I have a small collection of Emile Henry covered bakers (the baguette baker and the artisan loaf baker). As I understand it, the main purpose of covering the baking bread is to increase the local humidity to ensure a better crust. Has anyone used these in the APO with the cover on? I have been taking the cover off to allow the oven to do its work, but wondered if there were other experiences out there.
Isn’t it the same as a conventional oven if you leave the cover on and set it to no steam?
Some recipes for covered ware call for removing the cover half way through the bake,
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Correct. I was wondering if anyone tried steam with cover on. By the way, the baguettes turned out beautifully with the cover off!
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We purchased the oven so that we did not need to keep using covered bakers. So far the steam works better than the covered bakers including cast iron bakers with added moisture.
Steaming with the cover on would only help heat the baker maybe a little faster.
Same here. I was wondering if anyone tried it. Perhaps I will on a future recipe and report back.
What is your hypothesis on the outcome of using the baker in the oven and reason for testing it?
Basically, I was wondering if the extra heat from the lid close to the bread would enhance the the crust. There are enough holes in them that the steam should be able to enter.
I have also seen some reports that loaves can be lopsided because of the convection fan, though I am not necessarily convinced of this phenomenon. If it is in fact an outcome, then a lid during the first 10 minutes should eliminate that.
Yea, I wouldn’t bother.
Onion bread
I’ve been baking bread for a very long time. I just made a few test with the new oven using the settings that the came with the recipes. I decided to throw everything out and this is what I did to finally get success and a good rise out of my bread had a great crust. First I preheated the oven with the stone at the bottom for an hour. I didn’t score of the bread put it in the oven reduce the heat from 482 degrees100% steam to 350 and cooked it for five minutes giving the bread a chance to rise. I opened the oven to bring the temperature quickly down to 350 and let it cook without steam. The bread had a chance to rise it slowly cooked till it was crusty. I cooked it just above the stone on a rack with parchment paper.
I’d suggest you do similar the next time. Preheat the stone etc for at least an hour. 482F 100% steam for the first 10 minutes. That helps with oven spring more than lowering it to 350F. Your opportunity for oven spring is maybe 10 minutes so there is no rising slowly. You are still going to get a crust with 100% steam through the entire baking time, but you can reduce it. I turn off steam after 10-20 minutes.
Is the bottom gummy?
No the bottom was cooked very well. The reason for that was I put it on a rack just above the stone so airflow to underneath.
Try putting it on the stone.
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