Anova Oven - settings for bread
So I got that Anova oven - great! What would be a good bread setting? Here is what I do now:
Whole-wheat sourdough (700g flour), baked in a rectangular form (I like long breads)
Oven settings:
Top+bottom 225°C (437F) Steam 100% 25 Minutes
Top+bottom 190°C (375F) Steam 0% 35 Minutes
The top of the brad is a bit dark (I like dark), rest is fine.
So far so good. Yesterday I tried 2 same breads in one go. I had a 45°C (115) temperature drop which took about 20 Minutes to recover. I added 5 Minutes to the 190°C (375) phase and bread was perfectly fine.
So what I like to ask:
Is top+bottom good or should I do top+bottom+rear?
Or could I do top+bottom+rear just for a few Minutes to catch the temp drop?
What about just rear (convection)? [I did that in the past with my old oven and believe small things baguettes/hard rolls come out better with top/bottom heat. So for now I avoid the rear/convection element.
What are other Anova users doing?
Generally I am very happy with the Anova, not perfect, but it bakes very well.
I used an Anova for about a month over the summer.
For high percentage ryes, I found I could bake them exactly as directed in most recipes and they came out as close to instagram-worthy as I've ever achieved. Truly stellar.
For wheat breads, I found I had to step the temperature down -- starting high and dialing it back after 10 minutes or so -- if I didn't want to scald the crust. Most times, I also found that helped to simply to shorten the bake time. Wheat loaves seemed to finish cooking about 5 minutes faster than they had in any other oven I've used.
When I tried baking two boules at the same time, I got no oven spring in repeated attempts. Later, I made the same recipes, baking each boule on its own, centered in the Anova, and everything worked well. It might be possible to bake several loaves at once if doing thinner breads like baguettes or ciabatta.
Steam worked well. I always used it at 100 percent.
The oven is programmed so the rear burner works in tandem with the convection configuration and the fan on high. There is no way to defeat this -- so I never engaged the rear element.
Hope this helps
Rob
element. My brother-in-law, who owns the Anova I used and has baked wonderful things with it these past few months, says that we baked exclusively with the rear element and never used the top and bottom. Sorry for writing so faux-authoritatively about something I clearly didn't know.
My points about temperatures and timings for ryes and wheat loaves remain valid.
Rob
Easy to get confused. I believe the rear fan is always on, but the top/bottom mode it will not heat.
Your 2 breads research is interesting. Maybe that is because of the temperature drop. But I bake in a rectangular form, so I am not so concerned with Instagram comments ;-)
Today I did some breakfast hard rolls, I had again a temp drop, which the oven could not recover in stage 1 - however, the final result was very good.
when loading the loaves. This happens, I would think, in most home ovens. It's just that the Anova's digital display is so responsive that you can watch the temperature go into free-fall in real-time. In my experience, it always took 5 or 6 minutes or so to recover. And the breads never seemed bothered when I pulled them from the oven.
Rob