Hiya, my oven does not have an option for the temperature of 475. Many bread recipes call for 475. Any advice on how to overcome this would be great. Do I go to 500 for the first few minutes (crust development) and then drop to 450? Thanks in advance.
Except for enriched doughs, I always preheat oven and baker or stone to 500 AND leave temp at 500 for 10 min, then drop to 450 for the remaining time covered and uncovered.
I do the above regardless of recipe instructions as it works for me :).
@esummers thanks so much, that was my instinct by I am so new to baking. I appreciate the help.
One more thing … I do keep a baking stone on a rack lower than the rack I’m putting dutch oven or clay baker on. I found this keeps the bottom crust from getting overdone and hard. Many others do the same and I learned of it somewhere on this forum.
Thanks, that is good to know as I have been placing my dutch oven directly on the stone. This makes sense as both the stone and the cast iron hold heat so well.
@anon66425146 Liz, I have a baking stone that I originally purchased to make pizza many years ago. I actually forgot I had it. It’s a round one designed for a standard large pizza.Though it isn’t a larger flat square stone I wonder if putting it on the lower rack and then positioning my covered clay baker on the upper rack directly above will keep the bottom crust from getting as hard as it does. Slicing through the harder crust is a bit challenging. I never really thought of trying to “soften” the hardness of the crust. I just assumed the crunchy crust was part of the whole “artisan bread” experience. I do admit my arm gets a workout slicing through my loaves, LOL!
Leah
My stone is a round pizza size and it works fine.
I prefer a thinner, crisp crust vs the artisanal very thick and hard crust. I’ve been able to get that in my bakes by increasing the covered (lid on) time and decreasing the uncovered (lid off) time.
You can also search the forum for “crisp” probably and see how others have approached thicker/thinner/harder/softer crust issues. I believe there have been several discussions 
Thanks, Liz! I’ll have to check out the discussions and do some reading.
Leah
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If your oven has 450 and 500 then just go half way between them. You’ll be close enough to 450 to not matter.