Oven Spring Concern

[kokopuffs]

I get a good oven spring for my pan a l'ancienne. It's placed into a 475 F oven onto the baking stone setting on the bottom rack. For steaming, a cup of hot water is tossed onto the oven floor and the door is shut. A good cloud of steam soon emerges. After two minutes has elapsed, the temperature is reduced to 425 and the bread allowed to bake another 25-30 minutes.

I get a satisfactory spring yet the crust has a chocolate brown color. How would I achieve a crust color that's more golden?

Recipe:

5 Cups KA AP flour (plus a tiny bit of flour for dusting)
2 Cups water
1 Tbs salt
1 tsp SAF Instant yeast.

An overnight poolish is made using 1 3/4 cup of the flour and 1 cup of the water along with a pinch of yeast.

[Erik]

Bake it less time??

[stir it up]

Steam makes things brown more. So don't give it more steam than needed for oven spring, make sure the steam is "cut" as soon as the loaf has sprung. I block the vent of my home oven for the steam phase, then open it up as soon as the steam has helped the loaf spring. Your 1 cup could be too much and for too long?

You're not spritzing your loafs with water at any point are you? Some people do that, that will get you too browned a loaf also.

If you want to buy more equipment, get a remote reading thermometer, and take that bread out at 190F internal temperature. Then you can be sure it's done inside and you won't be cooking it longer than necessary.

For a golden crust and steam at home you might also be happy with a cloche.

If you're happy with the water on the oven floor that's cool, but others you might not want to try that at home. Ice cubes or water on the floor of a hot oven can warp it.

That's a nice simple formula, you should be able to get a loaf that's baked inside with a crust that's not chocolate brown.

BTW Oven spring will also be helped by not overproofing your loaves.

[kokopuffs]

Nope, no spritzing. But I was wondering if I should drop the initial temperature from 475 to 450 instead. First, however, I try using less water for the initial steaming.

Also, the bread recipe is taken from the KA DVD called ARTISAN BREADS. Available for around $15 and has helped me achieve success with my bread far more than any breadbook ever has. I suppose that this substantiates that different people learn in different ways: some from books, others from a live demo and so on.