4 Secrets to Good Oven Spring
4 Secrets to Good Oven Spring
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Be sure to feed your starter at least twice a day, 12 hours apart, the day before making your levain. This is the bare minimum feedings – to really make sure you get great oven spring, feed your starter throughout the week. For example, if you’re baking on Saturday, you can feed once a day on Monday through Wednesday, then feed your starter twice a day Thursday and Friday, making your levain Friday evening. Of course feed the starter that you will be used to make the loaf of bread (seems obvious, but sometimes mistakes are made!). This gets your starter really active, which will greatly help your oven spring. Keep the discard for other fantastic recipes, like discard pizza dough or other quick breads. (There are several recipes on this blog.)
Do not over or underproof your dough. This may cause your loaf to burst open in a spot you did not intend. Shoot for 78º F dough temperature on your bulk fermentation. The biggest influence on getting the right dough temperature is the temperature of the water you use to start with. This also will help prevent over-proofing, so it’s a great habit to get into when mixing your dough.
Put your dough in the freezer for the hour while your oven is preheating and warming your Dutch oven (I preheat mine to 500ºF). This will make it easier to score your designs and will prevent splaying while scoring. This also makes your dough go from really cold to really hot, which will help increase the oven spring as the dough quickly heats up.
Do an expansion score 5-7 minutes into the bake to really get your loaf to open up. I pull mine out of the oven (close the oven door to keep in the heat), do the score quickly, and put it right back in. If you have your scoring tools at hand (near where you will set your Dutch oven down), you can quickly score and have it back in the oven before you know it!
Hope these tips help!
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