I recently bought a new dough mixer (I'll talk about it in another post), and it’s awesome because I can now make way more dough at once without burning out the motor. But I still can't bake as much at once — or can I?
What follows are my notes as I attempt to find the optimal setup for my oven to bake at least six loaves of bread in one go. I'll start with a lower temp than I usually use (450°F) and then work my way up to 550°F (in 25-degree increments). I usually bake at 495°F in a cast iron combo cooker, which seals in the steam for the first part of the bake. What I’m trying now is quite different, so I expect some subpar bread (at least at first).
My setup for today includes two rows of 1/2" thick stones, each 6" × 6", giving me a total of 8 baking stones on each rack. The number of stones isn’t super important, but covering each rack from side to side is. I also have a cast iron pan on the bottom of the oven, which I’ll throw ice cubes into when I start baking.
I’m baking six regular sourdough loaves, each 700g. I’m using Shepherd’s Grain High Gluten (aka "Opus") flour. It’s good flour, it’s cheap, and I expect to go through a lot of loaves during these tests.
The oven was preheated to 450°F.
- 0m: The loaves, four ice cubes onto the cast iron, and a bit of sprayed water entered the oven.
- 5m: I sprayed a bit more water onto the oven floor to create steam for expansion.
- 11m: I used my laser thermometer on the stones and measured them at 350°F and 380°F. I expected a drop in temp, but not this much.
- 12m: The oven spring on the loaves looks mostly good.
- 15m: It’s starting to smell like bread in the kitchen.
- 18m: The stones are still at a low temperature (around 350°F), but the cast iron on the floor is at 450°F. The top-right loaves are cooking faster, so I spun them 180°.
- 22m: I swapped the top loaves with the bottom, as the top was cooking faster. The stones are still well below 450°F. I sprayed a little more water (probably not helping the temp, not sure why I'm still spraying at this point).
- 30m: The loaves are still not done, as they need more browning.
- 36m: I took one loaf out. The top stone is 300°F, and the bottom is 350°F.
- 41m: I removed all the loaves. One was very burnt on the bottom, but the rest look reasonable. I’m going to keep the oven on to see how long it takes to get back to 450°F.
- 58m: The oven is back to 450°F, and the stones are reasonably close to that temp as well.
Results
Some loaves were burnt on the bottom (I suspect they were on the top-right of the oven), and the oven spring wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, though some turned out nicely.
It also took forever to bake, which was a problem. I think the steam and the mass of the loaves made the temperature drop by over 100°F. I’m tempted to jump right to 500°F for my next bake.
