I've lost the ear and oven spring ... (deck oven)

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Hi there,

I recently baked mini baguette and batard.  It's 50% whole wheat + T55 flour, with natural leaven and little yeast.  My 2 previous loaves didn't have much oven spring and ears like before.  

(here are pictures of some past breads)


 

The only one thing I change is preheat oven temp.  Before I just preheat the same temp 260C top, 230C bottom and I got result like above picture.  But I noticed that temp. dropped around 20-30C when I finished loading breads into the oven, so I changed to preheat at 290C/230C.  I did it 2 times and the result was ...  no ear and not much oven spring. 

Here are more pictures of today breads

Am I right about my guess that the oven spring and ear lost due to oven temp?  I just got new deck oven last month, still not get used to it.  If I do like before (preheat 260C/230C), after I load the bread and steam.  The temp drop a bit, the crust doesn't form too fast and give the bread more time to rise.  ???  

Or any other reason, please advice.

9 inch height. oven comes with steam injection.

when i first got oven .. i preheat 260c top 230c bottom.  i steam 5 second.  the result was great oven spring and ears.

but i notice, after i load doughs into oven.  Top temp drop 20-30c, so i changed preheat to 290c top 230c bottom. but i still steam 5 second.  the breads didn't bloom as before. 

i think i should go back to my previous settings.