How do ya'll make your bread so crusty and your crumb so chewy? Everything I make comes out like store bought italian bread, which isnt bad but I want that aRTisAnal bread. Edit: Thanks for all the information, I now have a friday night goal.
You've gotten some good advice in this thread, but I'll throw in my two cents anyways.
First off, the flour mix can change the texture and flavor of your bread. I basically never have more than half of my flour be white. In your case, replacing as little as 1/4 cup of your flour with rye will cause your dough to be more sticky and have a noticable effect on the crumb and crust.
The biggest thing for chew though is making sure you're doing autolyse, and work your bread after the final mix. After adding my starter/yeast and mixing thoroughly I regularly stretch the dough to develop it's gluten. I pick the dough up and dangle it letting gravity stretch it down, then fold it together, and rotate and repeat to search in all cardial directions. I usually do this every 30 minutes for the 2 hours immediately after mixing the dough, for a total of 4 or 5 sets of stretch and fold. From there, let it rest and rise.
It's worth noting that I like my bread very chewy, so modify as you need. I only got here through a bit of reading and years of trial and error. Good luck!
Hard to tell from the angle, but it seems like the basic shape of your loaf is ok. Let me ask some basic troubleshooting questions:
- What recipe are you following, and are you doing so by volume or mass?
- How are you baking it? At what temp, where in your oven, on / in what, and for how long? This loaf looks really underdone to me, and possibly like it lacks steam.
- When you put it in the oven, is the side facing up all smooth and taut? If so, you need to score it, and it looks to me like you aren't. Getting the top nice and taut so that there's a surface tension, and then slashing with a very sharp knife or razor, is how you get those huge ears you see in artisan bakes. It's a necessary thing to do so that the steam in the bread has somewhere to go, and it isn't trapped in your loaf while baking.
Volume because I do not own a scale. Dutch oven preheated at 425F for 30 min, remove lid partway through. Forgot to score this loaf, normally do. Thanks for the steam tip, Ill look into how to actually implement that.
So I'd definitely try preheating for at least 45 minutes, up to an hour, bake the bread with the lid on for I think 25-30 minutes, and then leave it in to bake until it's much darker brown than this one. That will all help you get that fancy crust. You could also bake at a higher temp, 450 or even 500. It won't hurt if you keep an eye on it. No problem on the steam tip, that should help it cook better on the inside.
I have no idea your financial situation, but if you can get a kitchen scale, that helps a lot with consistency.
You can pick up a decent budget scale for like 10 bucks and it's a huge help with baking
In addition to Llituro's very helpful suggestions, I'd also recommend (if you can afford one) an oven thermometer. Ovens can significantly vary in actual temperature. I found mine tends to be about 20 degrees cooler than whatever it says. As a result, my first loaves came out looking like yours.
I set my oven to 495 (for effectively 475) and bake in the Dutch oven for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for an additional 15 minutes (or sometimes 20-30).
And the shape looks very nice. I think it just needed more time and heat.
Thank you for the tip! Until I receive additional funds I will use the "does my hand burn instantly" method.
They are pretty cheap at least, looks like you can get an oven thermometer for less than $10. That said, I don't have one either, for some reason.
I found this channel really helpful:
https://youtu.be/NMglhwp2lNs
My bread came out almost like that in the video on the 3rd or so try
