Hi, I am new to sourdough baking, and am enjoying it so far. I have a dilemma tho, and today, I burnt the bottom of a loaf - it was black and stuck to the bottom of my DO. Here is the issue
My oven is not big enough for the DO on the middle rack, so I have to have the rack at the lowest point. I have tried with and without a pizza stone, preheating the DO with the lid on and off. I am following the Forkish pain de campagne, so preheat at 475, then put the bread from the fridge to the DO, cover,for 20-30 minutes, then uncover for 20.
I have also tried to bake directly on the pizza stone (middle rack), with a cover and pan underneath for boiling water, but that is too tricky for me, plus scary!
any ideas of how I can bake without burning the bottom are appreciated. I also have the option for convection in one oven.
btw, the bread is good, we just cut off the burned part! thanks
Will help a little and you could use 2 layers of it. When I used to use a DO I would sprinkle dry cornmeal (polenta) under the parchment paper to absorb some of the excess heat. You could also try to take the bread out of the DO after the steaming phase and put it on a sheet pan to finish browning.
I found a rack to fit in the bottom of my DO and covered it with foil. Then the opposite happens and the bottom hardly browns. I just flip the loaf over towards the end of the baking to brown the bottom.
ETA: Here's a link for the rack I use https://tinyurl.com/y9csvp2l
Another idea is to take the bread out of the Dutch Oven when you remove the lid and put the bread back in the oven directly on the rack to complete the bake.
Benny
Thanks for the suggestions, I will keep trying to bake in my challenging environment!
another suggestion - preheat the DO with the top off, on the middle rack, then when it is time to back, put it on the bottom. Any thoughts about this idea?
baked today, tried a few of your suggestions - had great success! Thanks so much!
If there are no pictures it didn’t happen. ?