One of my holy grail goals is to produce a loaf of free-form white bread that has a crispy, not chewy, crust and a light, feathery texture to the crumb. I can get a crispy crust with a high-hydration dough and high baking temps. However, with this I usually get a crumb that has nice structure with lots of holes but the texture of the crumb is gummy and has a sort of waxy sheen to it ... kinda what you expect in a ciabatta for example. Anyone want to weigh in on how one makes the crumb light light and feathery?

One thought I had is that one might not want a lot of gluten formation so one might want to use a softer flour.

Paul