March 21, 2017 - 8:39am
Cloche Vs. Lodge Cast Iron
Interesting Outcome and Question: See the picture - 2 loaves. The lighter color loaf I baked in my clay cloche. The darker/higher one was baked in my Lodge cast iron. Cloche was soaked in water 20 minutes before baking. Bottom of both containers pre-heated for 40 minutes before baking. Both laves from the same recipe, handled exactly the same, one lump of dough, cut in half to bake, and baked at the same time in the same oven, for the same length of time. Anyone out there had similar experience and an explanation? Thanks. Jim Burgin
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Hi Jim,
I experienced the same thing using my Lodge cast iron dutch oven vs. a pizza stone, both breads cooked at the same temperature. This is a guess only, but maybe the cast iron is more effective at radiating heat?
Clay bakers do a fine job capturing moisture and give a nice crust. But cast iron is just at another level. As long as I can keep it from burning the bread (which took a little fine-tuning) crusts are glorious and oven spring delightful.
On the why -- Where's a physicist when you need one? Iron is certainly a much more efficient conductor of heat than ceramics, so it may be a combination of conduction and convection that's doing most of it. But that last bit of deep browning and edge-burning certainly *look* like radiant heat.
How long do you leave the loaf in the baker?
Thanks for writing. Re your question: I leave the top on cloche/Lodge for 40 minutes, then complete the bake 12-20 minutes (till loaf is 205 degrees) with lid off. Jim
You can go read up on pizza steels vs. pizza stones to help get some relevant insight (I think seriouseats.com gets into this quite a bit, and there are discussions on pizzamaking.com too). Basically, you can have steel and clay heated to the same temp, but the steel will conduct heat at a more rapid rate than clay.
But that is conduction...so I wonder whether the evaporation of the water from the cloche kept it from reaching as high a temp as the cast iron (and I'm not sure why you'd really need to use a wet cloche anyway).
Which of these do you prefer? I actually love the lighter looking one and think it looks soft, cooked beautifully, and wow. I want to cut into that now!! The cast iron (which I have used personally) seemed to overdo it a bit.
I had similar experience using a non-glazed clay pot. You will find much better results if you don't soak your cloche. The crust will better than dutch oven and the chance of burning the bottom of the loaf is reduced. Just be careful not to touch your hot cloche with any humid parts or to cause any thermal shock (it will crack). Use parchment paper to bake so it can provide some thermal insulation when loading the dough on the cloche.
Since the top of the cloche was soaked, it will take a lot longer than the DO to reach the oven temperature due to the water evaporating. Pulling numbers our of thin air, if the tops are both at room temperature when the dough is put into the oven, it likely takes 5 - 15 minutes for the cast iron top to reach 475F, and may take 10 - 20 minutes for the cloche to reach 475F. On top of that, the cloche will be less efficient in transferring heat into the vessel once it reaches the target temperature. The dough will be subjected to the target temperature for quite a bit less time if the top comes off at the same time.
Not a physicist, but I do have an undergraduate degree in Chemistry :-)