Where do I find information on using the clay bakers
Do the pot need soaking before baing
do I preheat
Just getting started information
Rdeal
Abe, your reply is very interesting to me. I’ve done the pre-heating method for years. Breadtopia’s instructions give both ways but prefer pre-heating. Would love to hear more about your thoughts as to the advantages of the cold start method.
@Dudleyrose I don’t use a clay baker. Went and googled how to use one. It was my understanding that a clay baker should be soaked at least once before first use. Was a surprise to me when the website said it should be done before each use. However it does say ideally for best results. That’s for the soaking.
There is more than one method of bread baking. However it is standard procedure to not put a cold clay baker into a pre-heated oven. Either pre-heat the oven and clay baker or place a cold clay baker in a cold oven with the dough inside it. Perhaps Breadtopia’s clay baker is ok to a certain temperature.
I would be reluctant to follow any one-size-fits-all instructions for clay bakers. My personal experience with clay/ceramic baking vessels is all over the road map. Some are ok going into a hot oven while cold. Some are to be soaked in water before using, some say don’t use at all if it gets wet.
Probably best to follow the instructions that came with the baking vessel. If you don’t have the instructions, check the manfacture’s website, or post the make/model of the clay baker and see if anyone else has experience with it.
From the article: “In order to assist in the steaming and prevent cracking, the pot needs to be soaked in water before use each time.” I’m very skeptical of both of these things. Soaking in water makes no sense to preventing cracking. If anything it will stress the clay more as the steam tries to escape the clay. Maybe it adds to steaming, but my understanding is the way the cloche steam bread is by trapping the steam the bread itself releases. Is a soaked cloche really still going to be emitting significant steam by the time it has preheated?
I can’t see any reason for soaking it the first time either, it’s not going to go through some change it hasn’t already gone through when it was made (with the clay starting out wet and being fired far hotter than your oven will get).
I bake my bread using a homemade, terra cotta cloche and never soak and always heat it in a cold oven. Terra cotta or other low-fired clays may well stand up to being put cold into a hot oven, but I want it to be hot when I put my bread it, I don’t want it to be a cold heat sink taking heat away from my bread.
As far as different clays affecting the procedure: high fired clay (stoneware) is far less resistant to thermal shock, unless specially formulated (such as “flameware”) and I would certainly avoid putting it cold into a hot oven. Stoneware is also watertight, so it’s not going to absorb any water and soaking it would be pointless. I expect most clay bakers are going to be low-fired, and if they are brick red they are likely terra cotta.
(FWIW pottery was my primary hobby for 20 years or so, hence the home-made cloche.)
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