This might be a science question
This might be a science thing, or I need more coffee, but here goes. If steam is necessary, and you leave the top on a dutch oven for only the first 15 minutes of the bake, then why not use a slow cooker to steam it then put the bread in the oven?
I imagine this is only good if you are baking one small loaf, but I have cooked bread before in the slow cooker and while it was not crispy it was tender. So I wonder if one could get the best of both worlds since I can't add steam to my oven (small kids like to hover, not risking steam burns) and my dutch oven is a cheap enamel that is showing signs of rust around the edge. I need to get a new dutch oven, but if I could steam it in the slow cooker, while the oven preheats with the dutch oven in it, then all I would need to do would be to drop it from one pan and into the other. That's my reasoning anyways. What is the science behind it that says I'm wrong before I ruin perfectly good bread?