Stuck Cloth Needn't Deflate ???
Once in a while a cloth sticks to my dough. That makes me curse, remind myself to be more careful next time, and sprinkle no-stick around more liberally.
But I've never had the loaf deflate; I've always eventually been able to get it unstuck without damage. Is this just weird luck? Or is deflation really not a mandatory sentence?
The moment I sense something is stuck, I stop pulling on the cloth. I identify the nearest stuck spot, and carefully scrape it loose with a table knife (the knife scrapes the cloth between it and the stuck dough; my other hand provides support from the other side of the cloth). Then when it's free, I peel the cloth back just a little farther, identify the next stuck spot, and scrape again. It generally takes several minutes (and a lot of cursing under my breath:-) to complete this process, and I certainly wouldn't call it "easy". With some cloths (ex: linen from SFBI/TMB) the pain is not too bad, while with other cloths (ex: old cotton hand towels) there's plenty of pain.
But so far in the end it's always worked well enough; I've always gotten my loaf back without deflating. Have I just been lucky, only dealing with things that weren't stuck all that badly?