Don’t yet grok my steam oven. At 400° and high humidity, can brown moist surfaces! How? Condensation > evaporation b/c high atmos. pressure?
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(My prior intuition had been that surfaces don’t brown in ovens until they’re dehydrated because water at the surface can’t pass 212°)
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the Maillard reaction (browning) can still happen in moist environments it just moves slower
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Hm. But doesn’t it require the surface matter to be above 212°F?
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yes. It occurs above 285. Steam should be able to reach that temperature
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Ah, hm. But won’t the food surface stay at 212°F until all the water there has evaporated?
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perhaps the air becomes saturated enough that it pushes the evaporation temp up?
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Replying to
Yeah, my current theory is that the high atmospheric humidity slows the evaporation rate.