I have no idea how to properly transfer my dough to the Dutch oven without ruining it. Please help!

I don't use dutch ovens, however check your parchment paper. I think the sling method ought to work - at least I've heard others here use it, but some papers might just be "greaseproof" and not siliconnised parchment, so check the container and make sure its (a) siliconised and (b) both sides... I've also never floured parchment paper when I've used it for bread.

You might also want to look for some re-usable silicone baking sheets. I use that to line my baking trays.

Another method I've seen used is to use a banneton and simply tip it into the bottom of the DO (carefully, avoiding betting branded!)

-Gordon

This is one step I've not seen covered well in books and I had to learn on my own and difficult lessons they were. But once I stopped daydreaming I found its really very simple:

The stickiness of the shell, the sticky exterior of the doughball has to be controlled and this is done with flour. Can also be done with oatmeal. Not sure what % hydration the no knead bread is. THe wetter the dough the more effort you need to put into keeping it from sticking,

I use a linen tight weave fabric. I Dust it up with a bread flour or if you are in rookie season maybe use a combo of oatmeal and flour till you get more practice.

Put the doughball in there and check to make sure its not sticking by peeling back the fabric and looking.

I dont see how people use a towel unless its one of those tight weave ones, those will be ok. I put it in a basket to hold the shape. A basket is good cause it breaths and the linen has a better chance to breath out the moisture too. Some drier type doughs can be put right in a tightly woven basket. 

Good luck.

I lightly dust my parchment with cornmeal before turning my proofed loaf onto it. I use bannetons dusted heavily with half rice flour, half whole wheat. I have very light weight cotton dish towels I use to line a bamboo rice steamer cone that I think would work well to line a basket. They're a bit like halfway between cheese cloth and a dish towel.

to dust bannetons or close weave tea towell if not using the bannetons. Usually doesn't stick and bread slowly drops out cleanly onto parchment, which I use as a sling to put loaf into my "dutch oven".  it works a treat without sticking. I reuse it about 4 times before the charred ends  break off. 

1 - Why don't you take pictures the next time you do this. Take it of the dough just as you set it to rest and then before you go to move it, etc.. Maybe we'll see something that doesn't seem obvious from what you're doing.That could give us a clue as to how to help you.

2 - Don't fear the dough.. if you can rest the dough on a floured wood cutting board or counter top, that might work easier. When you go to move it into the dutch oven, before you pull the hot empty DO from the oven, use a bench scraper if you have it to loosen the loaf from having been stuck to your board. Don't be afraid of doing this, and messing up the shape. As Abe once said to me, and I think of often - dough smells fear! So don't let it. Get under it with the scraper in one hand, and use the other to help by holding or lifting the edges of the dough gently, and get it unstuck. Then with the DO beside the dough, just pick it up firmly and gently place it into the DO. This takes practice, but once you get it, you'll know it.

Let us know! Good luck!

I use Einkorn in a dutch oven, which has got to be the hardest way to bake a loaf. LOL Einkorn flour makes a dough that is so sticky that I found it nearly impossible to transfer so I developed a method over months of experimentation.

The method is based on using a silicone sheet like a SilPat (I have both an authentic Silat and several low cost alternatives and they all work equally well), coating it will olive oil or with corn meal, they both work.

-Oil the sheet (or dust very liberally with corn meal)

-Place the dough on the sheet

-Remove the dutch oven from the oven and sit on the stove top

-Very carefully lift the silicone sheet, be aware that oil on silicone in incredibly slippery an the dough will practically fly off so be skillful during the transfer, put one end of the sheet most of the way into the screaming hot dutch oven, the dough will slide off instantly and plop into the dutch oven

-Remove the silicone sheet and set aside

-Cover the dutch oven

-Place the dutch oven into the oven

-Start your timer.

I now do this procedure in ten seconds or less but do take your time, there is no need to rush it, you don't want that doug to go flying across the kitchen.

Don't you really own any kitchen towels? A plastic colander, lined with a kitchen towel (any ole towel will do, unless it's dirty or made of terry cloth) works just fine as rising basket. If you want to bake breads more often, I would really recommend investing in a rising basket.

Whether towel lined, or just bare wicker, you have to flour the heck out of it! Chad Robertson uses 1/2 rice flour/1/2 all-purpose flour to prevent sticking, but if you use enough of it, any flour will do.

The parchment will not fuse with the bread, and serve perfectly well for that purpose, if you place the bread on it just before putting it in the oven. You might check out my post "Einkorn Hazelnut Levain - Pinched Not Kneaded" how the oven transfer works.

Happy Baking,

Karin

I have baked my freeform loaves using various steam methods until recently, when I got a good deal on a used Lodge combo cooker. So I have tried the covered baking method just a few times now -- and I'm with you, the loading of the loaf is a real dicey maneuver. I like the final baked result, however, and the covered cooker method seems mildly easier than the steaming method.

My current solution is parchment, but I wad it up a bunch of times so it becomes very flexible. (It's a trick borrowed from blind-baking a pie crust using weights.) I have not had trouble with the final bread sticking to the parchment, so it may be the quality of the parchment. I get mine from a local restaurant supply house. It may be siliconized, as another poster mentions -- I'm not sure.

I might try that Silpat sliding trick. I have peels, but that seems more difficult to me as I visualize myself tipping a 500 F cast iron Dutch oven with one hand and holding a peel with my other hand! But if you go that route, get some semolina and use it on the peel. Semolina acts like little ball bearings to help the loaf move with ease.

jaywillie 

My bannetons are 8" plastic bowls lined with baking parchment. When the dough is proofed and the dutch oven heated to 500 degrees F. I simply use the corners of the parchment as handles and lift dough and parchment into the dutch oven together, replace the lid with the corners trapped outside. The bread bakes beautifully in the parchment which peels off cleanly afterwords and you don't burn your fingers. 

Happy baking

Alan.H

Actually, I've never heard of parchment sticking to a baked loaf. I bake my cheese bread on parchment and even with a bit of cheese leaking out, it doesn't ever stick. Wet gluten-free dough doesn't stick. Are you sure it's not waxed paper instead? :)

Waitrose box of non stick parchment paper looks to be mainly white, not yellow. Seems to be similar stuff though.

Alan.H

I use the thumbs to steady the upturned  banneton, fingers over the dough method referred to above with variable success.   It always works a bit but sometimes the dough rolls and isn't centred, or sticks on the side.   In the Chad Robertson video often cited here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIIjV6s-0cA, he uses a proving basket lined with a cloth and does a deft turn of the dough as he pulls out the cloth from the tipped basket.   Magic.   Watched it loads of times and can't quite ever 'see' it.   Like the pulled out table cloth trick.   I'm going to try the oiled silicone method offered here, thank you, sounds good.  Lesley

Hi ; I do this a lot lately while working with Ken Forkish's Book, Flour water salt and yeast, which I love. I'm using 9" banneton baskets , and transferring directly to 4 qt. dutch ovens. While I DO use parchment paper to slide other breads off the peel into the oven, I don't use it for the cast iron oven maneuver . Dough is face down in the basket seam side up.

I pull the heated to temp Dutch Oven out of the oven, set on counter. I then flip the banneton over carefully onto corn meal prepped ,wooden peel. I then quickly score the loaf - on the peel, reach over and pull the lid off the Dutch oven and  set aside, and with a quick short push, or flick.......I slide the shaped loaf down into the dutch oven. I keep a silicone spatula handy near by, to coerce the loaf around inside the cast iron to centre it if need be. Pop the lid on, and in it goes. I try to work this as quickly and gently as possible, so as not to deflate. 

Michael

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