Chewy Crust
Hi everyone
I'm really new to this amazing website/forum so not sure if this the right place to post my question. I've just recently started baking breads and I keep having this problem: My bread normally comes out crusty and sings back to me as it cools but after half an hour the crust starts to soften and become extremely chewy (in an unpleasant way). This is normally resolved by heating it up on a hot oven for a couple of minutes after which they turn into pleasantly crusty 'toasts'. My latest experiment saw me using steam for only the first ten minutes after which the steam source was removed and I left the oven door ajar for the remaining 25 minutes of baking. Whilst the crust was not as chewy as my previous bakes it still unfortunately turned fairly chewy after it cooled down. I don't think I could've baked it any longer as there were bits that were starting to turn dark brown and had a bit of a bitter taste to it and I don't want my bread burned. Could I have lowered the temperature and left it in the oven longer? Or should I have covered the top with a foil? (student flat ovens in the UK have a heat source at the top only)
Anyway I'll post a picture of my loaf here so all of you could assess what's wrong with it. I will add a crumb shot tomorrow when I get the time.