Need some numbers. Temp, time covered, time uncovered. Did you remove
the extra tiles?



On Saturday, August 26, 2006, at 10:38 PM, Hans Fugal wrote:

> Hi Will,
>
>> The finished bread itself is a big data point <g>.
>
> I tried the cold-start today and the result was not encouraging.
> However
> I can't rule out other variables that I inadvertently changed. In
> particular, I had a much drier dough and it was slightly overproofed.
> The result was extremely pale. I'm not sure whether it's only
> psychological but you feel like you're eating dried paste. I'll be
> trying it both ways a few more times but right now my two whole data
> points tell me to preheat.
>
> I wonder also whether my 9x13x4 lid isn't a bit too big to get hot
> enough with a cold start by the time this 450g loaf was done inside.
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Will wrote:
> Need some numbers. Temp, time covered, time uncovered. Did you remove
> the extra tiles?
>

500 for the first couple of minutes, then a bit over 450 for the rest of
the 40 minutes that it baked. I checked it once after about 20 minutes,
at which point I was going to remove the baker but it was so pale that I
put it back in place. The baker sits on the tiles which were all
present, as you see in http://flickr.com/photos/fugalh/224824753/

Electric oven. I don't have a rack thermometer but I'm thinking of
getting one.

Hans Fugal wrote:

> I checked it once after about 20 minutes,
> at which point I was going to remove the baker but it was so pale that I
> put it back in place.

Easy to fix.

Next time remove the cloche at the 20 minute mark. The bread will not
brown under the cloche. Too much moisture. Once the cloche is removed
the bread will proceed to finish as it should. My breads work exactly
the same way; at the 20 minute mark they still look very pale. At the
end they are brown.

Will wrote:
> Hans Fugal wrote:
>
>> I checked it once after about 20 minutes,
>> at which point I was going to remove the baker but it was so pale that I
>> put it back in place.
>
> Easy to fix.
>
> Next time remove the cloche at the 20 minute mark. The bread will not
> brown under the cloche. Too much moisture. Once the cloche is removed
> the bread will proceed to finish as it should. My breads work exactly
> the same way; at the 20 minute mark they still look very pale. At the
> end they are brown.

Ok, that did work. I was able to get an ok crust this way. However the
loaf was overdone and went stale very quickly. I've tried it a few times
with consistent results: with this small a loaf (about 300-400g) the
cloche needs to be preheated (I preheat 20-30 minutes) to get consistent
good results. It makes sense that a cold start would work fine for
larger loaves though, or maybe I'd have more success with a lower oven
temperature for the smaller loaves.