Dutch Oven Bread?

[Low-N-Slow]

Been doing some web research on baking bread in a cast iron dutch oven, mainly trying to get a feel for time, temp, and technique. Will be using a long-fermented no-knead dough. In the meantime, has anyone else tried it, and have any tips to help shorten the learning curve?

[hungryone]

Get your hands on Jim Lahey's "My Bread"...he's the proprietor of Sullivan St. Bakery who popularized the no-knead, dutch-oven method, and his book tells you every little tip & trick. The classic Lahey recipe produces a very wet dough that's tricky to handle unless your hands are well-floured. I still bake it from time to time, but I've never been completely happy with the resulting crumb texture.

[Low-N-Slow]

Thanks. The name "Lahey" is indeed the main keyword for anyone searching information on this topic. I'll experiment with a non-preheated technique first, and the pre-heated later.

[hungryone]

The preheat is essential for the best oven spring. In fact, the preheat is the whole point of the closed-vessel method. Without a preheat, the loaf won't give off any steam, and the crust will set before the interior expands fully, leading to a heavy, gummy interior (technically cooked all the way thru, but an inferior, unpleasant texture). The preheated, closed pot simulates a steam-injected oven (what is used in professional bread bakeries)--only the wet dough is the source of the steam.

[Low-N-Slow]

Luckily, with baking, most experiments only cost a few cents worth of flour. The dough I used was something I already had on hand, and not of the level of hydration called for by the NYT NK recipe. The dutch oven was also a brand new, pre-seasoned one, and I wanted to test it on something, anything. It's upside down in the oven now, slathered with oil. The bread didn't burn, but the bottom sure did stick tight to the pan. I found a recipe on RLB's blog that gives the ingredient proportions by weight. I'll try that one next.

[hungryone]

I've never done a no-knead bread in standard cast iron, only in enameled cast iron. I can see how dough would stick like the dickens to uncoated cast iron (even if it's heavily seasoned). Lately, it's been too hot to bake anything. I did manage to cook some whole-wheat pita in a CI skillet on the stovetop.

[Low-N-Slow]

RLB talks about experimenting with parchment paper and coffee filters to deal with sticking in her blog entry.

[hungryone]

Parchment, of course, I can understand, as it is fabricated for baking & silicon-coated. But I'd be wary of loose, fibrous coffee filters. FWIW, King Arthur sells precut parchment just the right size for half-sheet pans. I hate buying those rolls--they're not the right dimensions for half sheet pans at all.

[Low-N-Slow]

Looks like she's using plain CI here:

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2006/12/noknead_balloon_bread_loaf_10.html

There's another, earlier post on there in which she uses a combo of parchment or some teflon paper on top of a coffee filter:

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2009/09/another_word_on_no_knead_bread.html

[hungryone]

RLB seems like a nice lady, but I find her recipes & instructions overly fiddly & complex. Her bread bible recipes insist that salt added w/yeast will harm the yeast, yet no other baking book in my library suggests that salt be added to doughs as a separate step (not Silverton, Leader, Reinhart, Hamelman, Malgieri, Calvel, etc). I have her books, but somehow they just don't resonate. Leader's "local breads", on the other hand, makes me want to bake every day.

[Low-N-Slow]

RLB seems like a nice lady, but I find her recipes & instructions overly fiddly & complex.
I'm beginning to see what you mean. "Bake covered at 450 for 30 minutes, then lid off for 15 minutes, then out on the baking stone for 10 minutes, then 5 minutes with the oven off, then 5 more minutes with the oven door ajar." Sheesh...

This is turning into a strange little odyssey: learning about seasoning-- and already re-seasoning-- cast iron before actually cooking in it; dissecting Mark Bittman/Jim Lahey videos online; figuring out how to get some loft and oven spring and good crumb from whole grain doughs; resisting the urge to scavenge flea markets for vintage cast iron pieces to restore.

I did, however, manage to put out something edible that didn't stick to the DO. A little parchment paper worked. I'm going to play around with the hydration and the VWG, and see if I can improve on it.

[hungryone]

I admire your devotion to uncoated CI. I have well seasoned 10" and 12" skillets, but for dutch ovens, I'm way too lazy for anything but enameled. If you want the last word in whole-grain baking, seek out Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. An entire volume of WG variations, with very good info on soakers, pre-ferments, and the time & temp manipulations essential to good whole grain loaves.

The one no-knead loaf I bake repeatedly is this one: http://bouillie.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/no-knead-flaxseed-whole-wheat-bread/
The ground flax adds flavor & texture.

[Low-N-Slow]

My 30+ year-old 12" CI skillet laughs in the face of dishwashing liquid. I am, however, keeping an eye out for a 4 or 5 qt. ECI pot on sale. I thought I had some milled flaxseed around here, but it's apparently been used up or it went buggy. The new KA catalog has a no-knead recipe similar to yours that calls for 3/4 cup of their organic flax flour.

[hungryone]

Wallyworld carries ground flaxseed, only in the supplements/vitamins section in the pharmacy. I store it in the freezer, as it "goes off" pretty quick.

[Low-N-Slow]

The stuff I had was from Walmart also, but in the grocery aisles-- Hodgson Mills, IIRC. Are you making a distinction between "ground" and "milled"?

[hungryone]

No, I'm using ground & milled interchangably, b/c it's just a flavoring for the loaf. I don't add enough to disrupt the flour & yeast, so the relatively coarse texture of the "supplement" ground flaxseed doesn't matter. A friend gave me some fresh, homegrown flaxseed--a lovely gentle flavor, not nearly as strong as the dried.

[Low-N-Slow]

I picked up some more flaxseed, but, in the interrim, have spent more time on researching cast-iron restoration and seasoning methods than on baking bread. The history of US-made CI is quite interesting, and there is a huge collector's market for the old stuff from Griswold, Wagner, and, to a lesser extent, Lodge. I've also learned the best oil to use to oven-season CI is, coincidentally, flaxseed oil. I've used it on both the "pre-seasoned" Dutch oven, and on a slightly rusty piece I found at a flea market. After a requisite six passes in the oven, the DO now looks and cooks like it's been moderately used for over a year. The skillet, de-rusted and treated with nothing but the flaxseed oil, has an interesting gun metal-colored patina, and also already has reasonably good non-stick properties.

[hungryone]

The old Griswold stuff is so much smoother than the modern Lodge. I've heard of more than a few folks taking a grinder to the new Lodge stuff to polish up the rough interiors. Too much work for me: it's easier to fill in the texture with some grease & carbon through seasoning!

[Low-N-Slow]

I have read about using fine sandpaper on the newer, grainier stuff. I also think just further seasoning will do the trick. The Wagner skillet I bought appears to have been factory machined or lathed to smooth the interior; it's evidently not a truly vintage piece. I'm also about 90% set up now to do some electrolytic cleaning, anticipating a great estate sale or flea market bargain to try to restore. Through my Googling, I've been able to determine the 12" workhorse skillet I have is an old Lodge.