Had a little experiment last night with two portions of the same dough.
The one of the left is baked with the steam-oven. I just used the standard bread recipe in the oven's settings. The one on the right is baked with a Dutch oven.
Tried to get the variables (like scoring etc.) as consistent as possible. What a different.
Any thoughts? The only thing I can think of is that the Dutch oven wasn't the same temp as the oven, so that stopped the rise of the loaf on the right.
It has a teleporter inside, and the loaf got pulled out too early.
It had the same baking time as the steam oven version. Around 45 - 50 minutes. Maybe it was the temp of the cast iron pot..
You should preheat the Dutch oven for around 1hr before baking. Also you should do the last 1/3 of the bake with the lid off.
Some people toss ice cubes into the dutch oven with the dough to increase the moisture. It never made any difference for me.
A steam oven is superior. That isn’t debatable. The dutch oven is the next best method - steam ovens are expensive.
What’s your go-to method right now? Did you do the comparison between a Dutch Oven and just a oven with a tray of hot water on the button?
I never tried the steam tray. I have two Dutch ovens, both made of clay, one for round loaves and one for ‘batard’ oval loafs. I generally only use the batard. The only recent change I’ve made in my baking is to minimize the amount of starter I keep. Basically I went from saving 150g to 25g. Much less waste. Back on Reddit there were posts from ‘the German guy’ that covered in massive detail how to minimize starter waste and the science of starter proportions.