On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:25:54 -0500, "Mike Pearce"
> wrote:

>"Phil" wrote in message
. com...
>
>> Kenneth > wrote
>
>> > If the dough is drying to the point that spring is constrained, the
>> > loaf will burst (often looking as if it had "exploded") on baking.
>> >
>> > Is that the problem you are having?
>>
>> No, not really. It's just that I'm not getting much oven spring. The
>> loaf pretty much stays the same size as when I put it in the oven at
>> the beginning of the bake. It's not a big deal, the crumb is decent
>> and the bread tastes good, but...I feel like i'm doing something
>> wrong. Possibly proofing too long?
>>
>
>To me proofing too long, at least for free form loaves, is if I can't get it
>into the oven without deflating the loaf.
>
>I don't know that I've ever baked a loaf with absolutely no oven spring, but
>a lot of oven spring is not my goal. I like to see my loaves have a mostly
>flat bottom with a little bit of upturn at the sides. I've posted a couple
>of pictures at the yahoo bread group in the Mike folder to show what I'm
>talking about. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bread_Pictures/
>
>The first picture shows the loaf dead on from the side and you can see that
>I'm trying to describe when I say "a little bit of upturn". The second
>picture shows the top of the loaf and how the slashing looked. From the
>pictures I hope you can see that there was a bit of spring, but not an awful
>lot.
>
>If I hadn't let that loaf rise as much as I had prior to baking there would
>have been an much more pronounced upturn at the side of the loaf with less
>flat along the bottom. If I had let it go much longer there would have been
>a flat bottom all the way to the edge with a sharp transition from the
>bottom to the sides. In other words, I wouldn't have been able to get it
>into the oven without deflating it too much.
>
>I wish I had some pictures of my other examples, but I tend not to take
>pictures of bread with which I'm not happy. I'm baking again tomorrow, maybe
>I'll get lucky and screw up.
>
>I don't think you should worry too much about the oven spring if you are
>happy with the final product.
>
>As far as the drying is concerned. I have a large plastic Rubbermaid storage
>box. I just place my bread on the counter to rise and place the box over the
>loaves. The loaves don't dry out. Before I pulled that box out of a friends
>trash I used to let my bread rise inside of a large plastic bag, that works
>well too.
>
>-Mike
>

Hi Mike,

You said:

>I don't know that I've ever baked a loaf with absolutely no oven spring, but
>a lot of oven spring is not my goal. I like to see my loaves have a mostly
>flat bottom with a little bit of upturn at the sides.

and that is a much better description than I had offered a while ago.
I said something like "If the loaves are pulling away from the baking
surface as if they were trying to become the shape of a sphere they
were far underproofed..." but your description captures that issue of
shape in a way that is more easily understood.

All the best,

--
Kenneth

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