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One obvious advantage apart from the energy savings is not having to gently drop your shaped bread into a very hot dutch oven while avoiding getting burned in the process.
I’ve been doing cold oven baking for over 2 years now, with great results. Love not dealing with a hot Dutch oven. I do 40 minutes @500F lid on, 10-15 minutes, @475F, lid off.
I made my first sourdough loaf a couple days ago with your standard loaf recipe and it turned out amazing. I don’t have a lame or banneton. I used an old metal strainer that I bought at a thrift shop lined with parchment paper to proof it, a razor blade to score it and my old wal mart no name Dutch oven to bake it. I was so thrilled with how beautiful it turned out! Just goes to show that you can start out with things you already have to bake a great loaf. I have your sandwich loaf on it’s final proof right now to bake this afternoon. Thanks for helping me have success!
Congratulations. I used a large glass bowl and a clean white pillowcase and I was stressed out and it transferred perfectly to the cold dutch oven and came out wonderful. I think we tend to over complicate things and worry over stuff that doesn't need worrying. On to our next loaf.
I am NOT A PROFFESIONAL BAKER... but my LOGIC tells me, and your VIDEO PROVES IT... that starting from a cold oven will allow the dough to EXPAND MORE than if starting from the HIGH TEMP oven! I bake once in a while -- "French" breads, pita, and some cakes.. - and I use cold oven to start with the French Bread .... THNX
How can you NOT notice that the cold start oven is BIGGER?? I'm so going to use cold startfrim now on, as it saves time/energy, reduces the possiblity of burning my hands in the transfer and a bigger loaf! This was so exciting, the suspense of the cold start lid reveal, my baker's heart was racing wildly!❤️😂
check the begining of the video, the loaves are not the same size at all, or the pots they are in are shaped different but i doubt it, either way it doesn't matter it seems to do the same thing
@@johanlarsson9805 And his explanation for turning off oven would be same mechanism as if you start from cold oven, crust doesn't get hard right away and yeast still produces gases as oven is warming up
I love the cold oven cooking experiment , I’ll be trying it for my next loaf. I live in a hot climate so less oven time means a cooler house! Saves on cooking time and aircon!
It's barely any less oven time tho. He has the oven on 55 mins for the cold oven, and with preheating the oven it'd be around 65 mins (30 mins preheating+20 lid on+15 lid off?
Try baking them outside in a grill. I can do two in my four burner, and I can fit 3 Dutch ovens in my 6 burner. It doesn’t make the house hot, and I often bake 6 loaves at a time. It’s nice to be able to do 6 in two bakes outside.
I was glad to find this video. As a baker, it's long been my opinion that the only reason to preheat an oven was the need to transmit reliable recipes in terms of cooking/baking time. Great job.
An advantage that you missed of starting in a cold oven is that you don't have to risk burning your hands and wrists putting the dough into a hot dutch oven/cloche. That wins it for me.
oh, this is game changing! I always hated all that energy waste when preheating oven for 30-45 mins. Now I've just moved to a country where energy is much more expensive! so I am trying it on my next loaf! Thanks so much Grant!
I learned the cold oven method from Elaine Boddy and the temperature that works the best is 450F not 500F. Thanks for the video I really like this method.
When I'm in a hurry, sometimes preheat the dutch oven on the cooker (just a few minutes on a medium intensity flame, and at the same time I turn on the oven. So the total preheating time is 5 minutes, and I use regular timing for baking after that. I think I save something like half an hour (I usually have 45 minutes oven preheating)
Oh interesting experiment. I followed your SD recipe. I am using a superheated steam oven. The preheat function only takes 8min and not the usual 30min. So far, I got good oven spring.
Yes, the cold oven loaf is bigger which would make one think it would be a little less dense. However, the looked the same but he didn't do a taste test. At the end of the experiment I am surprised there was little difference, ir so it seems. Does it have to be cooked in the dutch oven or can either way be cooked in the oven on a tray?
@@dailyfoodwiththeawfulchef366 I agree. Recipes today seem to be overthought compared to earlier recipes. I can appreciate now the “Galloping Gourmet “ from the 60s and early 70s with his reckless disregard for heavy cream and butter…but that’s a story for another time.
I've been cold oven baking for a long time. Bread, cookies, etc. Dutch oven, dough on a piece of parchment paper lowered in. In the paper creases on the outside of the dough I drop in 6 ice cubes. That is between the paper and wall of the Dutch oven, not directly against the dough. For a small 400 gram sourdough loaf for my wife and I 45 minutes in a Dutch oven covered then 12 minutes uncovered and done.
TASTE! FLAVOR! Not once, in a video comparing baking methods, is this most important result mentioned. It's as though baking has become a beauty contest. (And I don't mean only this video)
Good point. Flavor is the most important factor. In my opinion, flavor comes down mostly to the flour being used and the method of fermentation. Not really shaping, and to a lesser extent the baking method. I didn't really expect this particular baking technique to have any affect on the flavor of the bread, since I prepared the two doughs the exact same way. That's why I chose not to compare the flavor of the two loaves. But it's definitely something I'll keep in mind if I do side-by-side tests in the future. Thanks, Philip.
I enjoyed this test, I have been thinking about trying a cold oven myself! I think the cold oven loaf was significantly larger and the crumb was more open, more pleasing to the eye.
I just preheat the oven with the dutch oven up to 500 F and then immediately put the bread in when it reaches temp. I have not found a reason to let the oven sit hot for an extra hour like some people recommend.
@@soffici1 That's why I don't do it. Some recipes call for putting the Dutch oven in and then turning the oven on to the desired temperature for 45-60 min. The oven only takes like 10 to preheat to the temp so that is when I put the bread in. I guess their argument is that just because the oven is saying it is 500, the Dutch oven itself may not be to temp yet. I don't believe that though.
@@Reaper006 I was curious about that silly suggestion, so I bought myself one of those IR thermometer guns to check the actual temperatures (well, that and many other things). With my setup, while the oven indeed takes 10-15 minutes to reach 250°C (max temp I can go to), the Dutch oven takes far longer, so I’ve settled for 2 complete cycles of the resistance: On-off-on-off. At the end of those (about 20-25 minutes) I bake. Maybe your own Dutch oven takes less time to heat than mine does, or maybe it’s all silly and we can easily bake starting with a cold oven and save ourselves at least 10-15 minutes of energy usage
I don’t own a Dutch oven but do start with a cold oven with my pampered chef deep baking stoneware dish. I soak the lid and dish in water for 30 mins first, then bake 50 mins at 450. Take out of dish, lower to 400 for 10-12 mins.
Have you ever spritzed water on top of the uncooked loaf just before baking it? The theory is it prevents the crust from forming sooner, which is what prevents oven spring. I'm trying your cold oven technique with my next loaf AND spritzing it, just to see. Also, I bake to an interior temperature of 210°F, so there's no guesswork. Thanks for your video!
Interesting - I use the exact same measurements as you, baked in a Lodge cooker, but I get such a different crumb (I actually love the rustic open crumb on my loaves 🧡)
well that's quite interesting. Ive noticed in my own sourdough bread making that this type of bread is quite forgiving. Chad Robertson's book really taught me how to make bread and while his bread at Tartine is WAY better than mine, my bread is close enough even when I skip/shorten a ton of the steps.
Cold oven works for low hydration dough. In your case, the exterior of your loaf looked pretty parched and rigid and that certainly helped keeping it together during the bake.
Good video. I've been using cold start for about six months in a seasoned cast iron Dutch oven (not enameled) and I apply a thin layer of neutral oil (usually olive) and a sprinkle of flour. I've been able to bake a loaf at 85% hydration w/o sticking and burnt bottoms but agree the results LOOK better at lower hydration levels.
I use the Americas test kitchen duch oven method for sourdough and yeast bread, I do the final proof in the pot on parchment paper then I put the lid on the cold duch oven and put it in a cold oven then set to 450° and bake for 30 minutes then remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes until the desired color is achieved and I have great results with both sourdough and yeast bread using the cold oven method which is so much easier than dealing with a hot Dutch oven and it also reduces the time that my hot oven is running in near 100° heat in the summer, I no longer need to spend 30 to 40 minutes preheating my Dutch oven in a 500° oven.
I like this video. Some recipes are asking to preheat for two hours. Waste of electricity. I bake only if I will use oven for the day so I only preheat max 15mins (as the oven is already hot at 180c).
Grant, I have been baking my current sourdough loafs by doing the following: Pre heat my large dutch oven to 525 Degrees for at least 30-45 minutes, I usually go 1 hour. Place your scored (I use scissors) sourdough on parchment paper into the dutch oven and cover. Now immediately turn off the oven. After 25 minutes remove the cover and turn the oven on to 450 degrees. Let cook uncovered for another 30-40 minutes depending on how dark you want on your bread, I like mine a little on the dark side. I have found by using this method I have a little better oven spring even from rather low protein flours. My dough is 74% hydration one loaf= 660 grams flour / 150 grams starter / 470 grams water / 17 grams salt. You may have to adjust for a small sized loaf.
@@GrantBakes I too have tried the oven off method, but it is a waste of electricity or gas. Oven Spring and taste quality is about same as baking covered from cold for 55min. Then 10 -15min uncovered until preferred color. Internal temp is at least 205°f.
I am a baker in Dallas Texas, I never put a dough in the freezer over a bannetton I prefered to put the dough always in a BPA free container at least for 12 hours or 17 in the fridge and the flavor was really incredible!
Hermetic container, remember the freezer has bad bacterias and germs from the other foods from different places or blood 🩸 leak, also try to use a french dutch oven or german that doesn’t have a fucking metal that with that heat can put some heavy metals in to the fucking air dude
Nice video, thanks. With the rising cost of energy (thanks, Vladimir) and the environmental catastrophe that climate change is, I reckon saving 10 minutes every time one bakes is going to help both the energy bill and our future… I’m going to try this cold oven method next time I bake
Thanks so much Grant for going to the effort of doing this interesting experiment. I personally think that the cold oven start produced a bigger loaf and the other differences did not seem to be very marked from a visual perspective. Ive got some dough bulk fermenting right now and are now going to try the cold start method. Plus, i'm an energy tightarse, so this is fantastic mate! BTW, I gave a friend some starter today and we watched a few of your videos to help teach her how to use your original method of making a sourdough loaf. I'm sure she will subscribe and like. Thanks for your invaluable tips and videos mate. Cheers buddy, from West Oz! Hooroo. 😁
@@kingdomwalker247 I have done this cold start method three times so far and I found that it worked very well. I think it has a few advantages to begin with in that you're not trying to put your dough into a scorching hot oven and possibly burn yourself. Second, you aren't burning the heck out of your dutch oven and scalding the bottom. The bread itself rose better than into hot and seemed more open and relaxed upon completion. You do need to already know how long it takes your oven to reach temp though to sucessfully bake it for the right amount of time. Hope that helps.
It looked like the cold oven method loaf was a bit taller in your experiment, and a little more spread out at the same time. Maybe it was just a little larger loaf to start with. I have only made sourdough bread 8 times, over 4 months. I tried the cold oven method for the first time (not your recipe). I turned my oven on just a couple minutes before I placed my loaf in my Dutch Oven and into the oven. I baked at 450 degrees. I just don't like my bread looking black; I'm in favor of golden to golden brown. I put aluminum foil on the rack beneath the one my Dutch oven was on. I baked for 35-40 minutes, took lid off for ten or so; total was 50-55 minutes. It was amazing. I'm not that good at scoring but it still didn't blow out. I made a boule (which I find hard to get into the Dutch oven on the parchment, without making dents in the loaf). My bread weight was 1 pound 8 ounces--quite large. Blessings to you, Grant!
Question: you stated you put aluminum foil on the rack beneath the rack you placed your Dutch oven… does this help with prevention a burnt bottom crust??????
@@pajones02 thank you… I am going to try that… I bake in a 1938 wedge wood stove/oven …temperature varies while cooking.. have oven thermometer but hate to open oven door….will try foil trick before trying to purchase pizza stone. Thanks soooo much for speedy reply,😀 ,
If you put your dutch oven on a roasting pan with a tray in it, it prevents the bottom from burning. Or a sheet pan with a cooling rack. Somehow that "protected" air flow prevents the bottom of the pot form heating too much and since air is a shit heat conductor, it works. I've tried the cold method and found I don't get as much spring. Definitely get more with preheating. Maybe 10-20%, but enough to be worth it imo.
I have tried the method of pre-heating (450°F for 45 minutes) the dutch oven (in my case, Challenger Bread Pan) and after loading the dough into the pan, turning the oven off. The heat from the pan bakes the bread, I leave the oven off for 30 minutes. Then I remove the top and turn the oven back on for 20 minutes at 400° F. I get great oven spring, even though turning the oven off after the bread pan has been heated for 45 minutes seems counter-intuitive. Now, I am anxious to try this method and see what happens. Thanks again for sharing your sourdough bread baking tips.
ok i'm looking at these two loafs for a long time, and the cold method one is larger than the regular method one, i can't believe you're not seeing that
A thought just struck me: Pre heat oven and pre heat dutch oven over direct heat on stove top. Easily verified with an IR temperature gun.. dough into preheated massive iron pot then into the oven. Might be more immediate heating of the cast iron?? From another comment; now I want to find small rack to elevate dough off bottom of dutch oven. So many ideas!!
While this is a really cool comparison, I think it's important to note that where you are in the bulk rise and ambient temp could wildly alter these results. You are essentially adding 10-20 minutes to the pre-bake proofing fermentation at a high (increasing) temp. Right? So if you started this at the END of the fermentation peak, you run the risk of overproofing by the time your are up to temp. To me that would be a reason to be really careful with the cold oven method. Especially for new sourdough bakers, I think one of the most important things to learn is how to minimize variables and make the process forgiving. That's one of the reason it's recommended to rise and proof at low temps (like fridge). It gives a wider window to nail the timing. And when you do want the yeast to explode, you blast it with the preheated oven. I think it's possible to get great results either way, but don't be fooled that it's easier to bake in a cold oven!
Hi Grant, I've tried this method a few times. Good at first but not sure it's so good for following bakes. Trying one more time. And do you add steam/hot boiled water for the cold oven bake? Thank you!
Good tension on top of the loaf, relatively low hydration dough (70%), and years and years of using the same bannetons. I feel like they build up a natural barrier against the dough if you consistently use rice flour.
The reason why we bakers use a hot oven to bake bread is first of all uniformity. We don’t have the luxury to use pots with lid on them Secondary this rule was for rye or rye mix breads . Rye breads will fall and flatten out if you do not use a hot oven that stabilizes the outside with heat first If we have 150 loaves of breads inside an oven the temperature will drop to much to let’s us bake efficiently ( remember also that we use steam in many cases and that cools the oven down even further ). In your test you used a relatively Stiff dough . Normally we don’t use bread baskets or formed trays for these kinds of breads. If you have a good hot oven it will bake your breads in 35 to 40 minutes and therefore will be more affordable .
Makes sense! This method would definitely not be suitable for a commercial bakery, or for all types of bread. However, commercial deck ovens also provide luxuries and features that domestic ovens don't have. It's just a different environment.
Why did the bottom of both loaves burn and the parchment paper did not? I never have gotten a charred bottom but the paper turned a very dark brown. I have a crappy oven, though. I bake at 475 F
I think it's probably due to the flour I use and the recipe that I use. My recipe is 70% hydration, I usually use King Arthur bread flour, and I cold proof in the fridge overnight. If you do this following my "Good Sourdough Bread" recipe I'm fairly confident you'll get a similar result to mine! Hope that's helpful.
Do you know if, in a cold oven, the material of the baking pan would make a difference? Like, say you have a cast iron loaf pan, and a regular stamped metal regular loaf pan.... How would a cold oven start affect each of those loaves because of the different pans?
Hi,I have a question I left my dough rising more then 5hours,it's makes a huge difference,it's did not look like yours,it's was very dense, what I should do next time,can I leave in the fridge and continue when I come back from work,btw i purchased your ebook,
@@GrantBakes What I was trying to say is if you start with a cold oven you don't know when the oven reaches baking temp and start timing. If I preheat my oven and stone or closed device I know to start my timing immediately. All ovens are different and most people, even people with oven thermoters, don't know the oven can be adjusted to get the ovens actual temp closer to the dial temp. My oven, for instance, can be adjusted up to 30 degrees in either direction. Your oven manual will show you how and if you can't find it I'm sure you can online.
10 mins saving per one baking let's say 1 baking a week it is 520 mins saving a year = 10 loafs of bread out of 52 baked for free it is not that bad, isn't it?
A third method that worked for me: Put the dutch oven in, start the oven, pull the loaf out the fridge, score and put in the pot which has reached 275F. 25 minutes as it reaches 450F lid on, 25 minutes @ 400F lid off. Conclusion: It just doesn't matter
I get great tasting breads with great crust and great crumb, but i never get oven spring. I get some kind of ovenspring where i score, but it is flat, i dont know how to explain it. The nearest explamation is that it is ovenspring without any ear. If you look at a picture of Poilanes famous miche, you see. My breads looks kind of like that, wich for me means great sucess! But i never gets bread that looks like yours
Just like I did in this video. I just baked the cold oven loaf longer. 50-55 minutes is probably right for most ovens. Just trials and experimentation. If you take the lid off and the loaf looks underbaked still, but the lid back on and keep baking for a little longer. Then take the lid off and let the loaf get nice, brown, and crusty, and take it out when it looks done.
I decided a while ago not to cover them. The top (bottom of the loaf) dries out a little in the fridge,, but since it turns into crust anyway once it's baked, the slight dryness doesn't bother me. Try it out and see how it works for you!
@@GrantBakes thanks. I will definitely give this a try. I find when I'm around 70% hydration, the dough is too wet and looses form when I remove it from the banaton. Yours looks nice and stiff, so I'm super curious to try it!
What you have done is not new to me, actually I took this risk before because I thought this slow rise of the dough would be better in terms of size, but I would like you to try for us "Dutch oven versus stainless steel cooking pot" experiment.
Suggest that you also try std pre-heating and baking method, with pre-heating then baking with oven turned off for 20min, then turning oven on to baking temp.
Can I bake my sourdough bread with an extra long baking loaf pan??? Instead of an oval doutch oven. We have a very small kitchen an there is no room for another pot or gadget. Thanks! This is a very important question for me a beginner baker.
I think at the very least you don’t need to leave your oven preheated for an hour plus before baking like some recipes call for. I would be interested to see if a 100% whole grain sourdough would be as forgiving.
Good thoughts. I’m not sure about whole wheat. I’ve heard that 100% whole grain rye breads don’t do well in a cold oven. They can collapse if the outer crust isn’t formed fast enough.
I did show the bottoms near the end of the video 😳 I burnt them both. I’ll make sure to use my pizza steel as a burn-proof barrier under the Dutch oven next time, like I used to do.
Good question! To be honest, I think I did, but I don’t quite remember. I wish I would have made more of a point to focus on weighing each loaf and filming it to take that issue out of the equation. Thanks for the comment.
