Hearth Bread Baking at Home

When I talk about baking rustic loaves of bread, I’m usually talking about hearth breads. These are breads made directly on a hearth or the hot deck of an oven. What you are trying to do is radiate heat as efficiently as possible to promote oven spring (that extra lift from the yeast) and a crisp crust.

Many professional ovens and bakeries have steam generators that allow you to push a button and create a mighty blast of steam on the baking loaf, increasing spring and contributing a shiny finish to the crust. Unfortunately, most home ovens don’t offer this option. Recreating this at home takes just a little extra effort.

I prefer using a baking or bread stone, but a sheet pan often works well. Using a well floured peel will allow you move the dough easily from the counter to the stone, but for delicate or wet doughs, I often do the final proofing on parchment paper to ease the transition onto the stone.

When it comes to steam, I’ve tried several options. Some people like to throw ice into their oven, and while this will create steam, I think it takes away too much of the oven’s heat. You want ample steam in the beginning of baking, but you need to keep the oven hot. I follow Peter Rheinhart’s suggestions in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I like to place the bottom of my broiler pan in the oven while it’s preheating and get a teapot ready with hot water. I also use a spray bottle. This way, when I first place the bread in the oven, I fill my preheated pan with hot water (be careful not to burn yourself!) and shut the oven door so the bread starts with a good amount of steam. Then, every 30 seconds for about 2 minutes, open your oven door just enough to spray the back and side walls with your spray bottle of room temperature water. This will give you those extra little hurts of steam

All that oven opening though, will cause you to lose heat. So for hearth baking, you want a very hot oven. 500 F to start is key, 550 F is even better. Let your oven preheat good and long before you add the dough. Once you are done with the steaming process, you can set the oven to its final baking temp, 425, 450, etc. It’ll get up to temp much faster than if you started the steam process at your desired temperature.

When the steaming process is complete, set a timer for 10-15 minutes (depending on your goal bake time) before rotating your loaf and removing the parchment paper.

Use these instructions when you are making a rustic style artisan loaf and I promise you will not be disappointed.

Got any other tips/tricks for hearth baking at home? Please share with me in the comments!