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Loaves without ears

"Gilligan, Jonathan M" <jonathan.gilligan@vanderbilt.edu>
Thu, 21 Nov 2002 10:14:18 -0600
v102.n054.25
I am having a problem with my loaves. I get wonderful flavor and a nice 
open crumb, but for the life of me I cannot get a beautiful grigne with ears.

When I put batards and boules in the oven, the grigne opens up nicely in 
the initial spring (first 2 minutes or so), but then the inner part rises 
up during the next 5 minutes or so and fills the split, so when the bread 
finishes baking, there are no ears.

I bake on tiles at 500 F with as much steam as I can put into a home oven 
(2 cups boiling water poured into a pre-heated 12" cast-iron skillet on the 
oven floor; I have tried adding the water both just before and just after 
putting the bread on the tiles) and both with and without spraying the 
walls of the oven with hot water from a garden-type pressure-sprayer just 
after inserting the loaf.

I am working with fairly wet sourdough (similar to Reinhart's Poilane-style 
miche), scaled at 500 grams for the batards and 1000 grams for the boules. 
I proof the boules in baskets and the batards on a cloth, and have tried 
baking both and without misting the loaves gently with water after slashing 
them, just before putting them in the oven (this seems to improve the 
grigne slightly).

I am confident that I am not overproofing the dough, but it is possible 
that I am underproofing it --- an experiment last weekend found better 
grigne with a loaf that proofed 30 minutes longer than usual --- but I am 
always fighting the dough's tendency to deflate when I slash it if I proof 
it too long. One problem I have is that when I slash the loaf, no matter 
how swiftly I sweep the razor through the dough, the dough sticks and tears 
rather than slitting cleanly.

I make every effort to get a good surface tension before the final 
proofing, without manhandling the dough (If the tradeoff is ears vs. open 
crumb, I will take the open crumb), but with only a year or so experience 
shaping free-standing loaves, it is probable that I am not producing enough 
surface tension.

Any advice from the experts?

Thanks,
Jonathan