A few years ago I posted a "steam explosion" method of simulating the
steam generated by commercial bread ovens. That post got all the
attention it deserved.. none. It was somewhat dangerous, involved
carrying a heavy, red-hot cast iron frying pan from the stove top to
the oven and pouring a cup of boiling water into it. I never got
burned because I wore gloves but it was a pretty dicey operation.
Since then I worked out a method of blackening the insides of clay
flower pots and putting them over the loaves, which are sitting on a
heavy ceramic stone. That was to simulate the traditional stone
bake oven. Because the flower pots virtually sealed themselves in
contact with the stone base, the water baking out of the loaves was
trapped and driven back into the crust by the hot walls of the
pots. This actually worked better than the steam explosion method
but its downside is that you have to manipulate large, heavy
pre-heated flower pots in a small oven and possibly a fragile kitchen
floor. I never posted this method because the logistics of dealing
with hot, heavy objects made too dangerous for me to recommend it.
Several years ago I took a two day baking class at the King Arthur
store/headquarters in Norwich, Vt. Dan Wing, author of "The Bread
Builders", a book about building stone ovens, brought his
trailer-mounted stone oven along and baked some sourdough. (Yes, he
really has a stone oven on a trailer!) To add steam, he opened the
door and sprayed water toward the ceiling of the oven using a large
pump-type pressure sprayer, the kind used for spraying fertilizer or
pesticides. The bread tasted great and was nicely crusted.
A few months ago I noticed a small kitchen-sized pump sprayer (Green
Thumb, 1.5 Qt) in a local hardware store, bought it and tried it on
some baguettes. Best crust ever. Depending on the final internal
temperature the thick crust is either soft and chewy or baked longer,
crackly. But it is very nice and thick.
Misting never worked for me because the amount of water you can mist
with a finger sprayer is not enough to matter. You need a lot of
steam coming off the walls and settling on the cold dough to
steam-cook the surface into a pasta, which then bakes into the
crust. It takes quite a lot of water to steam cook the surface of bread.
The procedure is as follows;
Just before slashing and loading the loaves into the preheated 500 F
oven (one with a baking stone, of course) fill the sprayer with hot
tap water and pump up the pressure. Place it near the oven
door. Turn the oven off if it is a convection oven or set it down to
425 F for baguettes or 400 F for larger loaves. Slash and load the
loaves into the oven, spray 1 sec blasts at the ceiling or back wall
of the oven, close the door, wait 5 seconds, spray another 1 sec,
wait 5 sec, etc. You want steam to settle on the loaves, not the
direct spray. Pump the sprayer once in a while to keep the pressure
up. I do this for at least 5 minutes, then down to one 1 sec spray
every 15 sec to keep the crust moist until the oven rise is complete,
about 8 to 10 minutes. For convection ovens turn the oven back on
when the temperature reduces to either 425 F or 400 F, depending on
the bread shape you are baking, and stop spraying. Let the crust
develop into a deep brown. Use a thermometer to check temperatures
the first few times you bake a new shape. Minimum 195 F, Maximum 205
F. Turn off the oven, open the door and leave the baked loaves on the
stone for 5 minutes to drive moisture out of the crust.
Wait an hour, open a good local farmstead cheese, some fruit, some
wine, some rosemary-herbed olive oil and life is good.
Warning Label: Everything has a warning label these days
1. Run the new sprayer through the dishwasher once to remove any
residual manufacturing chemicals, it is not a food grade product.
2. It is theoretically possible that the water spray will cause the
oven light lens cover to crack. I've been fiddling with oven steam
techniques for 10 years and have never popped a lens. But it could happen.
3. The internal components of the oven are at 500 F so the moisture
is not going to adhere to the oven walls for more than a few seconds.
I've never had any water / rust issues. The kitchen floor does get a
bit sloppy occasionally. The cup or so of water that actually comes
out of the sprayer is not much compared to the amount of water that
comes out of a roast beef or roast turkey.
Baking is fun, enjoy
Werner