in the heat before it all sets. Or, I just watched a video about getting good spring and the presenter made a mistake. He baked a first loaf in a cast iron skillet with an upside-down deeper skillet on top, pretty much the same as using a Dutch Oven. He good a lot of expansion and a prominent ear. For the second loaf, he accidentally didn't get the upper skillet aligned completely. There was a small gap between the two skillets. This would have let some steam escape. The second loaf had less expansion, almost no ear, and a paler color.
In fact, it looked much like the loaf you've pictured here.
I'll try to improve my shaping technique. Which technique should I follow? Moreover, if the flour I used here is a little less strong than the one I used before, should I do more stretch and folds during bulk fermentation? I did 3 rounds of S&Fs this time..
It's hard to say without knowing how you do the shaping. And the first loaf you pictured looked well shaped. The few larger cavities in the cross-section pictures came from gas bubbles that hadn't been dealt with, but they were minor.
Generally, if the dough has a tendency to slump sideways after shaping, then it may need more handling. That could be stretching it out a little and re-shaping it, tucking the sides under more to tighten the surface, or "stitching" the underside, again to tighten up the surface of the loaf (you can find videos demonstrating stitching methods). Here's one among many (it's rather long and you could skip through it):
Here's another, shorter video;
There is no one right way here, but you can get ideas (and maybe you are doing all this perfectly well already!).
How can final proofing time affect oven rise? I see that some people suggest proofing bread in the Banneton until doubled, while others say you only need to let the loaf relax a bit. What's the correct approach?
And if I want to cold retard/proof my loafs, do I need to let them proof at room temperature first?
You can bake proofed loaves directly from the refrigerator with very good results. For retarding a shaped loaf, I would let it partially prove, then refrigerate it. It will continue to rise, more and more slowly. If you retard it when there is an hour left to go (you just have to estimate it), it will probably be fully proved in the morning. If you leave it in the refrigerator for longer it will continue to ferment slowly. The cold may cause the overall volume of the loaf to shrink a little; don't be concerned about that.
Long times in the refrigerator will tend to dry out the surface so make sure it is covered pretty well. I drape a sheet of plastic wrap over the loaf (and banneton if that's being used).
For retarding in the bulk ferment stage the guidance is the same. I let my tub of cold dough warm up for around half an hour before shaping. The slight warming lets the dough adhere to itself better during shaping, and it's easier to tell how much stretching and handling the dough wants to have. Others may shape cold or let it warm up all the way to room temperature, but IMHO that's not a benefit.
HTH!
I'm trying to be as scientific as possible. Now I'm trying a cold bulk fermentation without poolish, using 0.5% of dried yeast. About 50% rise at room temperature, then in the fridge at 4°C for about 18 hours (hoping that by that time it will be 75/100% risen). Even in this case I should let it warm up half an hour before shaping?
In my experience, using yeast at these levels (1/4 tsp for 300 or 400g flour, very roughly speaking), a mostly white flour dough will develop and rise on a timeline similar to typical sourdough doughs that I usually make. So I think it will be reasonable to let the dough warm up a little. As a matter of fact, even if you noticed your dough rising before you shaped it that would be fine. You could still go ahead with the shaping.
To repeat, this warm up period is not some magical treatment, but only a practical matter. It will make the dough easier for the layers or sections of dough to join during shaping, and it will let you feel the elastic qualities of the dough better so you can make adjustments as you shape. At the same time, the stickiness of the dough will be reduced when it's cold which again makes it easier to handle if your dough is very sticky. The suggested duration of the warm up is just a rule of thumb that has worked for me. And if you have a larger mass of dough, it will need more time to warm up. Just yesterday I worked with a double-size mass of dough (double-size for me but not that large for many other people, I think). I planned to make two loaves, so I divided the dough cold, and rounded each piece into a thick disk. Then I covered both with plastic wrap and let them warm up. This worked very well.
Since there is already a rise (maybe 50%) in the fridge - give it an hour to warm up before continuing. That'll give a couple rises before baking. When mixing with yeast - go by the yeast time. Enjoy!
I let the dough warm up a little after the cold bulk fermentation, as you suggested and that worked pretty well. Here is the result:
I still struggle to get a nice oven spring without having to double score the bread surface. I think my oven is just drying it too quickly.. what can I try? Any suggestions?
I thought that, maybe, shaping the dough into a longer/thinner loaf, rather than a bulky one, could help in reaching a high enough internal temperature in a shorter time, so that the rise can start before the surface dries out, avoiding the bread to open nicely.
I'd be very happy with that result!
If you want to delay the crust drying out you could
- Seal the top to the bottom container better if you are using a dutch oven or a cover of some kind put down over the loaf; or
- If the loaf is being baked free-standing, use more water to make steam (the extra water will cool down the oven air more) and perhaps turn down the temperature setting for the first 5 or 10 minutes.
Worry about the baking - later worry about the starter. Enjoy!
I forgot - that looks fine. Enjoy!