My 90 year old father has told me he does not like the beautiful crispy crust on my no knead sourdough bread because it hurts his mouth. 
he wants a crust like “grocery store sourdough” - softer, light in color. How can I achieve this? Crispy crust is all I know. Have been baking for a couple of years with the no knead recipe exclusively. Thanks for your help.
There are a lot of ways to approach this with various combinations of ingredients (“enriched” dough) and baking (might try keeping bread covered through the whole bake).
But one really simple thing you can do is just put the loaf into a plastic bag after it has finished cooling down. So maybe 2-3 hours after it comes out of the oven, just put the loaf into a plastic bag and leave it in there. The crust will soften due to the internal moisture content.
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IMHO, the easiest way to get a softer crust is to wait until your bread is fully cool, about 3 hours or so, and then put the entire loaf into a plastic bag. The moisture inside the bread will completely soften the crust. I do that with every loaf I bake for a couple of reasons: 1) it makes slicing the entire loaf a whole lot easier and 2) I keep the slices in a freezer bag in the freezer for storage. I can just grab whatever slice(s) of bread I want and pop them into the toaster. Once toasted, you basically have your crisper crust again if you want it. For me, it’s the easiest way to deal with crisp vs soft crust.
Leah
Another thing to try is brushing the entire surface including the bottom with melted butter or some other oil when it is fresh out of the oven and covering the loaf with a towel as it cools. I had the same complaint and this fixed it. Good luck.
Stu
Thanks everyone. I did find a recipe a recipe on weekendbakery for sourdough rolls containing butter and buttermilk. They were fabulous with great flavor (I stuck them in the refrigerator overnight) and a soft crust my dad desired.
How do commercial bakers get that blistered effect on their crusts? Is that what spraying with water does?
I prefer “chewy” crust rather than crip. Bake at low temp, about 250F for a lot longer. Thermometer of course would be helpful but I just go by thump and feel. Time will depend on size of loaf I’d imagine but for my wee-little loaves, 2 hours 15 minutes does the trick. And wrapping in towel immediately helps hold in some moisture but not too much. Plastic bag after cooled.
I spread soft butter on the top of the bread when I put it in the loaf pans to rise. Comes out rather soft after baking. Then into a plastic bag after it cools. Crust is pretty soft when the loaf comes out of the oven and softens more in the bag. Still has that great flavor.
When making no knead artisan bread with 3 cups flour, for soft bread how much butter would you say to spread on before rising?
Spreading butter on dough that is not warm seems like it would be difficult. Would melting the butter work?
When I’m spreading the butter I do it as soon as I form the loaf so the dough is still relatively stiff. Waiting till the bread has risen would destroy the rise. My loaves are not not No Knead, or Artisian, usually, theyare in a bread pan. The butter has to be soft, room temp and it is easier to spread in the summer when the butter is very soft.
I think using melted butter would work. Drizzle on then spread around. After melting it, I would let the butter cool as much as possible before putting it on the bread. I’m not sure what putting really hot butter on the bread would do where it hits.