Hi Frank,
<<The inside of my bread is always just right, moisture is good, I steam
the oven, etc. etc. But the crust color and a little of the crust texture
continue to escape me.>>
It sounds to me like you are baking at too low a temperature. I have found
that you simply cannot cook bread in a home oven at too high a heat. You
hear stories about some of those artisan bakers using stone ovens which
they first heat up to 800 degrees F. My inclination is to bake bread at as
high a temperature as you can bring yourself to do it at. I consider 450
degrees a minimum for most normal breads.
Generally, the heat of the oven is going to affect the total time of baking
and the relationship between the inside and outside cooking. At a lower
temperature the whole loaf will tend to cook more evenly meaning that the
crust will be cooked only slightly more than the middle. At a higher
temperature, the outside will start to carmelize just as the middle is
finishing getting cooked.
As far as steam goes goes, I've found that about 2 cups in a large jelly
roll pan at the bottom of the oven is about right. With this much water,
the steam is finished when the loaves are about 1/2 done, which means that
they finish off in a dry oven which helps with the crust texture. I did
some experiments with a lot of steam a few months ago and found that, even
with the oven cranked on full, I couldn't get it up over 450 degrees
because so much steam was pouring out the vent at the top that it was
sucking all the heat out.
This is my process. I crank the oven up full (to allow for the drop when
the door opens to put the bread in), with an empty jelly roll pan in the
bottom. A few minutes before the bread goes in I put 2 cups of really hot
water in the jelly roll pan and close the oven up. Then the bread goes in
and I turn down the oven to 450. If I'm lucky and work fast, the
temperatue will only have dropped down to 425 while I mucked about putting
the bread in. Then the oven will struggle to get to 450 for ten minutes
until all of the water has evaporated. This makes so much steam (almost
too much), that there isn't any reason to open the door and spray the bread
or the oven walls.
I hope that helps.
thanx,
dave.
*8-o