I saw a video of a home baker placing ice cubes over preheated lava rocks in a cast iron bread pan to create oven steam.
I'm bored with baking in a dutch oven, so I want to try this. However I was shocked to find that small shoebox full of lava rock cost $55.00.
Are there any other porous rocks that I can use?
If you use Amazon, search for lava rocks. You should find less expensive rocks there. I bought a 7-pound bag for $24.50, but you can find less expensive options (and 7 pounds was way more than needed). The Amazon descriptions usually don't mention using the rocks for baking bread, but they work just fine.
You can do a pretty fair job with ordinary garden rocks. Lava rocks are probably better, but not really necessary. Get a small bag of rocks for the garden, one or a few inches across, that haven't been dyed. That's what I have. Get angular ones in preference to rounded ones if possible (for more surface area). They will cost less than the lava rocks.
OTOH, the lava rocks may be pricey but they will last you for a very long time.
TomP
I actually learned from a native elder while learning how to cook on an open fire the traditional way. (they use rocks traditionally to cook with - boil water etc) They have special people who know which rocks are safe and which will explode in the heat. I'd be very wary of using garden rocks.
Maybe I've been lucky. Mine have been splitting off thin pieces little by little. I imagine by now they are thoroughly annealed, and any trapped water has long since escaped.
and you don't want to be around when they do.
I tried every 'make oven steamy' method under the planet, and nothing came as close to working as well as a cloche. I'll be interested in how your experiment goes.
Please explain the cloche method. I presume it is a cloth, so how do you use it for steam? Does the cloth burn?
No, it’s a closed container that captures the steam from the baking bread. It could be a Dutch oven, a Challenger pan, or something ceramic. All of then do a better job than anything short of a proper steam-injection oven for me at least.
I saw you used a Dutch oven, so maybe you already know this…
https://www.google.com/search?q=bread+cloche
Also, Do you use a gas oven or an electric oven? Gas ovens have to have a vent, so they are notoriously poor at trapping steam. Lava rocks or similar probably would be of little use in a gas oven.
GE Cafe duel fuel, where oven is electric.
Sounds like you're good to go. You might want to consider another method to produce steam: damp towels. I've never used this technique myself, but others have reported good results. See the following search results for more information: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/search/node?keys=oven+steam+towels&undefined=Search
I use the damp towel method a lot - though I vary it a bit- I have a metal tray with some broken pieces of cordierite - that goes into the oven to preheat, then boil some water, and then take the tray out of the oven - place the towels on it , then pour the boiling water, then back into the oven. If you use any method involving water, be very careful to avoid any spill onto a glass oven door - it does not take much liquid to cause the glass to shatter.
I've tried a number of methods, and only if I raise a large cloud of steam right after the loaf is put into the oven do I get the effects I like to see - a sheen on the crust, good expansion, and a thin crackly crust with a reddish brown color. If the oven is well humidified but a cloud of visible steam isn't generated, the crust tends to be a dull brown or grayish-brown color and be thicker and tougher, without a sheen.
This is with an electric oven and a baking steel, but I used to get similar results with a gas oven and a double layer of baking stone.
I think the cloche is probably as good as a steam injected oven (I have one of those) and the terry cloth towel is perhaps second best. I have a way to set water in a pan that does not pour it onto a hot surface until the oven door is closed but it is complicated to build and set up and is peculiar to the oven. The cloche is reliable but you do need to get one that has the right dimensions for the bread you are baking. And it needs to seal relatively well to the deck surface or the steam will leak out. It is really the only solution for a gas oven.
Hi Doc,
I have this idea that I've been wanting to try to emulate cloche for baguettes in gas deck oven. Proofed dough placed on thin, cheap cookie sheet, then covered with taller pan, with base slightly smaller, so the 'cover' can easily fit the cookie sheet. I have yet to order ones
Jay
I have found that it is difficult to find appropriately sized pans to serve the purpose. The lightweight "disposable" food service pans often turn out to be the solution but only come in specific sizes and are not always tall enough to cover the baked loaf. And they are very light weight and will warp in the oven so that they break the seal and leak steam.
I happened to find someone on e-commerce, who would take custom order. I came across him when I needed several tart rings, and he keeps his inventory lean by only producing when an order arrives. Speaking of flexibility!
I once had sudden problem with my oven, when my baguettes fully proofed, I had to cut them into smaller pieces and cooked them stovetop on griddle pan, covered with inverted cake pan, the oven spring was phenomenal! Of course I had to flip them, they lost volume by the time they were flipped
Jay
Would love to have a link to somebody who will do custom stuff.
I live in Indonesia, doc. I wish I could help 😆. And he only does generic model pans with cheap thin material, so things like pressed pans, removable bottom pans, perforated pans, he won't do
Jay
I just querried (not quarried) Amazon for lava rock and found a couple of products in the 0.2" to 0.5" size range for about $3/lb in 2.5 and 5 lb bags. What you need is something with much more surface area than round stones or pebbles of the same diameter. Then you want to add water up to about 1/2 of the height of the particles with enough total water to last for as long as you need to have steam.
There is an old post that I wrote in 2017 that does a deep dive on the heat transfer mechanisms in typical home oven baking, but it has no pictures and it has a relatively substantial amount of math that most will not want to read, but I offer the link for the curious.