I’ve started baking bread this year and it’s been fun.
The “hardest” part is deciding to make the dough at night before I go to bed so it can ferment overnight. But the next day, all I need to do is throw it in the oven for 45 minutes and bam, fresh bread.
I’m struggling to get the crust right, though. It tends to come out very chewy rather than crispy
Fifteen years ago I made killer sourdoughs. The key to crust is steam. The way I did it was get a service tray full of river rocks (from the hardware store, it is important that they are the right rocks because the wrong ones could explode). Get them good and hot (I’d let them heat up at baking temp for an hour or two before waking up).
Put your bread on the baking stone over the stones then with a super soaker blast them with water and close the door. WATCH OUT FOR THE COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF SCALDING STEAM. This will make delicious crusts. I learned this from one of Thomas Keller’s cook books. Probably the baking one.
