June 5, 2009 - 11:38am
No Good Oven Spring on Reinhardt Whole Grain Hearth
Hi,
I've been trying out Rinhardt's whole wheat recipe for a hearth bread. The whole process seems to work
according to plan but at the end in the oven I'm not getting much of an oven spring. The bread in fact barely
rises. It's flavor is ok but just doesn't have the height that I'm seeing in the photos on this site for people
who have tried his bread or the photos in his book. I wonder why. I'm not having any trouble getting a rise
during fermentation. It's just the oven spring that isn't working out. Any ideas? I have tried to use both
Reinhardt's hearth oven cooking method, and I have also used a cloche, without producing different results.
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I make this bread often, although cooking in a pan or a baking sheet rather than on a stone. The rise is never that great on 100% wholemeal breads, but there is some oven spring nevertheless. Perhaps the dough is a little overproofed when you bake it? I think this often limits the oven spring.
This is my latest loaf. Does it look a bit flat compared to your results? This one was not overproofed. After mixing the soaker and the biga together I let it go first 30 minutes in a bowl and then another 40 in a proofing basket. I had let other loafs go longer, but the result is basically the same. No significant oven spring here. I wonder if my whole grain is particularly heavy for some reason. Is that possible? I wonder if using a small percentage of white flour in the ratio would help.
I have to add a little vital wheat gluten to my 100% whole wheat hearth breads to get decent oven spring. The other things that have helped are proofing with humidity and baking under some type of a cloche (both help keep the crust moist which facilitates open spring).
--Pamela
You might have some old yeast or it might just be your flour. Try a combination of KA Lancelot high protein flour, KA bread flour, and white flour. As far as I understand the oven spring is from the flour being super hydrated. When the bread is in the dutch oven or pot, the steam evaporates and helps the bread to rise. I have read not to expect oven rise with wheat flour as wheat flour tends not to absorb as much water.