First Bread

ravnhaus

<p /> I baked my first loaves of bread on the new medium egg. It was my second firing of the egg. Wife made the dough with her Kitchen Aid (last year's Christmas present) and we put two loaves in the egg and two in the oven. I used the firebrick indirect method (thanks GFW & Tim M). Cooked at 350 for 30 min. on egg while wife did the same in the oven. Four perfect loaves! You couldn't tell which was which.
Next time the oven breaks we'll be covered.

ravnhaus

Forgot to mention one problem. The probe of my Weber thermometer poked a hole in one loaf. Wife was not happy about that. Need shorter probe!

Mop

ravnhaus,your wife was upset cause you poked a hole in the bread with the probe?????[p]She's gonna really be pissed when you cut into it with a knife, it leaves a much bigger mark...[p]Mop

ravnhaus

Mop,
If you poke a hole in the uncooked risen loaf you run the danger of the dough collapsing before it is baked. Flat bread and an angry baker (wife). The bread pictured turned out fine though.

Mop

ravnhaus,sorry buddy, I just get my bread from the local bakery, its still warm and costs $1.59 so you'll have to excuse my ignorance.[p]Mop

Prof Dan

Mop, if you've never had good homemade bread, you're missing one of life's great pleasures. Plus, if you make it yourself, you can add all kinds of goodies, like wheat germ or bran or sesame seeds or whatever.[p]There are several big advantages to making bread in the Big Green Egg: It produces a great crust [since the BGE retains moisture more than a regular oven does]. It doesn't heat up the house. And it's a lot cheaper than baking in an electric oven. (I'm not sure that it's cheaper than a gas oven, though.)

Puj

ravnhaus,[p]Loaves look great. If you configure the firebricks to be at lid level, you can start baking your breads on the bricks. This will give your breads the true hearth baking of a wood fired brick oven.[p]Dough recipes are great in the Egg![p]Have fun,
Puj

Puj

Mop, Mop, Mop, what are we going to do about your aversion to dough and the Egg? How's things?[p]
All,[p]Who wants to make a road trip to Mop's place to show him how flour, yeast, salt, water and the Egg play together?[p]
Puj[p]

AndyR

ravnhaus,[p]When you bake the bread, do you warm up the stones first?

Puj

AndyR,[p]When baking breads in the Egg, you want to stabilize your cooking temperature for about 45 minutes to an hour prior to baking with the ceramic mass (or firebricks)in the Egg. Also, if your bread recipe calls for an oven temp of say ... 450°F, take the temp to 500°F in the pre-bake, then after putting the loaf in let the temp slide down to 450°F during the bake. To get steam, put a couple of ice cubes in a drip pan, cast iron pot, etc. at the time you put the loaf in.[p]Baking times and other adjustments will happen with experience.[p]Puj

Tim M

<p />ravnhaus,[p]Since you don't include you email - email me and I will tell you where you can get a shorter thermometer.[p]Tim[p]BTW, I did this loaf of bread and the two "pretzel looking" things last night. They look better than they were. I tried a new dough recipe based on what I had here. No bread flour, just all purpose and some oat bran, brown sugar, salt, oil, yeast,egg white glaze on top and honey. The pretzels where more like bread sticks and I will do these as long garlic bread sticks next time - they would be good that way. The bread was not good. I used a setter and pizza stone and took the dome temp to 450 deg. I even preheated the setter/stone combo for 20-25 min this time. The bread was in there for 30-35 min and the top never browned as I wanted and the bottom, while not burnt, was thick and tough - dried out too much. You can see by the picture that I has way too much flour on the peel. I don't do breads much - it was obvious by this attempt.[p]One positive note - very very very little smoke taste detected at all. [p]Tim
[ul][li]Tim's Bge site[/ul]

ravnhaus

AndyR,
Yes, a very stable 350 measured at the grill with a oven thermometer.

djm5x9

Puj:[p]We need to check with Mop's wife first to make sure he has enough beer!

Puj

djm5x9,[p]He couldn't start until we get there; team effort![p]Puj

Tim M

ravnhaus,[p]I would suggest that we keep recipes and suggestions to dome temp readings rather than temps from other places in a cooker because those are undeterminable temps and will vary depending on the setup used. We all have a dome thermo so what temp would you suggest there?[p]I did a loaf last night at 450 deg dome and I was thinking of going higher next time - and not preheating my stone so much as I did.[p]Tim

ravnhaus

<p />This is just a test to see if my picture came through.
Did it?
Thanks for you patience.

Wardster

ravnhaus,
Now that's a clean egg! Usually new egg owners jump right into something a little more messy, ribs, wings, chicken pieces. Bread looks great.

Nature Boy

Tim M,
Though dome temps are great for reference here on the forum, you cannot get more accurate than by measuring cooking level temps. After all, that is where the food is being cooked![p]For cooking something like bread, where consistent results are tougher to achieve, measuring the temp at cooking level is probably a very good thing...as you are bypassing several variables. See whadda mean??[p]Variable bypassation.
Beers
NB

Tim M

Nature Boy,[p]While you are correct - most of us don't have a way to measure any temp other than dome temp and if we did it wouldn't be with the same equiptment and in the same place as with the dome thermo. I was just trying to move away from the idea that you take a Bge recipe and add or subtract from the referenced temp because the grid temp is assumed to be different. Why not just quote dome temp since we all can measure it and ignore what the other temps are? Seems less confusing.[p]Tim

ravnhaus

Tim M,
If I remember correctly my dome showed about 350 which in this case corresponded with the reading at grill level. I let it stabilize for about an hour before baking. However I have noticed about a 20 degree difference between grill (lower temp) than dome on other cooks involving meat. Perhaps the denser meat tends to absorb more of the heat at grill level?

Tim M

ravnhaus,[p]Hmmm, I was surprised mine didn't brown more, like yours, and at 450 deg. I have to agree with Mop (this is rare) in as far as going the the store ang buying it is much easier, cheaper and more predictable, but when one comes out perfect it is awful good. [p]Tim

Mop

LOL, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen..[p]I would be honered to buy you boys a round of beer anytime.(good Canadian Beer)[p]I`ll be honest, the 'pretzels' look interesting and would be something I would take a stab at.[p]Seriously though, I don`t like smoke on my dough boys and all two times LOL I have done pizza it tasted of smoke..[p]Like I said, I won`t knock it till I try it again....[p]Any of you guys going to try to make it to the Buffalo Stampede Cookoff this summer?[p]Mop[p][p]

Puj

Mop,[p]Assuming that the 7 plus feet of snow will be gone by summer and a non-issue, tell us about the Buffalo Stampede Cookoff. Will you be entering and do you need additional hands? It could turn into a cool roadtrip.[p]Puj

Mop

Puj, Yep, we'll be entering that cookoff for sure.
I have linked the info about it for you to see, check it out...the beer is ALWAYS cold, but you have to get at it before Qfan does...LOL, you don`t have to worry about Earl, he just drinks that light stuff, you know, that Bud sludge..LOL
come over and have a look....there is actually two cookoffs for you to come down for,....[p]Mop

[ul][li]Buffalo Stampede cookoff and World BBQ Event[/ul]