So at the culmination of my 72-hour bread process yesterday, I set the
oven to preheat and came back to check on it, finding it barely half
as hot as it ought to be. Oh dear, says me, my oven is busted. Seems
that the lower heating element (this is an electric oven) isn't coming
on. Not sure why yet, and I couldn't fix it just then, so I
improvised.

I put my baking tiles (four 8"x8"x1/2" unglazed quarry tiles) right
under the broiler for a long while until a thermometer beneath the
tiles showed just over 450F. So then I knew the tiles themselves were
pretty toasty. I moved the tiles down to the bottom rack and put a
couple of pans of boiling water on the top, just under the
broiler. Then I slid the loaves onto the tiles and closed up the
oven. The pans of water, in addition to making the oven somewhat
steamy, were to shield the loaves from the direct heat of the broiler,
which certainly would have burned them on top well before they'd been
baked all the way through. It worked pretty well; so well that I had
to remove the pans at the end of baking for about 7 minutes to get the
top crusts nicely browned.

The bread is 100% whole grain, with 11% whole rye and lots of chunky
stuff (seeds and intact grains), at 70% hydration with a tiny bit of
gluten added to counteract the less desirable effects of the rye and
chunky bits. No commercial yeast. I incorporated some of the
suggestions that various folks here have made to me over the past
couple of weeks (thanks!), and I am pretty happy with the results.
(Too bad about the oven, though.) More information and pictures are
he

http://wonderclown.net/photos/bread.html

--
Randall