Sourdough Boules, April 27, 2002

4 boules from a 6-1/2 cup (flour) loose dough rising on oiled foil. Incubator lid is removed for photo. Very high humidity and temperature ~95ºF, ~four hours. "Slashing" was omitted as the tops are kept very moist by the high humidity (due to a pan of water on the heating element -- a hot tray controlled by a thermostat).

Foil stays on, makes it easy to handle boules with a thin peel. Stone starts at 500ºF. Gas is turned off and boules bottom cook on the stone for ~10 minutes. Some moisture is introduced by spritzing but is probably not needed. Oven temperature falls to <300ºF., and gas is turned on with regulator set to 425ºF at 10 min. At 20 min. each boule is removed from the oven, the foil pulled off., and the boule set on the rack. The temperature was raised to 450ºF. for the last ten minutes. Baking lasted 30 minutes. Photo was taken at 10 minutes to show "oven spring".

The crust may shrink and crackle if there is too much drying, so after a brief interval, the boules were covered with the top of the incubator -- the translucent bottom of a clothing storage box.

Sofa cushion effect, considered good by some and bad by others. Oven push increased the volume by a factor of two or more.

Fairly good texture, but the highly desirable holey structure did not appear in this case. Crust could be thicker. Photo was taken in direct oblique sunlight to emphasize the crannies.

Good color, not too deep, indicates that the fermentation did not complete, leaving some sugars for browning. As noted above, these boules were not "slashed" as the humidity in the incubator kept the tops moist and extensible.