In case you didn’t know, in order to bake beautiful sourdough breads properly you absolutely must have steam. There is no question about it. Steam is what moisturizes the outside of the loaf and allows it to form a malleable skin that expands during baking, otherwise you would just have a brick rather than a light airy loaf. Now the means in which you go about obtaining that steam can be done a few different ways. The more common way for home bakers is to use the dutch oven or cast iron pot method which basically just traps the steam the loaf itself puts out. The oven steaming method is superior and in this video I’ll show you why.
Lava Rocks: https://amzn.to/2ReMStE
Baking Stone Tiles: https://amzn.to/2BAJr6J
Half Hotel Pan: https://amzn.to/2BCKT8D
My Beginner Sourdough Bread: https://youtu.be/eod5cUxAHRM
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Amazing Bread Baker – Maurizio: http://theperfectloaf.com
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Music – Jef Kaale: http://soundcloud.com/jeff-kaale/
Saib: https://soundcloud.com/saib_eats
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Here’s the process in steps:
1.Preheat your stones with the lava rocks to 505F or 262C for 1 hour
2. 15 minutes before loading your oven pour boiling water over 4 rolled up towels placed in a metal baking dish (don’t use glass) and place on the floor of your oven next to the lava rocks.
3. 5 minutes before loading your oven(which would be 10 minutes into placing your towels in), turn your broiler on high to superheat the stone.
4. After that time is up, turn your broiler off and set the oven back to 505F or 262C.
5. Place your loaves on individual sheets of parchment paper, score them as you like, spray them lightly with water.
6. Load your oven with your loaves making sure there is room for expansion
7. Lay a kitchen towel on the glass part of your oven door to prevent shattering (DO NOT SKIP), then using oven mitts slightly pull out your lava rock skillet, pour in 2 cups or 473ml of water (room temperature or cold water is fine) and very quickly but safely close the oven door to trap the steam.
8. Steam for 20 minutes, then remove both steamers, reduce the oven temperature down to 465F or 240C and bake for an additional 20-30 minutes or until rich dark brown.
Original of the video here
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Video Transcription
you want to make mind-blowing sourdoughbread at home you don’t have to be afancy bakery anymore there’s a new kidin town yes I know about the Dutch ovenmethod for baking bread I’m a fan of itI used it for the majority of my bakingjourney actually but there’s one hugedownside to that method well actually toyour couldn’t find to the size of thepot so that means if you want to dolarger loaves or whatever yeah well yeahbetter hope that it fits in the pot andbe you can really only bake two loavesat a time so this sort of solves both ofthose problems you can make big giganticloaves of Miche the ones that are likebigger than your face or really longbatard or even the coveted baguette thismethod applies to any of those breadsobviously depending on the size of thelump you may need to bake them slightlylonger than the other so you know let’ssteam this thing shall we okay so thereare a few really easy to find items thatyou’re gonna need for this the first islava rocks and a 12-inch cast-ironskillet now the skillet is easy enoughto find but if you can’t find lava rocksthere will be a link below they’rereally cheap so go ahead and add enoughof those lava rocks to fill the skilletup just to the rim also quick thank youto Mauricio hopefully I pronounced thatcorrectly I adapted this method fromboth a restaurant that I worked at andfrom his method majorly his methods sohis link will be below so now you’ve gotyour lava rock filled skillet and nowyou’re gonna need four cheap 100% cottonkitchen towels do not use microfiberthey will melt and it’s not gonna be funand you’re gonna fold and roll those upinto nice tight cylinders and place themclose together in some sort of metalbaking tray I used a shallow half hotelpan which will also be linked belowsuper cheap and last but definitely notleast you need a baking stone or abaking steel the cheaper option would bethe stone choice which is what we’ll beusing these are six inch by six inchbaking stone tiles which will be linkedbelow as well any baking stone will dobut just make sure it’s large enough foryour loaves you know the bigger thebetter assuming it fits in your ovenactually wait one more thing I almostforgot you’re gonna need some sort ofpizza peel in order to load your loavesinto the oven baking spoon directly onthe grates in go the lava rocks and thenthe towel steamer goes inbut later now hold on one second soyou’ve got your baking stones directlyon the rack about in the middle of theoven as to allow some spacing betweenthe steamers your lava rock steamers onthe right and then your supplementaltowel steamer is on the left the towelsare added to have continuous steam evenwhen your lava rock one poops out on youthis is your setup know it live it onceyou get it down life is good now we justgot to do the darn thing they’re gonnapreheat the oven with both the bakingstones and the lava rock steamer inthere it’s gonna preheat with the ovento 505 degrees Fahrenheit or 262 degreesCelsius and you’re gonna preheat thatfor one hour now I know it seems like along time but you want to really makesure you get the oven in that bakingstone SuperDuper hot now 15 minutesbefore you start baking so 45 minutes ofpreheating later pour boiling water overthe four towels that you have rolled upin that half hotel you want them toabsorb all of the water you don’t reallywant a pool of water below but haveenough to completely saturate all thetowel and then just place that to thebottom left of your oven next to thelava rocks now this part is optional butI like to do it five minutes beforeloading the oven turn your broiler onhigh to superheat those stones downbelow once those five minutes are up andyou’re ready to load the oven don’tforget to turn it back to 505 degreesand to turn that broiler off now thispart goes by pretty quickly so I sloweddown the clip for you first thing youwant to do is place your prepared loavesthat are also scored on separate piecesof parchment paper we do this in casethey need to be slid across during theirbaking if they look like they’re gonnacollide optionally missed your loaveslightly with water load them carefullyand gently into the oven you want to dothis safely but you know promptly as tonot release too much heat then you’regonna place a kitchen towel over youroven glass door do not skip that partotherwise you could risk shattering itby any cold water hitting in that’sthat’s not goodthen pour two cups or 473 millilitres ofwater into your preheated lava-rockcast-iron obviously while wearing glovesquickly close the door to trap the steamsteam for 20 minutes then remove yoursteamers reduce the temperature to 465degrees Fahrenheit or 240 degreesCelsius and bake for 20 to 30 moreminutes or until rich dark brown andthat’s it that’s all you got to do nowif you don’t have a bread recipe I’lllink my beginner sourdough recipe belowjust replace that one’s Dutch ovenbaking method with this oven steamingmethod now let’s get one moreor b-roll shot so I’m editing the videoright now and I just wanted I just wantto take a quick little pause to add thislittle snippet in which is I just wantedto say a quick thank you to youtube andI thank you to you guys who aresupporting me and subscribing and likingmy videos I really really appreciate itI was just public it’s gonna be gone bythe time this video goes up but I wasfeatured on the trending tab as theycreator on the rise so you know I thinkit’s pretty cool it’s a small milestonethat to me says that I am working in theright direction and I just wanted to saythank you from the bottom my heart yeahlet’s move on with the video shall wesorry for the interruption[Music]I feel like I gained a huge piece ofcontrol over my bread’s now that I’magainst using the pot I think that’sgreat for beginners this is reallyapplicable to pretty much anybody whobakes bread if you enjoyed this video oryou learn something leave a likesubscribe and I will see you next week
Don’t you just need some water in the beginning? I just pour some boiling water in a larger tray right after I put the bread inside. That way it creates a lot of steam. Works perfectly fine.
I was all excited until I heard “shattered glass door”.
Great video as always Josh! One question though, what do you recommend to do if the heating element of my oven is on the bottom as well as the element for the broiler on top?
I only use bread infused tea towels at home.
i like how the community on this channel is mostly people who enjoy cooking/learning how to cook and are willing to discuss things and not a bunch of ppl who are like “who watches these videos but never makes them lmaoooo”
for this new year I wish you a million followers. extremely cool content
Those towels and lava rocks look delicious.