Experimental Loaves

I was interested to see if I could get, with actual sourdough loaves, the kind of texture I got with a half loaf sized flat wad of yeasted dough, shown here, which was mentioned in this post.

I made a batch of sourdough as described here. It was split and each piece reformed thrice at 10 minute intervals. Thereupon each piece was stored in a covered plastic bowl overnight in the fridge. It doubled in volume before it was removed in the morning. Each piece was formed to an oblong loaf, well floured on the bottom, placed on a corn-meal-dusted peel. One dough loaf was slashed, and both were covered with cling plastic while the oven stone was heated on the broil gas setting for 35 minutes. Then the cling plastic was removed and the unslashed dough loaf was thoroughly moistened by painting it with water using a soft brush. The oven was set to 425°F. and the loaves were baked on the stone for 30 minutes. After 20 minutes the loaves were set on an upper shelf (grating). No attempt was made to introduce moisture to the oven.

Observations:

• The texture was not nearly so impressive as hoped.
• There was no sourdough flavor.
• Both loaves showed decent "oven spring" presumably due to stone cooking.
• Both loaves continued to rise for ~ 10 minutes (not nearly so explosive as with thinner dough wad).
• The loaf that was slashed had squarer lower sides than did the loaf that was moistened.
• The loaf that was moistened had thicker (3/16 in.) crust than did the slashed loaf (1/8 in.).
• Both crusts were substantial: rubbery and soft, apparently an effect of cold storage.
• 30 minutes was not enough cooking time, as the bread tasted somewhat flourey.
• Mrs. Adams ate the experimental loaves before the evaluation was complete.
• The "holes" were better at the ends (see below), as had also been reported by Samartha.

Resolve for next try:

• Divide ~6-cup (flour) dough batch four ways, keep dough sloppy (maybe more sloppy).
• Insert a rise, maybe six hours at 85°C in incubator, and deflation, before placing (for last 35-min. rise) on peels.
• Flatten each doughling to less than 1 in.
• Paint with water.
• Slash all four.
• Further introduction of moisture into oven may not be necessary.
• (Mrs. Adams will not let me do the steaming in the way I think is necessary, anyway, so I will have to settle, for now, for trying to paint on the moisture.)

BTW, all this has to do with trying to come close to Iggy's Francense Loaf. "Carlos" has been working on this, too.

Oven stone:

It is a composite stone, 1/2 in. tiles over about 3/4 inch of stone meal, held together with a frame of aluminum angle held together with loops of wire through drilled holes in the angle. It rests on the bottom plate of the oven. The gas burner is just beneath. The wire shown is for a thermocouple which is placed near the center of the array, above the sand at the lower surface of a tile. Experiments have shown this stone comes to 500+ degrees in 40 minutes at "broil", at which time the smoke alarms go off in the house and I get subjected to verbal abuse.

Critiques, suggestions, and any other responses to this post should probably be to me directly, as there is not apparently much interest in this kind of discussion at r.f.s. at present.

For rec.food.sourdough, 23MAR02, Dick Adams