Moving onto breads... and way out of my comfort zone!

[Chanly1983]

Half way thru “flour water salt yeast.” @Pequod turned me on to that book. Great book, not a bad read.

Now I am trying to find some reading/ guidance material for cooking without a Dutch oven in a KK. Was thinking 

Any thoughts or recommendations?

[Pequod]

Don’t know that book, but any of Forkish’s breads can be baked without a Dutch Oven.

The purpose of the Dutch Oven is to trap the steam released by the moisture of the dough, creating the rough equivalent of a steam oven. Or that’s the conventional wisdom anyway. I suspect there’s more going on than that in terms of heat transfer.

There are many ways to bake bread on a KK. One is to go naked on the baking stone. Another is to use an inverted, preheated Dutch Oven or stainless steel bowl to trap the steam. Another is Syzygies steam oven technique. The results between the three may vary, but they all can give you good bread.

An experiment I’ve always meant to try, but haven’t, is to make two loaves of whatever Forkish bread you choose, baking both on the KK baking stone, but with one covered by a preheated stainless steel bowl for the first 20 minutes. 

Edited July 15, 2018 by Pequod

[Chanly1983]

So I just started the rise on his overnight white bread recipe. I am probably just going to bake it in the oven. Mainly cause I haven’t pulled my stone out of the box yet. My only excuse for such blasphemy is I am waiting for my cabinet and all my KK accessories are taking over my house. Unless you think this can be accomplished on my baking steel? Also are you using one roll of chain at 30ish pounds for a 32”? Are you still using ice for your steam?

[Pequod]

No shame in an oven bake. Especially to get started with new techniques, best to start with the way the recipe is written first to get the feel for the process and the finished product. 

I haven’t tried the Baking Steel yet for bread. My concern with the steel for bread is the impact of the  high initial heat transfer on a long bake. I feel like it would result in a bottom that’s considerably darker than the top. Dennis’ stone, on the other hand, is ideal for achieving uniformly browned breads. I guess my answer is: don’t do it until you have more bread notches under your belt.

For the steam oven technique: I use two spools of chain in a large (16-17”) cast iron skillet. I deposit ~400g of ice into that as a single sheet frozen in a 1 quart zip lock laying flat.

Edited July 15, 2018 by Pequod

[Bruce Pearson]

Pequod sounds like you are torturing that poor bread first burning it and then chaining it and then icing it LOL. I have to admit I have only made bread in my bread machine, but after reading all these threads about making and baking bread I may have to give it a try. 

[Chanly1983]

That was my thought process on leaving my bread making to my oven until I get a chance to get the stone out. It looks like I am going to have to get to the hardware store and buy some chain and a larger cast iron pan in the next few weeks. Thanks for the feed back and guidance. 

[Pequod]

46 minutes ago, Bruce Pearson said:

Pequod sounds like you are torturing that poor bread first burning it and then chaining it and then icing it LOL. I have to admit I have only made bread in my bread machine, but after reading all these threads about making and baking bread I may have to give it a try. 

Learning bread can seem like torture at times! 

Interestingly, one of the longest threads in the Pit at Amazing Ribs has nothing to do with meat at all. It is all about sourdough bread. The good news is that books like "Tartine Bread" and "Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast" shortcut the learning process considerably. The latter is really just an extension of the former -- Forkish simplifies the Tartine Bread process into something more accessible.

For even more good info, there are some helpful videos and other resources at Stella Culinary: https://stellaculinary.com/cooking-videos/stella-bread/sb-004-how-make-basic-loaf-sourdough-bread

 

[Tyrus]

2 hours ago, Bruce Pearson said:

Pequod sounds like you are torturing that poor bread first burning it and then chaining it and then icing it LOL. I have to admit I have only made bread in my bread machine, but after reading all these threads about making and baking bread I may have to give it a try. 

I've got a bread machine but it's been in the box unopened for 15 or so years,,a Sunbeam. Yah, thought about crackin it open but then I realized there's a great bakery in town and that thought soon faded away. Maybe MacKenzie would offer to tour the States { she bakes well especially Saturday nite } and help you out Chanley. As for you Pequod there is certainly no chains on you ….there around the bread. Bruce, need a good bread machine as back up. Good luck,  

[MacKenzie]

Chanly, I agree with Pequod, do the bake in the oven just like normal for the recipe. The baking steel will make the bottom a lot darker than the top, that is where Dennis' baking stone comes into play it is formulated so that the bottom doesn't get over cooked while the top is cooking. I hope you do a show and tell. :):)

Edited July 15, 2018 by MacKenzie

[Syzygies]

14 hours ago, Pequod said:

There are many ways to bake bread on a KK. One is to go naked on the baking stone. Another is to use an inverted, preheated Dutch Oven or stainless steel bowl to trap the steam. Another is Syzygies steam oven technique. The results between the three may vary, but they all can give you good bread.

 

4 hours ago, Pequod said:

No shame in an oven bake. Especially to get started with new techniques, best to start with the way the recipe is written first to get the feel for the process and the finished product. 

I haven’t tried the Baking Steel yet for bread. My concern with the steel for bread is the impact of the  high initial heat transfer on a long bake. I feel like it would result in a bottom that’s considerably darker than the top. Dennis’ stone, on the other hand, is ideal for achieving uniformly browned breads. I guess my answer is: don’t do it until you have more bread notches under your belt.

For the steam oven technique: I use two spools of chain in a large (16-17”) cast iron skillet. I deposit ~400g of ice into that as a single sheet frozen in a 1 quart zip lock laying flat.

These are important nuances. However, people have been baking bread for thousands of years; bread will come out no matter what you do. Just do it. One learns anything in the KK by starting simple, then adding refinements. Like @Pequod I like to use ample steam, but that's a modern refinement. People have been happy with their bread for decades, baked in a home oven, genuflecting with 10g of water from a plant spritzer.

While I learned a great deal from the Tartine books, I find the actual bread from their bakery to have an overdeveloped, nearly burnt crust. My neighbor prefers my bread to Tartine's. She's not saying I'm a better cook; she's saying my bread is more comfortable. That's what matters: making bread that more nearly resembles what you crave than anything you can buy. Dutch ovens have an effect on the crust; do you want that effect? That kind of artisan crust may make you happy, or it may satisfy you that you are successfully reproducing a social convention. Liberate yourself from the latter impulse. Bread, like clay, should facilitate freedom from convention, not adherence.

While Dutch ovens and ample steam both affect the crust; they are not interchangeable. Initial steam transfers a great deal of heat energy to the dough at once. I choose steam both for its effect on oven spring, and the freedom to vary the shape of my loaves.

First, master fire control, baking on a Dennis stone (or similar, though his is best) in the KK. I recommend also using a heat deflector (the chain steam skillet we use serves as one, but anything will do), as a key issue here is "fire from below": One doesn't want the stone hotter than the KK walls. So an older fire that has stabilized, but isn't about to go out, is best. This is tricky. As I get busy, I've taken to using a BBQGuru with their biggest fan, and a pit probe poking through the dome thermometer hole (not the side probe port), to stabilize a long fire at 450 F. Even then, there's an art to not overshooting. However you manage your fire, learn to do so for bread before adding other complications.

I have KK Moroccan bread working again this morning. Before going to Morocco, I didn't really get Moroccan bread. It's a flat bread, an inch or more high, that's very forgiving and very versatile. Their protocol is dead simple, though I've restored most of what I do for my sourdough bread.

[Syzygies]

5 hours ago, Pequod said:

For the steam oven technique: I use two spools of chain in a large (16-17”) cast iron skillet. I deposit ~400g of ice into that as a single sheet frozen in a 1 quart zip lock laying flat.

Two critical details:

We remove the plastic bag before depositing the ice. Ice buys time to close the lid; one can get steam burns adding water.

We use stainless steel chain. It costs more, but galvanized metals produce toxins when heated, and should be avoided in a barbecue pit.

[Pequod]

@Chanly1983 - sage advice from @Syzygies above. Just do it!

 

[Chanly1983]

Thanks for the sound advice @Syzygies and @Pequod and I am hoping a little light chop busting!?!

It scares me that we need to make it a point to other people to not kill themselves by smoking your food with plastic or gassing your grill with zinc or  galvanized steel. 

But speaking of smoking food. I am assuming there is a different flavor profile from bread in a Dutch oven baked in a oven compared to cooked in the KK?

Well the timer rang and here is it is...

loaf #1

and loaf #2

 

[Syzygies]

10 minutes ago, Chanly1983 said:

I am assuming there is a different flavor profile from bread in a Dutch oven baked in a oven compared to cooked in the KK?

With proper fuel choice and fire handling, any flavor/aroma components will be close to subliminal. The way the bread bakes can be markedly different. Some people build little brick caves in their ovens, or use two stones, under and just above their loaves. One can be cooking more with radiant heat in a KK, which is already a ceramic cave.

To maximize this effect one would let a fire get a bit out of control, into low earth orbit. The KK will cool slower than the fire itself. Bake when the KK returns to an ideal temperature, on the tail end of the fire. This is impractical for bread, as the timing issues are too hard to manage. Dough is ready when it's ready. Pizza dough is designed to have a more generous "ready" window, but then one is still letting the fire decide "when's dinner", and the oven won't quite recover for second and third pies. So this is an ideal we can only approximate through more controlled shaping of the fire trajectory.

I sometimes taste a hint of off aromas in the bread, that I ascribe to the lump charcoal. The faintest hint of chlorine? This consideration also favors a late-stage fire that has burned thoroughly (as does pretty much everything one does with fire, if one has the patience).

[Pequod]

Looking good!

One bit of advice. Forkish claims his loaves score themselves at the natural seam, and yours did. However, this isn’t generally the case and I’ve had Forkish loaves that didn’t form a seam on their own. Hence, as you progress you will want to learn scoring with a lame. 

Regarding difference between KK baked and oven baked, I think the differences are more textural and visual than flavor. A CI Dutch Oven tends to create a hard crust and a dark color if you don’t watch it. The KK bread is more uniformly brown and a crust that’s a bit less dense. Both are good. I prefer the KK baked breads.

[Chanly1983]

Ok @Syzygies I get what your saying about cooking on the tail end of your cook but then your letting the fire dictate your cook. When you said you use your stoker to control your temperature, are you using the same temps as you would in the oven? How about timing Compared to the Dutch oven?

@Pequod haven’t used a lame sense school. I can’t wait for my cabinet arrives so I have place for my stone! The crust from KK sounds perfect.

[Pequod]

@Chanly1983 - I shoot for the same temps as in the oven...or thereabouts. A caveat: 

Most Dutch Oven recipes have you start hotter and then turn the temp down 50 degrees or so. A heat soaked KK doesn’t just drop 50 degrees like that, so go with a happy medium. Say 450’ish, which is a  typical temp for bread baking.

 

[Chanly1983]

Ok @Syzygies I get what your saying about cooking on the tail end of your cook but then your letting the fire dictate your cook. When you said you use your stoker to control your temperature, are you using the same temps as you would in the oven? How about timing Compared to the Dutch oven?

@Pequod haven’t used a lame sense school. I can’t wait for my cabinet arrives so I have place for my stone! The crust from KK sounds perfect.

[Syzygies]

23 hours ago, Pequod said:

Another is to use an inverted, preheated Dutch Oven or stainless steel bowl to trap the steam.

There wouldn't be much point to preheating a stainless steel bowl. Steel only stores about 1/7th as much heat energy as water, for a given weight, and silver radiates heat more poorly than black. It would however contain moisture, while introducing very little lag in passing the oven temperature outside the bowl to inside the bowl.