Unpleasant crust on bread

Question

I'm baking ~67% hydration bread, following this recipe Kvali food dutch oven bread. The bread is baked using a covered cast iron casserole dish heated to 250'c, and following the cooking times suggested in the recipe.

However, the bread is developing a crust that is "sucky" rather than either chewy or crunchy. It pulls moisture from the mouth and ends up unpleasant to eat - despite having blisters.

This effect gets worse the longer wait to eat the bread - it's bearable straight out of the oven but after an hour or so is a major detractor from the bread experience.

Answer 1

The recipe specifies a two hour proof after the twelve hour fermentation. Depending on the activity of the yeast and the ambient temperature this might be too long. In overproofed bread the gluten network is fragile and unable to support the loaf through baking. The result is a soggy or dense loaf and crust, consistent with your observation that the crust isn't chewy or crunchy.

Also there are no instructions to slash the loaf before baking. Slashing helps the loaf expand and gives more variety to the crust since some parts are more exposed to the heat of the oven then others.

Finally you mention that the crust is best straight out of the oven. After baking the loaf is still slightly moist: cutting into it immediately will prevent it from drying fully. Again I suspect this leads to a soggy crust.