I am working on best settings for APO to bake classic Sourdough Bread. I have a fair amount of experience baking in the Dutch Oven and it comes out well.
First bake in APO - all good but the bottom is undercooked.
Rear Element only.
Preheat 30 min at 482F with 100% steam (and 16" x 12" baking stone)
Bake with steam: 20min, 450F, 100% steam
Bake without steam: 25min 400F
The results are pretty good in terms of oven spring and top crust but as mentioned above the bottom is undercooked. The stone is on the grate in position 1.
Has anyone tried using Top + Bottom elements for baking instead of rear? Longer pre-heat? Higher rack position? Baking steel instead of baking stone?
For other type of oven, I have read and adopted advices from bakers suggesting to put the bread for another 3-5 min on a grid in the oven to better cook the bottom.
I found that preheating for 30 minutes was not enough to get the stone up to temperature. If you have an infrared temperature probe you should check to make sure the stone has reached 450F. I found I needed an additional 15 minutes of preheat time. At the 30 minutes my stone was only around 350F.
I make baguettes daily (actually more like pane francese) and have the best results with a stone like yours but using top/bottom heat. I start at 460/100% steam for 5 min. and then continue at 460/no steam for 11-12 minutes. These are smaller loaves of course but I have not had a problem with underdone bottoms.
Great, thank you very much. I just tried Top/Bottom heat set at 482F and preheat for 1h20m. Then, as I started the bake, after 2min the APO shut down (without any warning) from overheating. It came back to life after about 10-15 minutes. The exterior of the APO was very hot. I think long pre-heat at maximum temperature is not a great idea unless there is a fan or other heat removal method. I will try 450-460F next time and and 1hr preheat.
I don’t think you need so long a pre-heat. My stone is up to temp after 30 min or so. Usually I start just a few minutes after the oven gets to final temp.
Because the baking stone seems to take a long time to preheat in the oven, I heat mine in the microwave then once It is at a good time temp add it to the oven
My ‘making stone’ is actually a clay /terracotta flooring tile To allow for the different floor areas between the microwave and the oven it is cut into two pieces, so together they fit the oven.
I think heating up with the rear or rear/top is going to get the stone hot faster. I don’t think the top/rear has enough power to get the stone up to temp quickly enough.
This is the thing that completely pisses me off about the thermal design of kitchen gadgets through to full size ovens laid bare, but no-one has called it out as a flawed design because we allow it to perpetuate…
Lack of insulation = more energy to build up & maintain heat log term in a thermal brick scenario like a baking stone.
Those forced air house heaters with several hundred weight of metal thermal mass that allow it to seep out slowly over time, night storage heaters etc… take your pick.
If you are a REGULAR cook then perhaps a low energy electric warming sleeve pad that can pre-heat a stone/ clay slab might be a possibility, however (& getting back to the point) there is nothing / next to nothing in modern ovens of any size that retains heat which if it were a plane being checked for aerodynamics would never get off the ground.
Stored heat is useful, bakers in the old days, clay.brick lined ovens heat retention for villagers to use to cook a pot meal in the slow release heat of a recess, so why are modern ovens not designed with a thermal wall layer of any significant kind, for all the money paid they all continue to pee heat (anyone with a thermal imager please take some shots) in the most inefficient way possible, this too makes a mockery of the air fryer, (which heats up quickly due to the tiny air volume compared to that of a regular oven, that and an overclocked fan for thorough convective air movement, the only reason we picked an instantpot airfryer / pressure cooker combo was because it was one of the 1% of designs that does have a pretty solid metal wall to assist with holding heat throughout the cook & warming time.
I cringe when I think for all its expense, and despite all its gizmo’s thermal efficiency is not a ground breaking design factor here.
To allow for the different floor areas between the microwave and the oven it is cut into two pieces, so together they fit the oven.