Hello! I received my Rofco B40 on 9 January and have baked in it almost daily since then (I have a casual home microbakery). From day one, everything was amazing - oven spring, crust, crumb. I was in heaven, loving every bake! Then, about 4 and a half weeks into use, suddenly ALL my crusts are turning to leather within 30 minutes of removing from oven. There is a crisp to it for a few minutes, then it goes soft and leathery. I can't think that I changed anything in my method. I'm in an arid environment (Arizona, US). Same starter, same ingredients, same everything. I've tried leaving the loaves in for a few extra minutes with the door cracked and oven off and this helped only a pinch, not significantly. I've been baking sourdough for over 2 years and have never experienced this before and it's giving me anxiety. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
You might consider having your oven's temperature professionally calibrated. I realize that it's new, but some part might have failed. Other possibilities include your flour having been changed by the miller, or your water supply changing. HTH.
I've checked the temp with an infrared thermometer and it seems to be where it should. I'm considering flour and water and will likely try reducing my dough hydration going forward to see if that helps. Thanks!
I’ve never used anything but a home oven so I have no experience with commercial ones, regardless of the size, so take this with a grain of salt. I think the leathery crust may be a symptom of too much steam too late in the bake. The question I would ask you is have you increased the number of loaves per bake in the run up to seeing this problem? The thinking here is that more loaves will generate a more humid environment in the oven and it may need to be vented earlier or more frequently.
Just a thought…
-Brad
It does feel like either too much steam or perhaps that moisture is struggling to come out of the bread (it has been a little chewy). It doesn't matter if I bake 1 loaf or 3 on the same deck. I'm wondering at this point if I need to greatly reduce the hydration of my loaves. I generally make my dough about 75% hydration, but maybe the stones are retaining moisture and creating too human an environment and reducing hydration would help? I have reduced the water I add to the steam trays and that hasn't helped
I think the hydration of the dough can be a factor. I typically bake breads with hydrations exceeding 80% (I use a very high percentage of whole grains) and the moisture has to go somewhere. My crusts can lose their crispy crunch after a few hours, but that is a stylistic choice because I enjoy a moist crumb. For most of my breads I use an upper limit of 15 minutes of steam and the balance of the bake is dry.
I would recommend that, if possible and safe to do so, you completely remove your steam source after a specific amount of time so you can be certain of a drier environment in the oven. You may need to adjust your time to balance the oven spring with the desired crust consistency.
-Brad
Thanks, Brad. I'll try removing the steam trays. I've also considered running the oven on low for several hours once or twice per week to dry out the bricks and see if that gets me back to where I was the first month I owned this oven. I'm with you on the moist crumb, though. I enjoy a moist crumb as well. Maybe I need to adjust my interpretation of what a good bread really is, rather than being hyper-focused on what I think it should be. My family and regular customers aren't complaining (other than one, but he was from Europe and looking specifically for that harder, crunchy crust).
Yes, that's one of the downsides of selling your wares...you have to respect the customer. We home bakers have the luxury of just making what we like, It took me many years to converge on the style I like best and I just focus on improving it. The downside of that is that I eat way more bread than I should.
Interesting comment about baking out the oven. I didn't think the bricks would be that porous, did you contact Rofco to ask them?
-Brad
I sent a message to Rofco several days ago and received a response that they’re out of office until March 5. I did read that their bricks are pretty porous, so baking them out may be the way to go. I’ll play around with it over the next week