Being somewhat new to the baking scene, I'm beginning with the no-knead approach and generally following recipes from Lahey, this website and breadtopia.  So these are fairly high hydration breads.  I'm using either a 5 qt Dutch oven or a Corning ware 3 qt for my containers.  I'm happy with the crumb and crust most of the time but the amount of spring I get seems pretty random.

Perhaps part of the problem is having the dough either over or underproofed.  There seem to be several of schools of thought.  One suggests that if the dough is finger pressed ~ 1/2" or so and the dough slowly returns, then that's the time to start baking.  Another suggests that the time for the oven is when the dough stays put when it's been pressed down.  Yet another suggests putting aside a small portion of the dough in a clear sided container and when the volume of that sub sample has a little more than doubled, then that's the time to begin baking.

I realize that baking a lot and learning to feel comfortable with the whole operation is important and that experience will be a good teacher - Berlioz notwithstanding...(^-^) but any additional helpful advice I could get from this learned assemblage would be greatly appreciated.

  aloha,

Dave Hurd, Hilo, Hawaii