Artistic bread

Looks excellent! If you aren't already doing so, you could try spraying your breads with a bunch of water just before they go in the oven. Helps with a shiny crust.

The commercial ovens have steam injection. The purpose is to allow the bread to expand before the crust hardens. I started out dumping a tray of ice in the bottom of the oven but the continued use destroyed the enamel coating. Now I have a 12” cast iron pan with a big chain, and the ice goes in there. It works to hold a steady temperature as well.

I have the book “The Breadbakers Apprentice “ and became very good at making
Pain a’lAncienne French bread. It’s a pretty wet dough that is refrigerated for at least 12 hours before baking. For a vacation a while back I took a professional bread baking class. After the class my interest for making bread every week really slowed down. The best advice I can offer is to get a high quality scale, and weight all your ingredients. Maybe when I retire I’ll start back up again.

Thanks for the advice Mark.  I currently have a cheap scale for measuring ingredients.   I will heed your advice and invest in a better scale.

By the way great job on the bread making. When I took the class they had A&D scales which are very accurate, and reliable. After the class I bought the 1000 gram model with an accuracy of 0-1/2 gram which is perfect.   https://www.oldwillknottscales.com/and-sj-1000hs.html

Wow!  This scale is out of my retirement budget  . I can only afford something in the $50 range.  Thanks anyway Mark.

A kings budget for rods, and reels but a retirement budget for baking?

I have the book “The Breadbakers Apprentice “ and became very good at making
Pain a’lAncienne French bread. It’s a pretty wet dough that is refrigerated for at least 12 hours before baking. For a vacation a while back I took a professional bread baking class. After the class my interest for making bread every week really slowed down. The best advice I can offer is to get a high quality scale, and weight all your ingredients. Maybe when I retire I’ll start back up again.

Thanks for the advice Mark.  I currently have a cheap scale for measuring ingredients.   I will heed your advice and invest in a better scale.

By the way great job on the bread making. When I took the class they had A&D scales which are very accurate, and reliable. After the class I bought the 1000 gram model with an accuracy of 0-1/2 gram which is perfect.   https://www.oldwillknottscales.com/and-sj-1000hs.html

Wow!  This scale is out of my retirement budget  . I can only afford something in the $50 range.  Thanks anyway Mark.

A kings budget for rods, and reels but a retirement budget for baking?

What can I say,  it's sickness 😷