Baking sourdough bread without a dutch oven can be a challenge, but it's not impossible! Learn why home cooks use dutch ovens for bread baking and how to get perfect results without one.
There are a lot of baking myths out there. One of them is that you need a dutch oven to make perfect sourdough crusty bread. This simply isn't true!
While many home cooks, including me, use dutch ovens in their sourdough baking, there are alternative methods to achieving the same results.
How To Bake Bread In A Dutch Oven
There is a little science involved, so get ready to learn why bakers use dutch ovens for bread baking, why bread needs steam and consistently high temperatures to develop and how to bake sourdough without a dutch oven.
At the end of this article, you can be confident that your sourdough will taste just as delicious when baked without a dutch oven.
Steam (moist air) carries heat better than dry air, and although it seems counter-intuitive, steam actually slows down the cooking process in a few ways!
Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread Recipe (master Recipe)
Did You Know?! This is why people often suggest spritzing sourdough loaves with water or adding ice cubes to the dutch oven with the loaf.
Bread has a short window while baking to expand before the crust begins to set. A consistent high temperature forces the bread to increase rapidly in volume, ensuring a good oven spring!
So you can see now, how high temperatures and steam work together to create the perfect loaf, but where does the dutch oven come in?
Best Dutch Oven For Sourdough Bread (2024 Review)
Most home cooks don't have access to commercial bread ovens with fancy features like steam injection! But baking sourdough bread without a commercial oven is still possible. The baking environment needs to be controlled so that the moisture in the dough doesn't evaporate quickly and the loaf can develop properly.
We need steam and high temperatures throughout a bake cycle for this to happen. A heavy cast iron dutch oven provides the perfect high temperature and steamy environment. Its weight acts as a heat sink, negating temperature swings and radiating consistent heat, while the heavy lid clamps the pot closed and retains steam.
If you're going to be baking without a dutch oven, you definitely want to invest in at least one baking stone or baking steel. Baking stones are useful because they provide a steady baking surface that absorbs heat, and then radiates it evenly. This helps the oven to quickly recover heat loss from the door being opened.
Quick Sourdough Bread
Your baking steel or stones can be placed above and on the rack that you'll be baking your bread. This ensures consistent heat all the way around your loaf. If you've only got 1 baking stone, use it to bake sourdough bread on, and place a heavy baking sheet on a rack at the top of the oven - it's not going to work as well as two baking stones, but it will help!
Another way to ensure you have the high heat required for sourdough perfection is to preheat your oven properly. While the thermometer inside the oven might say it's at 450f, if the components inside aren't at 450f, then the temperature will fluctuate a lot when the door is opened and closed. Allowing the oven to preheat for 45 minutes to an hour is a great way to ensure that the oven is properly heat soaked and will be quick to recover heat loss from the door.
Next is the harder part. Have you ever opened an oven while roasting a high moisture vegetable and felt the blast of hot, moist air rushing out at you? Hot moist air is always going to travel to cooler, dryer places, and cooler, dryer air will rush in to fill the void left by the hot, moist air.
No Knead Dutch Oven Bread Recipe
Basically, the moisture in the oven needs to be consistently added after the door is opened to add the loaf. Otherwise, you'll lose it when you open the door.
In my opinion, it's easier and safer to add the steam at the beginning of the baking cycle than try and fiddle with it while the oven is hot. If you've been burnt by steam (ahem, pressure canning), you'll know what I mean!
Adding moisture during preheating is as simple as adding a heavy, but shallow skillet, and filling it with 4 cups of water. I've found 4 cups to be almost perfect for my oven, by the time it has preheated, and I've let it heat soak for a bit longer, there's always enough water to steam the bread for the first 30 minutes of bake time.
Easy Sourdough Bread Recipe Without A Dutch Oven
There are a couple of considerations for this, namely, we need to ensure the skillet can handle the high heat, as sourdough usually cooks at 450f, and it needs to be large enough to hold enough water to last through the preheat and 30 minutes of baking.
Another way to add steam during an open oven bake is to use a spray bottle to spray the entire inside surface of your oven and your loaf itself immediately after adding. The water mist will quickly turn into steam helping to create a steamy environment. I always spritz my loaves before the go into the oven when I'm open baking.
Any time we are playing with high heat and water or steam, we need to be very careful. Here are some ways to reduce the likelihood of injury or damage to your oven and bakeware.
Homemade Artisan Sourdough Bread Recipe
I've had baking stones in the past and if that's what you've got, by all means use them! I loved my baking stones, but you know what, they are not indesctructible like a baking steel. So when my second baking stone got broken, I replaced it with two 14 by 16 inch baking steels. They do exactly the same job but are much more durable!
I have a 14 pizza peel because of my Traeger pizza oven, and it really does come in handy for other cooking projects like this one. The pizza peel allows me to quickly, safely, and easily slide the sourdough right onto the baking steel in the oven without risking touching anything hot or burning myself. It also makes them easy to remove.
As an added bonus, quick in and quick out with the pizza peel helps to keep in more steam that we are desperatly trying to create!
Artisan Bread Recipe
Knowing how to bake sourdough without a dutch oven can be very useful, even if you do have a dutch oven. It can only increase your sourdough baking prowess!
And even though baking sourdough bread without a dutch oven can be a challenge, with these tips, you'll be able to get perfect results every time! By using high heat and humidity methods, you can create the perfect environment for your loaf to rise and develop that beautiful crust. Just remember to exercise caution when working with high temperatures and steam!
If you've been wanting to start baking your own sourdough but don't have a dutch oven, don't worry! These tips will help you create perfect results without one.
Artisan Sourdough Bread With All Purpose Flour {soft, Crisp & Chewy!}
Who actually has 3 oven racks??? I was so confused until I saw the picture and realized I just am not able to do itWhile using a Dutch Oven will give you superior and consistent results when baking sourdough bread, there are things you can do to bake great sourdough bread without a Dutch Oven.
Perhaps you're not ready to invest in a Dutch Oven just yet, or your oven isn't big enough to accomodate one. There are lots of reasons you might not want to use a Dutch Oven to bake your sourdough bread.
Other than investing in a modern oven with steam injectors, using a Dutch Oven is a relatively cheap way of achieving these two factors.
Minutes No Knead Bread Without Dutch Oven
Now I am a very strong advocate for using a Dutch Oven for sourdough bread because it is the cheapest and easiest way to create a baking environment comparable to a professional baker's oven at home.
Here are some of the ways you can bake sourdough without a Dutch Oven - that will still give you a fantastic crust and great oven spring:
In addition to these methods, I highly recommend reading these articles, which concentrate on achieving great oven spring and an ear. Ensuring you get all of these factors right will increase your changes of baking a fantastic loaf without a Dutch Oven:
Simple Sourdough Bread {using Starter!}
I always advise to preheat your oven for at least an hour - even if you're using a Dutch Oven (that should be preheating while the oven is warming up).
Now this may seem like a long time - but you want your oven to be thoroughly preheated because this will ensure that the heat lost when you open the door is minimal.
If your oven isn't preheated long enough, it won't be hot all the way through and you won't get the oven spring you're looking for when you add your bread.
No Knead Bread
Preheating your oven thoroughly is even more important if you're not going to use a Dutch Oven because you want to ensure you retain as much of the heat (and steam) created as possible.
Using a baking stone
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