Lessons learned I hop
So I tried to do the Norwich Sourdough this weekend. I missed one important step. After forming the balls I was supposed to let raise before putting in the fridge. After 4 hours I took one of the 2 loafs out of the fridge and tried to let it raise. It grew some. So I decided to throw it into the oven. I had to over bake the top to get the middle to cook. I now have a nice burned loaf. So for the second loaf I took it out of the fridge. I am planning on doing an hourly stretch and fold until the dough is warm and then let it sit for an hour to make sure the dough is not cold.
THe good news this weekend is I made Alton Brown's pretzels and they where really good. There are only 2 left. The issue is storage. I tried a zip lock and its too moist. How do you store items like this?
Taking a fully proofed loaf out of the refrigerator and sticking it directly into the preheated oven (without first letting it "warm up") should work just fine. Sometimes folks use this technique as part of working their baking around particular schedules.
Once in a while it's even done on purpose every time because fairly runny dough will hold its shape a little longer if it's cold, so you have a better chance of getting it into the oven before it pancakes.
(Proofing a loaf in the fridge is a little risky though. It works okay and develops flavor well. But the loaf can easily over-proof before you get it out of the fridge.)
If you have a problem with the crust getting overdone while the crumb gets done, it's probably caused by something else. Try either putting the bread on a lower oven shelf (if it isn't already), or covering the top with a scrap of tinfoil for the last part of the bake (or maybe even baking longer at a lower oven temperature).