Hello Randall
I try to look at your web page but iT crashed my broswer "konqueror"
signal 11 (SIGSEGU) engoy this new group.

Joe Umstead


Randall Nortman wrote:

> So at the culmination of my 72-hour bread process yesterday, I set the
> oven to preheat and came back to check on it, finding it barely half
> as hot as it ought to be. Oh dear, says me, my oven is busted. Seems
> that the lower heating element (this is an electric oven) isn't coming
> on. Not sure why yet, and I couldn't fix it just then, so I
> improvised.
>
> I put my baking tiles (four 8"x8"x1/2" unglazed quarry tiles) right
> under the broiler for a long while until a thermometer beneath the
> tiles showed just over 450F. So then I knew the tiles themselves were
> pretty toasty. I moved the tiles down to the bottom rack and put a
> couple of pans of boiling water on the top, just under the
> broiler. Then I slid the loaves onto the tiles and closed up the
> oven. The pans of water, in addition to making the oven somewhat
> steamy, were to shield the loaves from the direct heat of the broiler,
> which certainly would have burned them on top well before they'd been
> baked all the way through. It worked pretty well; so well that I had
> to remove the pans at the end of baking for about 7 minutes to get the
> top crusts nicely browned.
>
> The bread is 100% whole grain, with 11% whole rye and lots of chunky
> stuff (seeds and intact grains), at 70% hydration with a tiny bit of
> gluten added to counteract the less desirable effects of the rye and
> chunky bits. No commercial yeast. I incorporated some of the
> suggestions that various folks here have made to me over the past
> couple of weeks (thanks!), and I am pretty happy with the results.
> (Too bad about the oven, though.) More information and pictures are
> he
>
> http://wonderclown.net/photos/bread.html
>