More help needed - no ears, ugly loaves
I can not seem to get ears, or anything close that that "burst" on my loaves. My first struggle with the pain de campagne was solved by changing flour to one without additives, which made the dough much more manageable (yay!) And I baked the first two with the new flour yesterday. The first (one the left) ended up looking the way my loaves always look - the slit filled in. The second (on the right) gave me a bit of that "burst", and you can see in the photo the difference in height between the two. However, today I'm back to ugly loaves, and I'm not sure what I did differently to get that burst or why I don't seem to get it. The temperatures were the same (500F for the first 5 min, then 450F, on a stone with steam). I know I pre-shaped one of the loaves, but I got them mixed up in the fridge before I labelled them - could that have made a difference? (Confession - it wasn't pre-shaping by choice, it was that I did such a bad job of shaping one that I had to let it rest and re-shape it.)
I've read the post on getting ears, and I'm using a knife, but I use that on all of them, including the one I finally got a bit of that tear on. I'm going to try to get razor blades today to make a lame. I make sure I slit them right before putting them in the oven. Maybe they're under proofed? Any thoughts would be great....
Theres a ton of posts that go into extreme detail about slashing tecniques and personal opinion here - angle and blade details dont really matter if the loaf doesnt want to burst anyway - these fine details contribute more to the character of the burst. If other conditions are spit on any slash will explode open. Just speaking from personal experience, spot on proofing, tension and heat are more important - of you can figure these details then you can slash with eyes shut and get ears (maybe not beautifully shaped ones but this seems to be more important)
... those look like lovely loaves! How's the crumb? Are you happy with it? They look like they had good shaping and good oven spring, but the inside will tell part of the tale as well.
A couple of things you might try - start the oven at 475F and then turn it down to 425F after five minutes. The hotter temperatures you are using might be setting the crust a little too quickly before it has a chance to stretch and burst. Second, ears are difficult to get on a boule. Try a more horizontal cut around the side of the top (if that makes sense; not the actual side of the boule but curve it around the top instead of straight across). Or try a cross or tic-tac-toe pattern instead of a straight slash. Or shape a batard and do the long, slightly curved slash end to end. And/or try underproofing a bit (i.e. put it in the oven when it still has more 'push' left in it).
Other than that, enjoy the bread; it looks great! :)
Both loaves look good and they both rose and the one on the left clearly has that attempted ear. How's the crumb?
hester
ones pictured here look absolutely lovely! How is the crumb?
I'm so glad to hear that you found the no-additive flour easier to work with, and obviously you are very successful at getting a well-fermented and proofed loaf shaped out of it! The loaves pictured here both have lots of lovely crust colour, so don't seem over-fermented at all, and have a really good, even oven-spring.
Just as the others mentioned, the lack of an "ear" is most likely a combination of it being a score pattern / loaf shape that isn't conducive to ears, a need for a slightly tighter skin formed when shaping, a need for some technique work on scoring, and I would guess that there might be an issue with uneven heat / steam in your oven... You might want to try the technique of proofing the boule with the seams on the bottom, and then flipping it to bake with the seams on top --- no scoring, and letting the seams open naturally instead (have a look at Danni3ll3's bakes to see how this can work out). That can tell you a lot about what you might want to look at to get better scoring results.
If the two loaves shown were from the same dough, baked at the same time, then the colour difference suggests to me that the loaf on the left got more heat and less steam than the one on the right - resulting in the crust hardening sooner, inhibiting the rise slightly and closing off the score. If your oven vents on one side, and your pan generating steam is either more to one side or is more open to the baking stone on one side, then it could very well be that your two loaves are seeing somewhat different conditions at the beginning of the bake. I know that in my oven I have to block the vent (which is in the back right-side element) when steaming, or I end up with the right side of my oven being a fair bit cooler than the left due to the air movement, and I lose far too much steam for the results that I want. Trying the lower temp suggested by Lazy Loafer, making sure any vents in your oven are sealed, and keeping an eye on what happens on which side of the oven might make some difference for you.
Looking forward to hearing how future experiments go!