"Phil" wrote in message
om...

> Kenneth > wrote

> > If the dough is drying to the point that spring is constrained, the
> > loaf will burst (often looking as if it had "exploded") on baking.
> >
> > Is that the problem you are having?
>
> No, not really. It's just that I'm not getting much oven spring. The
> loaf pretty much stays the same size as when I put it in the oven at
> the beginning of the bake. It's not a big deal, the crumb is decent
> and the bread tastes good, but...I feel like i'm doing something
> wrong. Possibly proofing too long?
>

To me proofing too long, at least for free form loaves, is if I can't get it
into the oven without deflating the loaf.

I don't know that I've ever baked a loaf with absolutely no oven spring, but
a lot of oven spring is not my goal. I like to see my loaves have a mostly
flat bottom with a little bit of upturn at the sides. I've posted a couple
of pictures at the yahoo bread group in the Mike folder to show what I'm
talking about. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bread_Pictures/

The first picture shows the loaf dead on from the side and you can see that
I'm trying to describe when I say "a little bit of upturn". The second
picture shows the top of the loaf and how the slashing looked. From the
pictures I hope you can see that there was a bit of spring, but not an awful
lot.

If I hadn't let that loaf rise as much as I had prior to baking there would
have been an much more pronounced upturn at the side of the loaf with less
flat along the bottom. If I had let it go much longer there would have been
a flat bottom all the way to the edge with a sharp transition from the
bottom to the sides. In other words, I wouldn't have been able to get it
into the oven without deflating it too much.

I wish I had some pictures of my other examples, but I tend not to take
pictures of bread with which I'm not happy. I'm baking again tomorrow, maybe
I'll get lucky and screw up.

I don't think you should worry too much about the oven spring if you are
happy with the final product.

As far as the drying is concerned. I have a large plastic Rubbermaid storage
box. I just place my bread on the counter to rise and place the box over the
loaves. The loaves don't dry out. Before I pulled that box out of a friends
trash I used to let my bread rise inside of a large plastic bag, that works
well too.

-Mike