Venting Steam

STEAM

Venting Steam

After 15 minutes of baking at 500°F (260°C), gently lift the lid of your Dutch oven to vent steam and heat, just for a moment.

The reason we want to vent this heat and steam from our baking chambers has to do with the design of home ovens. See, most home ovens are designed with baking elements on the bottom of the oven. This is why we created our baking chambers so close to the oven floor; our proximity to the heating element helped us to maximize oven-spring.

However, as we progress through our bake, and since oven-spring only really occurs in the first 10 minutes or so of baking, our attention as bakers shifts from generating volume in our loaves, to ensuring that our crusts form properly and our crumbs dehydrate and set.

Too much steam in the baking chamber will inhibit crust formation; too much heat coming from just one direction in our ovens may cause our bottoms to burn before our loaves properly dehydrate and our crusts brown.

Once vented, replace your lid, lower your oven temperature to 450°F (230°C), and reset your timer for another 15 minutes. Continue sipping on that cocktail.

Finishing the Bake

After a half hour of baking in our covered Dutch ovens, it's time to uncover the loaf and allow our crusts to color and our loaves to dehydrate. This part of the bake usually takes about 15 to 20 minutes, but will depend on your oven conditions and how dark you like your loaves to be.

To prevent the bottom of your loaf from burning, I recommend stacking the bread-filled half of your Dutch oven on top of its lid, if such an arrangement is stable. If that won't work, slide another rack into your oven just above your stone, and place your Dutch oven on top of that, to provide some insulation from the directional heat coming from the bottom of your oven and stone.