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Making Bread
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Dutch Oven Bread Baking

By Mark Hansen, of  http://marksblackpot.blogspot.com

I don’t know who originally said this, but it’s true:  

“Cooking is art.  Baking is science.  Baking bread is magic!”

As I write this, I’m sitting on a deck chair on my back patio, watching the coals burn down on a roast.  I’m trying to do it as a slow roast, hopefully to where it will be fall-apart on your fork done, in about another 3-4 hours.  If it works, I’ll write it up for you.

I’m also enjoying a slice of what is possibly the best loaf of bread I’ve ever baked in my dutch ovens.  I pulled it off the coals about 45 minutes ago.  Thinking about it is what got me started writing this.

Not only that, but a little while ago, my friend Andy asked me some advice on bread making.  I sort of set his email aside, because I knew I’d get to it really soon.  But I never did.  At least up until now.  At any rate, I thought that today, while my roast is roasting, and the afternoon sun is waning, I would write about making bread in a dutch oven.

This is not going to be a recipe.  I’ve written out my bread recipes before.  One thing I’ve learned is that the recipe is only half what you need.  The other half, in bread making, is technique and experience. Let’s take a tour through basic kneaded yeast bread making, in an outdoor dutch oven, using charcoal briquettes..

One thing I learned the hard way is that ingredients matter.  If you use lower quality stuff, or even if you use high-quality stuff that’s old, it will impact your results, even to the point of failure.  That’s especially true of the flour.  Use recently-bought flour that you’ve stored in something air-tight.  If you’re using white flour, use bread flour, not all-purpose.  Bread flour has more protein and will develop gluten more readily as you’re kneading.  Then it will rise better, and have better structure when it’s baked.

Using old flour, or non-bread flour will not rise as much before hand, nor spring in the oven, and you could end up with a baked brick, suitable for little more than a doorstop.  Trust me.  I been there.

If you’re using an all-purpose flour, or a whole-grain flour, you’ll probably want to add some Vital Wheat Gluten flour to the mix.  This will help you when you go to knead the bread.

The core ingredients of bread are:

Flour

Yeast

Salt

Water

And that’s it.  Everything else is an “enrichment”, designed to enhance the flavor or the texture.  What kind and how much of each you use, and what enrichments you mix in will be determined by the kind of bread you’re making.

Dairy, like milk and yogurt, make for lighter crumb.  Egg adds richness, and a bit of structure as well.  It can help make bread more “fluffy”.  Oils, like olive oil or butter can give a richer flavor as well. Sweets, like sugar, honey, or molasses will obviously make the loaf sweeter, but they’ll also give the yeast germs a boost, and help it rise.

Since yeast also thrives on vitamin C, grinding up a vitamin C pill and adding it to the mix can help it rise, too.

Herbs, spices, and other flavors can be added to the dough or sprinkled on top for decoration.  One combination I particularly like to mix in is cocoa and Pero.  I’ve also done herbal breads, using parsley and oregano, and garlic breads.  Once, I did a bread with garlic bits and crushed red pepper.  It made for great lunch meat sandwiches.

Some kinds of breads require a preferment.  This is usually like mixing up half the dough and letting it rise for a time, before mixing up the rest of the dough and letting it rise for real.  Some of these preferments can be pretty long, even overnight.  They can often be pretty goopy and runny, too.  When I make sourdough, I’ll take my sourdough start out of the fridge, and I’ll activate it in some flour and water for an hour or two.  Then I’ll make a gloppy mix of flour and water called a “sponge”, and let that breed yeast germs overnight, sometimes in the fridge.  I’ll talk about long ferments later.  French bread is made with a “pate fermentee”, which is almost a firm dough in and of itself.

If you do a preferment, make sure that the bowl you do it in is not made of metal (which reacts with the yeast), and covered.  Once I did a preferment and didn’t cover it.  It got this dried, chunky crust that I had to break up and pick out of the dough as I was kneading.

In most cases, when you’re just making a basic bread, you probably won’t need a preferment. You might, however, have to activate your yeast.  If you don’t have “instant yeast”.  To activate it, dissolve the yeast in some water that’s about 110 degrees Farenheit.  I wasn’t sure just how much that was, so one day, I ran hot tap water over a thermometer, then over my hand to get a feel for about how hot that was.  It turns out, it was hotter than I had thought when I’d read recipes that said “warm water”.  You have to be careful, however, because if it’s too hot, it can kill the yeast before it actually activates.

To me, it felt like 110 was like a good hot shower.  It was hot enough for me to feel “an edge”, but not so hot that it felt like it was burning me.

After about ten minutes or so in this almost hot water, the yeast should be foaming up.  I’ve had some success with yeasts that didn’t foam up right away, but I can always tell if it’s gonna be a “good loaf day” if it gets really foamy.  It’ll smell “yeasty”, too.

Most people think of “making the bread” as starting with this phase, and it pretty much does, unless you’ve done a pre-ferment.

Following your recipe, mix up any of the dry ingredients.  I’ve had a bit better success on times when I’ve sifted the flour.  I’ve not had problems with chunks in the flour, but it does aerate it, and I think it ends up a bit lighter.

Also, I begin with only about 2/3 of the flour that the recipe calls for.  You never really know for sure exactly how much flour you’ll need.  Different flours from different bags, even on different days, will respond and absorb the liquid differently.  I like to undershoot, and add more in later.  You’ll see as I continue.

Then, add in the wet ingredients and stir it all up.  At this point, you’re dealing with the yeast, so it should be in a non-metallic bowl with non-metallic stirrer.  The metal can react with the yeast.  I like mixing and kneading by hand, rather than by machine.  My wife makes delicious breads using the mixer and they turn out great.  I like to mix by hand.  I like the feel of it in my fingers, and I can really tell when it’s been kneaded enough.

Once it’s basically stirred up in the bowl, I dump it out onto a liberally-floured surface, like my countertop.  At this point, it’s probably pretty gooey, gloppy and sticky.  I shake some flour on top of it and just start rolling it and mashing it under my fingers and the heel of my hand.  I press it, turn it, fold it over, then do it again.  It sticks to my hand and the counter top, so every so often, I’ll shake some more flour on it and keep kneading.  

By gradually adding flour, I can get it to the right wetness.  The easy way to tell is when it’s sticky enough to clean the dough from my hands, but not so sticky that it keeps leaving more.  Usually, that means that I use slightly less flour than most recipes call for.  I’m OK with that.  I think it also makes for a more fluffy crumb.  

If you don’t knead enough, then the gluten will be underdeveloped and it won’t have the structure to trap the gas from the yeast.  It won’t rise enough, and it will end up dense.

Most recipes will say to knead for a certain length of time.  I gave up on that method, because I was never getting it long enough. I use the windowpane test to determine how long to knead.  I cut off a chunk and make a ball about the size of a golf ball.  I start working it, flatter and flatter, in my fingers, and stretching it out.  If I can stretch it to a thin, translucent windowpane, before it tears, then the gluten is sufficiently developed, and I’m done kneading.  If it tears before that point, it’s not ready and I need to keep kneading.  Eventually, as you keep making bread, you’ll get to the point where you’ll be able to tell when it’s ready by the way it feels in your fingers.

When it’s done, form it into a ball, stretching the upper surface of the dough and tucking it underneath.  This will create a nice, tight skin.  Spray the bowl you mixed it in with oil, and set the ball in, tucked side down.  Spray a layer of oil over the ball and cover it with a towel or plastic wrap, so it doesn’t dry out.

The next step is to set it aside to raise.  I have two thoughts on this, and which one you’ll do will be determined largely by your circumstances.

First, there’s the warm raise.  This is where you leave it out on your countertop or any other warm environment.  Yeast grows best at 80-100 degrees farenheit.  In my experience, this will mean that a typical ball of yeast will be risen and ready to go in one to two hours.  A typical room temperature of my house is around the mid-70’s, so it’ll be closer to the two hour mark.  The timing on the rising is more critical with this method, and I’ve had some loaves that didn’t turn out as well because I over or under-raised them.  

Second, there’s the cold raise.  This is where you put it in the fridge and let it rise there.  Since it’s not the optimal temperature for yeast production, it will raise much more slowly.  This gives me several advantages.  First of all, the timing of the steps are more drawn out, and much more adaptable and forgiving.  For example, much of my baking is done on Sunday.  Doing a cold raise allows me to mix and knead in the morning, and it will raise while I’m in church.  When I come home I can take my time getting ready to bake it.  Since the overall raise takes longer, the window of opportunity when the dough is ready to be shaped it wider as well.

A cold raise also gives a more rich and complex flavor, since the fermentation is taking longer.

Of course, if you’re in a hurry, you’ll do the warm raise.

This is the part that has always made me nervous.  Remember that quote at the beginning? This is where the magic starts to come together.  IF I’ve used the right flour, and IF I kneaded correctly, and IF the yeast was good, active yeast, and IF I bowed to the right gods of wheat that day, then I’ll be able to punch down the growing dough ball, shape it, and it will continue to rise.

There have been many days where all those stars didn’t align, and after punching down (also called “degassing”) and shaping, it didn’t raise any more.  So, it seems I’m always nervous at this part.  Still, if you’ve taken care of business up this point, it should all work.  Simply punch your fist into it to break up some of the gas bubbles, and knead again for a couple of strokes.  This will re-distribute the ingredients a little bit and allow the yeast to encounter fresh food.

Then, take a minute and oil the inside of the dutch oven.  Use any kind of oil you want, but don’t make it heavy.  A quick spray with cooking spray works well, or a light brushing with veggie oil on a paper towel.  This will also help build up your black pot’s patina, by the way...

At this point, the bread could be shaped into any number of forms for baking.  The easiest to do in a dutch oven is the boule, or ball.  Simply stretch the top again, and tuck it under and pinch it closed at the bottom.  I’ll usually set it to rest on a piece of parchment paper, to be placed in a fully preheated dutch oven later.  A variant of this shape is what I call the “quarter boule”.  This is done by simply cutting the  dough into quarters, and forming each piece into a smaller boule.  These can be set immediately into an oiled dutch oven, or set on parchment to be lifted later into a pre-heated oven.

Another common shape is rolls.  Cut the ball into a dozen or so equal chunks, shape them into tiny boules, using the same tuck-and-pinch technique.  Place these in an oiled dutch oven for the second rise.  I find it difficult to lift rolls into a pre-heated oven using parchment paper.  We’ll pre-heat the lid in a later step.

Rounds and braids are shapes that I like a lot.  They really look cool coming out of the dutch oven (especially braids)!  Roll out a long log, or make a long braid from three logs, and set it in a circle in the oiled dutch oven.  Again, we’ll pre-heat the oven lid later.

As soon as I’ve set the dough to proof (the second raise), I light the coals for my dutch oven.  I would recommend lighting up about 35-40 typical coals.  This will leave you some extras to use to light other, fresher coals in case it takes longer to cook.  You will very likely need it. It will take (under most circumstances) about 15-20 for the coals to be lit and showing some good white ash.  

Once the coals are showing some heat (the edges are turning white), it’s time to pre-heat either the oven or the lid.  If your dough is proofing on parchment, then you can heat the entire dutch oven.  If it’s proofing in the dutch oven, you’ll have to make do with preheating the lid.

To preheat the whole oven, make a ring of coals, with each coal touching, underneath the oven.  That will probably be about 12-14 coals for a 12” dutch oven.  Make another ring of touching coals on the lid, and place it on the oven.  This will be about 16-20 coals for a 12” dutch oven.  The target internal temperature is between 400 and 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  Sometimes, if I’m thinking ahead, I’ll actually put an oven thermometer in the base of the empty dutch oven to gauge the rising temperature.

To preheat the lid, place one ring of coals (as described above) around the outer rim of the lid and add 3-4 extra coals in the center of the lid.  I usually set it on a lid stand off to the side of where I’m going to do the baking.

Whether you’re heating the lid or the whole oven, it will usually take about 15-20 minutes to get the iron hot enough.  At that point you’re ready to bake.  

But before we go to that, let’s rewind time for a moment and talk about what’s happening with the dough while we’re getting the heat ready.

Basically, all this time, while the coals and the oven are heating up, the dough is raising again.  It’s going through a second fermentation (or, technically, a third, if you used a preferment).  You don’t need this raising to be as extensive as the first one.  

Toward the end of this proofing, you also coat the dough with things to make the crust more tasty, colorful, or decorative.  A light brush of milk will make the crust softer, as will butter or oil.  Brushing on a beaten egg will give it a nice shiny golden brown when it bakes.  You can sprinkle on more flour for a dusty look, or Parmesan cheese for added flavor.  I’ve seen people make paper stencils and dust monograms on their loaf tops.

Once the oven or the lid is sufficiently heated, it’s time to bake.  

If you’ve preheated the full oven, lift the bread dough into the heated dutch oven, parchment and all.  A good idea is to make slashes in the top of the bread to allow it to open and blossom when it springs with the oven heat.  You can also spritz the top of the bread with water if you want it to be crustier.  Close up the lid, and mark the time.

If you just pre-heated the lid, set out a ring of coals as I described above (use the four coals from the center of the lid in the bottom ring), and set the dutch oven with the proofed bread in it on the coals.  Take a moment to slice the top of the bread, if you want to, and/or spritz it with water.  Set the lid on the dutch oven and mark the time.

About every 15 minutes, turn the oven.  Lift it up off the bottom coals and rotate it about a quarter turn, then turn the lid about a quarter turn.  It doesn’t matter which direction you do the turns.  The idea is to make the bread be in a different place in relation to the coals, to prevent the dough being overcooked in one area due to a hotspot on the oven.

It may be necessary to add more coals as they burn down.  Don’t add too many coals, just enough so that it feels like the heat is constant.  A few on the bottom and a few on the top.  If it’s cold out, keep it hotter. The best way to judge it and to learn it is practice.  I wish I could tell it to you in more clarity and detail, but there are just too many variables.

It’s difficult to tell in a dutch oven when the bread is done.  Because there is often a lot of variation in the heat and temperature, just looking at the color of the crust won’t tell you anything, and it’s not practical to lift the bread out and thump the bottom.  So, after a couple of turns, I lift the lid and insert a thermometer into the bread.  We’ll be shooting for an internal temperature of between 180 degrees Fahrenheit (for lighter breads) and 200 degrees Fahrenheit (for denser, crustier breads, like whole wheat).

In addition, if you pull the thermometer out and it’s pretty much clean, then that’s a good sign that it’s also done.

When it’s done, I shake the coals off the lid, and take the oven off the bottom coals.  Shake, lift, or dump the bread out (using hot pads or oven mitts) and set it to cool on an oven rack.

It’s very important to let to the bread cool sufficiently.  Not only does that keep you from being burned, but it’s actually the final stage in the cooking process.  I used to let it cool in the dutch oven, but I don’t anymore.  There’s a lot of steam, and if that’s trapped underneath the bread, it will make the bottom crust soggy.  Not softer, but soggier.  

Some people say to let it cool to room temperature, but I’m usually too impatient.  I like butter and honey melting on fresh-baked bread.  Still, you have to let it cool almost completely, or it won’t be fully cooked.

This is the best part, and what needs the least explanation!

There are a lot of great books and sites where you can learn more and more about bread baking in general, and about dutch oven cooking.  I hope I’ve cleared up some of the mystery, and helped you to learn a bit more about the magic and mystery of dutch oven bread making.  For me the journey has been years.  Hopefully, it won’t take you as long! Do it often and practice, and before you know it, you’ll be baking like a pro!

Resources on the web for bread making and dutch oven cooking

My best bread recipes:

http://www.marksblackpot.com/2010/01/dutch-oven-bread-in-all-my-years-even.html

A web community of amateur and professional breadmakers: http://thefreshloaf.com