Hello,

I've been lurking on this site for quite awhile and this is my first post. First I want to say thank you to all the passionate bread makers out there, you are very inspiring and I might add...intimidating! Anyway, on to my problem.  I recently made a sourdough from a wild starter.  The recipe is the basic country bread from the Tartine book.  I had two rounds of dough about the same size, one I let final rise about 2 1/2 hours and the other went into the refrigerator for a retarded rise :) for about 14 hours.  The first one came out beautifully!  a lovely crust with deep cuts. Look...

The other loaf has a nice flavor but the crust is not even in the same league.  The cuts did not fully expand or crack and I'm not sure what I did wrong.  I baked both in a cast iron dutch oven at 20 mins covered, temperature started at 500 and I turned it down to 450 after the bread was placed in the dutch oven, then another 20 mins uncovered. 

2nd loaf 14 hour final rise.

Does anyone have any ideas why the difference?  Thanks for you help.

So,

I finished my WFO earlier this fall and am baking in it now. Breads are great and sell faster than I can bake them, but I encountered one particular issue:

I seem to have a problem gettin that nice, crispy crust on my French Bread. I am told that with my Whole Wheat or even Whole Wheat mix, the crust usually gets softer after the loaves cool off, but I'm a little disappointed that even the French Bread (Reinharts recipe, made with Sam's Club high-gluten bread flour) gets soft after it cools off.

I bake at around 550 degrees, give the loaves a good 5-8 seconds of steam with a brass-nozzled sprayer, and the crust is awesome immediately after baking. Once the loaves cool off, the crust gets soft.

I'm used to the baguettes we made in Germany (where, admittedly, we could add steam very easily and "remove" it after a few minutes) - those loaves would come out crisp and then shrink while cooling off, causing the crust to "fenster". It would crack and splinter.

Is there anything I can do differently to get better crust?

Thanks in advance,

Stephan

Hello all!

Having just pulled yet another crusty loaf out of the oven, I'm wondering what I might be doing wrong. You see, it seems that whatever I bake, be it cake, bread, muffins... and whichever recipe I follow, I always get a crust that is a little thicker than I would care for. This is not only the exposed part of the bread (or muffin etc), but also the part that is inside any pan I might use.

The other possibly related symptoms are that the things I bake are never as light as I would like, and drier than I would like too. They are not complete disasters, quite edible (according to others too) but I'm not proud of them at all.

I'm using a fan assisted electric oven, I do everything by hand, I live in Northern Ireland where it is not especially humid or dry, hot or cold. I use instant yeast (though in other news I have had a starter growing in my kitchen for 10 days now and I can't wait to try it!) or brand new bicarb if I'm making soda bread, strong organic flours... I don't have a thermometer for my oven (apart from the built in dial), though I suspect I should probably invest in one as soon as possible. I don't use steam, though I'm also thinking I should probably try this next time.

Mainly I was suspicious that it really is EVERYTHING I make that has the same thick crust issue, which either points the finger at the common factor of the oven, or me! What do you think?

Thank you so much in advance...

Hello! I have been baking for a few months and I am really enjoying it. However, I don't manage to get a crunchy crust!

I use Richard Bertinet's dough recipes with 70% hydration, white or rye, no fats. I pre-heat the oven to 250 a couple of hours in advance, I have bricks in the oven and a big tray of lava rocks to make steam after I put the bread in the oven.

The bread develops a good crust in the oven and when I take it out and put it on a grill to rest the crust is very hard and it even cracks as it cools down. By the time the bread is cold, however, the crust goes all soft. I thought that maybe it depended on the day, but this happens on sunny and rainy days.

Any tips? i think it might be the moisture escaping from the bread to "wet" the crust. Maybe I should rest the loaf in the oven with the door open?

Thanks in advance!

Luca

I've been operating for several months under the assumption that the higher the protein level in the flour, the better the bread I make would be. I guess I can blame Daniel Leader for this a little bit. But in the past few weeks, I've finally started noticing all the recipes on TFL that call for AP flour, and when I saw Anis Bouabsa's baguette recipe I realized my assumption must be wrong. What I need help understanding is when to use high-gluten flour and when to use AP. I thought that higher gluten levels meant more elasticity, more strength, and a better rise. But if the best baguettes in Paris use AP, I have to be wrong. Right? Help me, please. I'm hopelessly confused.

I'd been struggling a bit with overly-moist crumb.  After trying varied and long proofs (which did not significantly improve the crumb), I focused on making sure my levain was fully ripe and my dough properly developed in the bulk rise, plus a full proof step.

Problem solved.

Hey guys. I've made the rustic bread 3 times now, and I'm having a problem with the crust softing a lot during cooling. I like a crispy crust. Is this recipe supposed to have a soft crust? I do all the things you should for good crust: preheat oven with steam pan, using tiles as baking stone. Is it possible I'm not baking it for long enough? The whole thing gets very dark brown after the recommended baking time. In fact the first time I made this recipe, I burned it and it had a very crispy crust. Still tasted good after hacking off the black parts. I'm shaping my loaves as batards BTW. I don't have this problem when I bake baguettes (different recipe, however).

The crumb is very moist and slightly dense. Is it supposed to be like that?

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/rusticbread

Spring is on the way!

Do I see the sun breaking through there, just above the horizon on the side of my loaf of white bread?

Have a nice week everyone!

On my search for a specific type of sandwich roll. A good description of what I'm going for:

1. chewy but light inside
2. crust that is very thin, slightly crispy, shatters into big thin flakes then you bite in or tear off a piece, slightly leathery too with a little bit of tug
3. crust finish is yellowish & golden.

Tried Norm's rolls sans onions, but didn't achieve the result I was looking for. The interior of the Norm's hard roll was too fluffy, too hamburger bun-esque, with insufficient chew. The crust was not bad: it had the right thin leatheriness, some of that tug, but did not have that shattering quality that I'd like to get. Will try to post photos in a bit. 

I think I might have to try the Kaiser Roll recipe. As far as crumb goes, I think I might have to try a preferment (sponge, etc) of some sort to help with the chew & flavor. Any other recommendation for recipes to try would be appreciated.