I’ve been making sourdough bread for a few months now in a dutch oven, and I could never quite get the loaf I wanted. The thing that especially bothered me was how thick and dark my bottom crust was, even after trying various approaches to mitigate. So last week I decided to think outside the box (or Dutch Oven, in this case) and devise a new baking method.
Instead of baking in my dutch oven, I instead placed my proofed loaf on my heated pizza stone and inverted my dutch oven to use as a done to capture steam. I also only preheated to 475 and took the temp down to 450 after removing the dutch oven 15 minutes into the bake.
It worked exactly as I hoped, and I am so happy with my recent loaves! Now just working up the resolve to try something new.
