September 9, 2021 - 11:14am
Not scoring sourdough loaves
Proof bakery that many probably have heard about released a video today where the baker forgot to score a batch of loaves before baking, and in the end shows the effect in comparison to scored loaves. Quite interesting, the difference is surprisingly small.
Also has some interesting thoughts about steaming.
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Thanks Ilya - worth watching for the loader!
I don't think he's quite correct about good steam retention being a function of oven insulation - I would say it's more a function of the gas tightness of the oven cavity.
Lance
The loader is awesome!
I think perhaps he means that humidity accumulates in the insulation after steam injection and then is slowly released during the bake? I also didn't really get that point.
TBH I think he just got a bit mixed up. No way would an oven be designed to get the insulation wet.
You are probably right. I was just trying to find an explanation for a comment that didn't make sense to me either!
Interesting that the loaves not scored didn’t burst at all anywhere! I would have expected some burst areas to release pressure.
I had the same expectation! No cracks even, they look so smooth. I guess they are proofed and shaped just right, and with good steaming the outer skin stretches enough to accommodate some expansion?..
That certainly makes sense. I wonder in our home ovens if those same loaves would have cracked. I doubt that I could get the same level of humidity in my oven that he is able to get in that commercial oven.
Yeah, and he explains that he is probably steaming even too much in those first batches there, since it's new equipment. I'm really curious how it compares to what we get at home. When I steam I during the bake and then vent the oven I get a huge release of vapour from the oven. But I have no idea if it's a lot or not compared to professional steam ovens.
I wonder if there is a slight positive pressure inside the oven after the steam is injected? If the oven is well sealed, maybe a slight pressure can build up inside; I guess if it gets too much then the door will start to swing open slightly to relieve it.
If there is a slight pressure, I'm not sure what this would do to the loaves.
All conjecture of course - it depends how good the damper and door seals and cavity joints are.
Lance
Thanks, Ilya. I enjoyed watching this and found myself watch some of his other videos. The new bakery is a big step up from his old one.
Glad you enjoyed it Gavin. I find their videos very relaxing, and also interesting to see what happens behind the scenes in a professional bakery. The new space must be really exciting for them.
What a coincidence i was watching that this morning myself and did find it quite interesting too, i was somewhat surprised that there was no real hurry to get the oven loaded and that the steam was applied to half the deck and that it was said that the oven was able to apply the steam in that way. The 7 seconds and later 4 seconds was also quite interesting. Our local facebook group Freo Food Bread recently had a bake at a commercial property that had the same oven and set up but i didnt notice the length of time that the steam was applied.
I recall in my younger days that there was always some urgency when loading the peel oven especially the one that was able to have steam injected, so that it could be started, there was also the point that if the loading took longer than 5 minutes the loaves at the back of a 40 tray oven where in the oven considerably longer than the last ones to go in at the end of loading and unloading through a much smaller door opening. Even with the full brick ovens there was a sense of urgency to get the whole batch in ASAP so that the door could be closed trapping the steam that was being produced by the sheer mass of dough, that would later be vented by opening the damper. we should not forget that a loaf looses about 11% of its weight during the baking and cooling process and most of that will be as steam. The other interesting part was the scoring and there is a time when you need to decide that a better result will be achieved without scoring and it is usually if the dough has got away on you for one reason or another and the dough is likely to collapse if scored, in fact there is another video with the wife doing the scoring and she has some loaves where you can see a fair amount of deflation and she decide that she is not going to persist toward the end and gets some loaves from the cold proover and shows the difference. Another thing that i picked up on was the decanting of the bannetons not just in this video but in others and when visiting some bakehouses the amount of the tap seems quite strong, i would be very shy on giving my loaves such a thud i try to gently roll them out, i guess it depends somewhat on the amount of proof that the loaves have been allowed to attain as to whether they can tolerate that shock.
regards Derek
Interesting the unscored loaves would be marked down even when the bread has the same weight and investment with time and heat. The only difference is the minutes of scoring. That is to say that scoring increaes the price of the loaf.
Indeed, every tiny detail matters to make bread just right.