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brian@clarkeiplaw.com's blog

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brian@clarkeipl...

I have been making bread from Tartine Bread, basically a naturally leavened bread.  The flavors have been outstanding, as well as the crumb.  I have experiemented with various hydration percentages (75% and 80%).  The 75% seemed to spring a bit better than the 80%.  The 80% was raised at a bit higher ambient temperature and probably for a bit too long; the dough seemed too puffy and sloppy.

Anyway, I am not pleased with my oven spring.  Does anyone have secrets they are willing to share?  I place the dough in a cast iron oven and close it off to provide steaming for the first 20 mins.  I tranferred the dough in two different ways:  (1) inverting the proofing basket into my hands (this seems a bit sloppy); (2) inverting the proofing basket directly onto the hot cast iron stove lid (not so precise if you miss, may practice will make it work better); and (3) using a paper sling (also seemed sloppy, but with pactice maybe it gets better).

I think with better oven spring my scoring patterns will come out better.  But, for the time being my scoring does not appear to provide the type of visual affect I would like.  Again, I believe this to be due to poor oven spring.  BTW, it's not zero, just not as good as I would like.

Suggestions are appreciated.

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