A New Guy wonders about burning things
If I did it right, you ought to be seeing the bottoms of the 4 loaves I made today. The tops are okay, by the way.
I'm getting SOME variant of this result each time I bake bread, which is only four times so far.
I'm following the recipe off the back of the Gold Medal Bread Flour bag, except I substituted 1 cup of buttermilk for 1 of the cups of water.
I moved the rack down in the gas oven, so the tops of the loaves are about at the middle of the oven.
I pre-heated the oven to 425 degrees. The recipe says 25-30 minutes, but I checked at 20 minutes, and the bread was baked, and the bottoms were burned.
The round loaf was on a stone, the other loaves were in new baking pans. I coat all the pans with lard, because it's good for you.
Any suggestions on what I might change?
use that instead of regular bake. I have hot spots in the bottom of my oven and using convection bake fixed the problem for the most part. If I have loaves that have lots of fruit in it, I do have to watch the temperature and maybe drop it a few degrees but otherwise, this works great.
If you don't have that feature, try turning a sheet pan upside down and place your tins on top of that to provide a bit of insulation. Or placing a baking stone on the rack below your tins will also do the same thing. You do have a number of options, figuring out which one works for you best is the trick.
Have you looked up burnt bottoms in the site search machine. We burn our bottoms often enough!
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/49707/burnt-bottom-dutch-oven-baked-loaves
Happens a lot with gas ovens. You might need to make some kind of buffer between the hot oven bottom and the loaf. Shiny pans seem to help and so does turning the oven down a little bit 10 to 15 minutes after loading the oven.
Whenever I burn a loaf, I let it cool burnt side up so the aromas rise up and away with the heat and then use a grater over the sink (or outside) to scratch off the charred crust. Dark but not burned gets used for flavoring in future loaves. Taste first. :)
Your oven is probably running too hot. Check the temperature with a separate oven thermometer.
I'll start with this-first of all move the racks so that the middle of the loaf is in the middle of the oven.
Think about the dynamics of what is happening. If you main burner is on the bottom of the oven, you want to either shield or disperse the heat for more even browning. The suggestions about using a convection feature and extra pans or a pizza stone are excellent.
Oven controls and oven insulation are not what they used to be. The controller is supposed to keep the oven temp within a 35 degree range-meaning it drops a bit below the setting and then the burner comes on and gets the temp back at the setting. Usually it overshoots a bit but ideally the range has your set point about in the middle.The insulation holds the heat for a period of time but the cycle repeats itself over and over until you shut the oven off. The problem I had with my oven was twofold- the oven didn't hold the heat well and so this cycle happened often AND when it turned the heat on to bring it back into temp. range, it came on VERY hot to bring it up quickly. Imagine a blowtorch to the bottom of the oven and baked good contained every 5-7 minutes. The solution is either insulating the baked goods with a shield or space, evaluating how your oven functions, fixing/adjusting (may require a service tech) anything that can be adjusted. It may need a new controller.
Google and youtube are your friends in regards as to how to evaluate how your particular oven is functioning-the simple tools and procedure needed. Do NOT use the cheap, set-it-in-the-oven thermometers.I had 4 of them and they all tested WAY off when I used a cheap lab thermocouple with an external readout (similar to a grill thermometer with a probe).
My live-with-it workaround was what everyone here suggested. Also, turn the temp down a bit.
Neighbors, thank you so much for the ideas.
I want to make a trial run, but without making a full four loaves. Will just baking a single loaf give me results that I can apply to a full bake? Or does the oven have to be full so all variables are eliminated?
as a first step. But don't expect a magic pill-like instant solution. You might get it if you're lucky, but you might also have to try combinations of things until you find how to get the results you want on a consistent basis.
Put all the fixes in place and try either a big cookie pan with a thin layer of flour in it (about 1/4 inch deep) or even 2 pans so the entire shelf is covered and bake it. You will see if you have any hotspots. The same can be done with marshmallows but is a lot messier. Keep a very close eye on the pan as it will only take a few minutes to detect hot spots or if your measures were successful.
I just read through the first lesson, "Your First Loaf," and see that it calls for baking 45 minutes at 350-375. The recipe on the back of the Gold Medal Bread Flour recipe calls for a 425 oven, for 25-30 minutes. I pulled my bread out at 20, and had the result shown above.
I'm baking banana yeast bread today, and that recipe calls for a 350 oven. I really don't have enough evidence to say for certain, but I bet my 425 degree oven is the culprit.
The next time I bake regular bread, I'll go down to 375, and see what I get. Hollow thump from the top means it's ready, right?
And I emailed customer support at Gold Medal and told them about my results.