I used to bake all my loaves in a Dutch oven, but I recently bought a baking stone for baguettes. However, I'm still struggling to create enough steam at the beginning of the bake. I tried placing a baking sheet with boiling water below the stone, but I think it blocked heat from the bottom. Then, I used the lid of my Dutch oven, placing it on the bottom and pouring in boiling water, but it didn’t seem to produce enough steam. I don’t have a cast iron pan, so I haven’t been able to try that method. How do you manage steam in your bakes?
Basically you need enough mass, enough surface and a material with good thermal conductivity, so that you get pretty quick a good amount of steam.
I'm using a round steel mould (dia 10cm) with a few 100 steel bearing balls (dia 6mm) inside (both from Amazon). Put the mould on the baking steel or stone when you start preheating the oven. After 30-45min the bearing balls are hot enough to generate a good amount of steam. As long as the water is not freezing cold.
Put the loaf into the oven, pour 50ml of water over the bearing balls, close the oven door. Open the oven door for a few seconds, when you don't need steam anymore, eventually remove the mould (with bearing balls) from the oven.
I tried a few (diy) solutions and this one is the best until now. It doesn't need a lot of space in the oven and it generates a good amount of steam.
I still bake in DO's. because my oven does not hold steam no matter how much I create. My best results, with prior ovens in prior houses, was with the "Rolled Towels" method described originally by Sylvia. I rolled several small terry kitchen clothes up tight in rolls that fit in 2 9x5 in baking tins. Before putting them in the tins I soaked them with water and wrung them out, then microwaved them for 5 minutes to get them "boiling". Using tongs I transferred them to the tins and slid them into the bottom/lowest rack of my oven. I'd then pour more boiling water into the towels. This method worked very well. I wish my current oven did as well with it, but it does not seal nearly well enough.
I learned this method here on TFL. You can still find her original post for it on her blog here.
Best of Luck
OldWoodenSpoon
I use an oval baker, much like this one from Lodge, except a little wider and more open:
https://www.amazon.com/Lodge-HOSD-Enhanced-Seasoned-36-Ounce/dp/B00LJSF7PA?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XdFqlGPAaLzOKgoQFOeTOfRwjo0lEGCa2-D0ggz_4Znb3oiZ1KLTpH8aPeEpe86vqMiTcyY8pEjEpcTN88_vK7HUkYUH9m1-ws6PQecWww9MlAccRjH8hl3RnP3uFBE0ismAzBXAVsYnfqM0ouWny4GZ0MGkWvb0dbMyYAMtdFMDTv_rzAwSA04jQ-_RFS_4zRwBTK43JbqR12gOF5oCo9deSKDjRcSwSgYFsndNf8oJH8hbFZoiC8S6PJzaZP0oeF_6KSHCwNHg-JAoa97QSQ7X1-9Lnh17yOBpKAms0D4.QwL_NrShqZKSnYEA4L16GYq_E8m8Wrg0bo7Z5lO49uc&dib_tag=se&keywords=lodge%2Bcast%2Biron%2Boval&qid=1740156914&sr=8-3&th=1
I don't remember where I got it but Lodge doesn't currently offer one exactly the same, so mine may have come from an antique shop. You can often find a really good piece of cast iron at a decent price in one.
It's filled with rocks - I should probably get some lava rocks but garden rocks have worked well. It sits on an oven rack on the lowest slot. I slide the bread into the oven and close the door. Then I put on a large oven mitt that goes up above my wrist (to protect against steam burns), open the door again, and toss about 12 oz of water into the rock pan. You have to toss it in in such a way that you don't get any drops falling on the glass in the door (or cover the glass with a cloth). Keep your head away because a great cloud of steam will billow out of the door and rise up.
I've used this pan in both an electric oven and a gas one and have always gotten good results. They will not be exactly the same as with a Dutch oven.
Comparing this method with preheating with a container of wet hand towels, which someone will probably recommend, the initial blast of steam causes a different crust, one I like better.
TomP
It's not just about generating steam, it is also about your oven's ability to hold it.
Yes, that's so, but I think that few home ovens do a good job at that. Gas ovens are said to be especially bad at keeping the moisture in since they must be vented to let the exhaust gases escape. Yet it seems to me that my gas oven and two different electric ovens produced very similar bread.
For me the difference could not be more drastic. My old oven electric rocked - I would toss a cup of hot water in the cast iron pan, vent it at 12 min and it would come out right every time. $10 worth of quarry tiles for a stone. With my new gas oven it's cover, naturally an expensive stone, pan with lava rocks, more water and longer steaming and after some sketchy mods and some repairs it's sort of ok.
My steaming apparatus has been simplified quite a bit.
I used to microwave the water to boiling too. Then I found I got the same results using room temperature water.
The high preheat temperature I use mitigates any heat loss. That being said, there is less change of cracked oven glass with hot water on a hot glass. Cold water (;room temperature) on a hot glass door is another story. Yes I use a towel on the door, but I still feel safer with hot water.
My oven is electric but has some permanently open vents at the top left and right back corners of the chamber so have found it very difficult to keep steam in it. I therefore had to resort to a Dutch oven for making bread and that always works well.
I had tried pans of boiling water, spraying water on the sides of the oven, etc but nothing really worked. The only open steaming method that work was when I made bagels and used the old wet towels wrapped around wooden chopping boards method that someone here that used to work in an old NY bagel bakery had described and that worked a treat, even though the towels got pretty manky in the process.
I've been doing this for ~ a decade+, in three different ovens (and soon a fourth, we've moved again):
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/29263/newish-steaming-method
Works great. Some might say I'm steaming the bread, not baking it. But it works really really well and we love our weekly miche (always baked more boldly than the one in that original post).
The aluminum pan laid on top with towels re-wetted with boiling water halfway through isn't necessary if your oven holds moisture better than that first one in which I started doing this. Now I just slip the rig in after the oven is loaded and stand back when I open it after 20 minutes because the burst of steam will melt you.
Good luck.
Tom
I struggled steaming my oven using several methods (cast iron pan, garden sprayer, steel stone, steel steaming tray, etc.), none of which made me feel like I had control over the steam. I finally built myself a steam generator, and now I have complete control over steam in my over.
After several years using a range oven (gas), and a convection oven (electric) with disappointing results, I decided to buy a dedicated bread oven. I bought a used Bakers Pride hearth series deck oven. I fitted it with a granite deck stone and set about building a steam generator. I bought a used electric pressure cooker off ebay, put a fitting in a hole already in the back of the oven, and plumbed the cooker to it. Now whenever I want to seam my oven, I put about a quart of water in the cooker, turn it on, wait about 10 min. for it to heat, then open the valve to the oven and steam as long as I want. I don't have to worry about sealing the steam in the oven because the pressure cooker keeps pumping steam in as long as the valve is open.
I know this might seems like a lot of trouble, but it really isn't that big of a deal. I guess the biggest challenge is to find a way to get steam into the oven. That said, in my case I found a hole already cut in the back of the oven and all I had to do was clear it of the insulation. and install a brass fitting to attach the steam line. An oven vent, or any opening in the back or side of the oven could probably be used. With silicone steam lines, and quick detach air line fittings, it was easy to connect the pressure cooker to the oven.
I think all toll, it cost me about $90 to build and install my steam generator. Installing the steam generator required a lot less effort than messing with water and steaming devices everytime I bake, and the results are completely controlable and predictable. Jim
I have always had the best luck using ice. Typically 3-5 cubes dumped into a cast iron pan that is pre-heated. The ice skips the water stage and converts directly to steam.
I got away from steaming for a while when I had a gas oven. It didn't matter how much steam I created, it was immediately vented and the crust sucked. I converted over to using combo cookers to hold in steam and that is still what I use for the most part. However now that I am back to an electric oven I do use the cast iron pan and ice on occasion and it works well. I have tried lava rocks, water, and wet towels, none of them worked even close to as well as ice for me.
I've been learning that these things are very, very dependent on the particular oven. I used to have a gas oven and I used the same setup for steaming and baking as I do now, except that instead of a baking steel I used a pizza stone and a layer of quarry tiles on top of that. Enough steam stayed inside the oven to bake a loaf with a fine crust. Here's one.
Loaves from my current electric oven don't come out any better.