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