Sourdough Bread on Big Green Egg! YUMMY!

sallemann

Hi...  I've been making sourdough bread (and pizza too, by the way) on the Big Green Egg and it is unbelievably good!  The BGE produces a crunchy, chewy crust that you just can't get in a regular oven.  If you're interested, learn from my trial and error:  http://bgebread.blogspot.com

Good luck!  You won't be sorry you tried it!

Mattlock

Looks awesome, I'm looking at getting started a love all these resources!

Clay Q

Sallemann,

Sourdough baking in the egg is sublime and as I type I got a sourdough going in my Baker Egg right now.  Aroma is fantastic.  I'll check out your blog when I get more time.    Thanks for sharing.

 

njl

What does the egg do for bread that the inside oven doesn't?...assuming you don't actually want smoke flavored bread.  I made a loaf of "potato rye" (it's really a potato bread with caraway seeds, but looks and tastes pretty similar to rye bread) this past weekend for the first time in years.  It came out really well, and will be my sandwich bread this week.  I just wonder, what benefit it would get from baking in the egg?  This one was cooked in an electric oven on parchment on a pizza stone (45min @350F).



I intentionally made it oblong (the kids call it football bread) to maximize its usability for reasonably uniformly sized sandwich slices.  It went very well with pastrami today.

Clay Q

Huge sourdough!  This is very tender, soft and slightly sweet.  In the Baker Egg at 500 degrees.  Fantastic with thin slices of hickory smoked beef tenderloin!

Cold beers and Cheers!

Brownie

Clay Q  you refer to a Baker Egg. Do you use an egg exclusively for baked goods? If so what is unique about your setup vs using a non baking egg?

BTW nice looking loafs to all that shared!

Clay Q

Brownie, 

Yup.  I have a large dedicated to baking breads and pizza and desserts.  I don't cook meat in it or use wood smoke.  Unique feature is a second fire ring that sits on top of the first.  I also have a plate setter integrated into the top fire ring.  In addition I use a stainless fire bucket perforated with air slots that sits inside the fire box.  It acts as a 'basket' that allows better air flow to the burning lump charcoal.  Firebox holes are plugged with aluminum foil balls so incoming air flows threw the cast iron grate (where it should) and not from the back side holes of the firebox.  This helps to eliminate the common hot spot at the back of the egg.  Fires are better centralized and the egg is heated more evenly.  To soften heat intensity I use a pizza stone over 1 1/4" high brick spacers on the plate setter.   This setup elevates the bread higher into the dome as well. 

  

    

seabird20

I too have been making bread in the egg. I wasn't sure if it would be an improvement on my regular oven, but it absolutely is. I think the main reason is that I can hold the temp absolutely constant (at 475 on the thermometer in the lid of my medium. By the way I have callibrated the thermometer, but I don't really know how accurate it is!) for the whole baking time. So the crust gets really good and crackly/crunchy.

My method is to put the plate setter in, feet up. It won't fit feet down anyway, so I had to make do. Then I put the grate on top of the feet. Then the 12" stone. Preheat for at least 30 minutes.

Sadly can only do 1 loaf at a time. I do open after about 20 and rotate the loaf 180 degrees or so. Recipe has 500gm flour 300 ml water, and whatever yeast/salt/starter you would normally use. Makes a perfect size for the medium. Loaf is round.

Very important to score it properly and deeply. The oven spring is quite impressive and it will explode if you don't! (Voice of experience here).