More bread stuff, oven observation

[Mosca]

First: I got a decent loaf of plain white bread.



This was pretty good all the way around. But it was strange that it took really long to bake.

About a month ago I put a baking stone in the bottom of the oven, figuring it would help even out the temperature swings common in electric ovens; it wouldn’t eliminate them, but it would make them more gradual.

So today I decided to recheck the calibration. Because, you know, I can. And what I found was that: with the stone in there, when the oven itself thinks that it has reached 350°, the actual temperature in the oven takes much longer to actually reach 350°! It takes almost 45 minutes to reach the point where it cycles around the set temp.

My read on this is that the sensor is in the wall of the oven, so that is what gets reported to the display outside; and if it is in the bottom of the oven, then it is actually shielded from the oven cavity by the stone. The actual oven temperature will get there, eventually, as everything warms up.


This is the entire graph for today, but the session actually starts at 11:40. So it’s cycling around 348° now. Notice how it took a long time to build, and then from about 11:00 to 11:45 it cycled around 325°.

[Michael_in_TX]

This is very interesting and is an experiment I have been meaning to do myself!

[Mosca]

I like doing this stuff. If we are going to depend on our tools, we need to know them.

[Mosca]

Forgot to include: So what that means is that I’ve been putting my loaves in when the oven beeps “350°!”, but it’s really only about 325°. By the time the recipe recommends checking, for example at 35 minutes, my loaves have been well short of where I’ve expected them to be. (I check them with my Thermapen, looking for 190°.) The oven itself hasn’t actually hit 350°, even by the time the loaves should be done.

Solution: start warming the oven an hour in advance, or take the baking stone out.

[Donw]

Pre heating the oven for an hour before baking has always been my practice. My wife not so much. I am going to share your graphs now and maybe she will finally believe me.

[captainlee]

Kind of like when lower rack of the oven burn cookies, just put a full size sheet pan on the bottom rack and the next one up won't burn. Acting like a shield.That stone is absorbing the heat until it comes up to temp set . you have a mass there that requires time. I would think that a steel one would heat up faster.

[Mosca]

I want that big mass to act like a heat sink.

[captainlee]

It will as soon as it comes to temp, which will take some time.

[Sweaty Paul]

May explain why the oven "behaves wonky" when I leave my pizza steels in them. Good to know.

[briano52]

Great Work Mosca! I love it when people dive deep into how their equipment works. We learn so much from that.

I have an oven that can heat from both the bottom and top in a bake mode or in a convection mode. I have become fond of using these modes when baking bread or cakes. I have to be careful in convection mode which heats from above and below, plus uses fans. Using the top and bottom heating elements together seems to get the oven up to stable baking temperature faster than using a traditional bottom element only heat setting. Also, my top browning is easier and more reliable when using top and bottom elements together.

The convection mode is wonderful for getting the crusts and tops of things browned but it does cook faster, so I have to check for doneness sooner than a recipe suggests. My ovens are from Miele. I have one gas, one electric and one steam/electric combo. Love them although I am using the electrics much more than the gas. The heat and controls in the electrics are more precise and predictable than with gas.

[barelfly]

With a stone for bread/pizza, I’ve always read that it takes 45-60 minutes to get to true temp for everything.