October 20, 2010 - 7:02pm
Soggy crust
I am puzzled lately with my bread, example today I baked a no knead loaf, I put the water at the bottom of the oven as I have done in the past, most of my breads & roll are sort of heavy, soft crust ect, the change is we purchased a new oven and I am baking in the convecrion mode, the old oven did not have convection, can this be the problem, when I inserted the thermomrther in the bread today, it read 200deg but the inside of the loaf feels wet to the touch.any ideas why I cannot get the crispy crust as I did before with our old oven. both are electric.
thanks
Chet
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Is the fan in your convection oven on all the time? Is a single fan or dual fan type? Have you kept the loaves centered in the oven, leaving as much space as possible around their perimeter?
Pans, parchment paper and other items in the oven obstruct air flow when the convection cycle in running and that will affect the way your foods cook.
Frankly, I'd switch off the convection feature and use the straight conventional oven approach for bread. I know that professional commercial bread ovens use convection but they're designed specifically for bread and have circulation patterns that you can't get in a home kitchen oven.
http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=67
http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--1100/bread-baking-guide.asp
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I'd guess the problem isn't convection/no-convection at all, but rather that your new oven isn't really running at the temperature you dialed in.
First, check to see if the temperature sensor came encased in some packing material to protect it from shock, but the packing material wasn't noticed/completely-removed when the oven was installed. Go back over the "installation" part of the manual carefully and make sure no steps were skipped.
Next, check that the bottom of the oven is completely clear and your baking stone is up at least a couple inches and has an inch or two of space on all four sides. Newer ovens generally have a "hidden" bottom element, hide the thermosensor down there too, and assume the metal between the element and the oven is completely clear. If you put aluminum foil on the bottom to prevent messes (something that was sensible and common on older ovens but is a no-no nowadays:-), it can not only melt the aluminum foil (!) but dramatically screw up temperature regulation. (A cookie sheet resting on the bottom of the oven can similarly dramatically screw up temperature regulation.)
Finally, check the calibration. It's very common for ovens to be off by 50F. Spend a few bucks on an oven thermometer to find out what's really happening, then either adjust in your head or read the manual to find out how to "adjust" the dial. (Before digital controls, almost all oven knobs had some sort of adjusting screw arrangement on their back. I don't know how it works with digital controls.)
(Note that it's pretty typical for ovens to swing back and forth between 25F lower than desired and 25F higher than desired. This is normal [i.e. it's not a problem to be "fixed"]; it prevents the controls from going nuts turning the element on and off every few seconds. What it means to you when calibrating your oven with the thermometer is check the thermometer several times over several minutes, both when element is on and when it's off, and find the middle; if you check the thermometer just once, chances are fairly good you'll catch it at one end of the swing or the other and actually mess up the temperature calibration of your oven rather than improving it.)