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.
