Sourdough Bread on a Ranger

[Jim in Va]

This is my second time cooking Sourdough Bread on the Ranger. I’m using the griddle with heavy duty foil underneath. The bottoms are really black but the loaves are tasty. I cook two loaves at the same time. I start out at 450 and reduce to about 375 for the bake. Any thoughts or tips or suggestions for reducing the heat on the bottoms? Thanks

 

[sarjonah]

View attachment 25804
This is my second time cooking Sourdough Bread on the Ranger. I’m using the griddle with heavy duty foil underneath. The bottoms are really black but the loaves are tasty. I cook two loaves at the same time. I start out at 450 and reduce to about 375 for the bake. Any thoughts or tips or suggestions for reducing the heat on the bottoms? Thanks

Jim, Tell us a bit more about your process. Do you put the dough in a dutch oven (as I do at home)? Or how do you keep the steam in during the initial baking period to help the bread raise?
I'm also curious about smoke flavors that come through.
Mark

 

[Jim in Va]

Jim, Tell us a bit more about your process. Do you put the dough in a dutch oven (as I do at home)? Or how do you keep the steam in during the initial baking period to help the bread raise?
I'm also curious about smoke flavors that come through.
Mark

Mark,

I have done two sourdough bake sessions. The first was a single loaf at a time, in a cast iron frying pan, with a small stainless bowl for water. This worked well, but for 4 loaves, I used a lot of pellets. The second bake was on the pancake griddle, so I could bake two loaves at a time. I had a single sheet of heavy duty foil under each loaf. For steam, I poured some water on the drip tray below the griddle at the start of each bake. The photo shows the rise I was able to achieve during the two-at-time bake. This week I acquired a cast iron Dutch oven, so if it fits vertically, I’ll try that next time, though, the use of the Dutch oven will increase the baking time due to one loaf at a time. I hope this helps!

 

[sarjonah]

Jim, Tell us a bit more about your process. Do you put the dough in a dutch oven (as I do at home)? Or how do you keep the steam in during the initial baking period to help the bread raise?
I'm also curious about smoke flavors that come through.
Mark

Mark,

I have done two sourdough bake sessions. The first was a single loaf at a time, in a cast iron frying pan, with a small stainless bowl for water. This worked well, but for 4 loaves, I used a lot of pellets. The second bake was on the pancake griddle, so I could bake two loaves at a time. I had a single sheet of heavy duty foil under each loaf. For steam, I poured some water on the drip tray below the griddle at the start of each bake. The photo shows the rise I was able to achieve during the two-at-time bake. This week I acquired a cast iron Dutch oven, so if it fits vertically, I’ll try that next time, though, the use of the Dutch oven will increase the baking time due to one loaf at a time. I hope this helps! View attachment 25808

Thanks. I’ll try this on a future camping adventure. I’ll need to check my pellet usage, though; my Trailhead model has a pellet box only half the size of the Ranger.

On the black bottoms, we get a bit of that even in ceramic dutch ovens at home. I wonder if some of the Ranger problem might be the griddle collecting most of the heat produced and transferring it directly to it’s surface (bread bottom) before it can radiate around the edges to fill the “oven” of the full baking chamber. Using a dutch oven on the grate instead of griddle might help.

Let me know how it works and I’ll do the same if I can convince my wife to “sacrifice” a loaf to experiment. ;-)