At Sun, 21 Aug 2005 12:11:10 -0500, "Kenneth McMurtrey"
<kdlam@megagate.com> wrote:
>Has anyone had any experience using a grill to bake bread other than
>the pizza/flatbread?
Yup, I've done a few experiments with bread baking using a barbeque.
For my latest effort, I used a rectangular baking stone that I was
able to position just above the normal location of the cooking
grill. I made a Spanish Catalan Country Loaf that uses hard white
flour with a 2 day pre-ferment and shaped it into a boule. I also
used some small broken up bits of maple wood (without bark) wrapped
in aluminum foil that added an interesting smoke flavour to the bread.
I removed the cooking grills, placed the baking stone in the
barbeque, positioned a couple of oven thermometers on top of the
baking stone, a tin can of water above the burners, and pre-heated
the grill to the normal cooking temperature as measured by the oven
thermometers. I then turned the burners down almost to their minimum
setting, slid the bread from a peel onto the baking stone, and added
the foil wrapped maple pieces next to the can of now boiling
water. After five or ten minutes there was a lot of smoke coming
from under the barbeque lid so I removed the wood chips and after
about 20 minutes I removed the can of water.
In general, the process worked well. There was good oven spring
(better than the second control loaf baked in the normal oven) and
the bread baked in about the normal amount of time. With the smoke
flavour it made great lunch sandwiches but it was a little burnt on
the bottom. I think the baking stone was hotter than the surrounding
air in the barbeque (and burned the bottom) because I kept opening of
the lid to assess the baking process and watch the temperature. Next
time, I'll try to be less curious and, when looking, open the lid
just a crack to keep most of the heated air inside the grill. I also
confirmed that barbeques normally get very hot so that one needs a
light touch on the fuel controls to avoid baking temperatures of 600 F or more.
Hope this helps,
Dan