A few things upfront:
- I'm a real beginner getting into bread making and want to try understand as much as I can of the science behind it.
- I'm locked down in another country (due to Coronavirus) so I don't have access to all of my usual kitchen tools (dutch oven, etc.).
I've baked a slight variation of Forkish's overnight white bread twice now and had more or less the same outcome. Before I get into the outcome, here is what I did:
- 500g bread white flour (13.4 % protein)
- 75% hydration
- 2% salt
- 0.08% yeast
- Room temp: +- 17c/62f
- Oven: Convection with top heating element
- Method:
- autolyse [20-30mins]
- bulk ferment [12 hours room temp, 4-5 folds]
- shaped & proofed [+-1.5 hours room temp]. Shaping was simply lying the dough flat, stretching the edges and pulling them over the center, and then rolling into a ball.
- baked:
- 230c/445f for 15mins, 190c/375f for 30mins until the internal temp was around 210f.
- Poured about 1-2 cups boiling water into tray at bottom at the start
- Baked on a thin oven tray that was pre-heated for +-45mins
- left to cool for 1 hour (it had mostly cooled down when I cut it)
As mentioned, I don't have a dutch oven so just baked it on a tray and tweaked the temps accordingly. Below was the outcome:
Problem 1: the exploded bottom I believe is due to not getting enough steam in the oven and the top crust hardening too quickly which prevents decent oven spring? This is a problem as I don't have a dutch oven at the moment but perhaps I just need to reduce the temp?
Problem 2: the crumb is really inconsistent..big holes in some places and dense in others. Some holes appear to be ripped as well instead of uniform.
Problem 3: The crumb had this kind of gummy/rubbery & almost gelatinized texture...and it was almost a light brown in colour which at first made me think it was undercooked. I expected a more white crumb. Is this common/expected?
I'm just trying to understand where I may have gone wrong so I can try adjust my steps and improve on my next bake. Any help is really appreciated.
oven, and baking arrangement. Gas or regular electric or convection? If convection, bottom, or top or "back" side heating element(s).
What did you bake it on (describe in detail, material, thickness, etc) and was it preheated?
Was the steam pan/tray pre-heated? How much water did you put in it? Was the water at or near boiling temp?
Did you do some kind of a folding procedure immediately before the final shape? That usually helps to knock out large air pockets.
Welcome to TFL.
(Great use of the bulleted list formatting-feature. Even nesting them. I'm impressed!)
Thanks! I've updated the question with additional details
That explains. Top too hot, bottom too cold. Top crust set quickly, so it expanded out bottom. Can also see bottom crust lighter/thinner than top crust.
Try swapping the racks. Put the steam pan up high. And bake the loaf on a rack below.
The air currents might still dry out/set the upper crust too soon. Might have to tent the loaf with aluminum foil.
Another possibility is putting an oven safe bowl over the loaf and trap the dough's steam that way. Then don't need a steam pan.
also, a covered roasting pan, like Graniteware, has been known to work, again without separate steam pan.
Convection ovens are problematic if you don't have an enclosed baking vessel, or can't rig something up to mimic one.
Good luck, amigo.
Hello :) ,
I'm not an expert, but as my oven sucks, I have some experience In trying to make it better.
When you put the water in the tray, was the water and/or the tray hot? As the first minutes are the most important for the expansion of the bread, If you used cold water probably it wouldn't generate the steam needed in that stage. (Or maybe your oven wasn't hot enough, and needs more time of preheating before baking).
Another option is to bake your bread in a closed container (as a cooking pot) for the first 15 minutes, so the same evaporated water of the bread creates a microclimate. Then (or when it stops growing) you take it from the container and let it bake, so the crust acquires the hardness and color you want.
Second, the crumb heterogeneous bubbles might be due to the high rate of water in your mix, or the type of flour used. Because of the weight, it makes sense that the superficial part of the bread has bigger bubbles than the bottom, so if your dough is too liquid, it won't have the strength to keep the big bubbles in the bottom and they probably will rise until there is an equilibrium between the force made by the bubble and the force you dough can resist. Maybe I'm very wrong (I'm not an expert) because I know that high rates of water are usually better, but I use like 50% of water and get homogeneous bubbles (also smaller, which I don't know is a desired feature).
I hope it helps!