How do ya’ll make your bread so crusty and your crumb so chewy? Everything I make comes out like store bought italian bread, which isnt bad but I want that aRTisAnal bread. Edit: Thanks for all the information, I now have a friday night goal.
You’ve gotten some good advice in this thread, but I’ll throw in my two cents anyways.
First off, the flour mix can change the texture and flavor of your bread. I basically never have more than half of my flour be white. In your case, replacing as little as 1/4 cup of your flour with rye will cause your dough to be more sticky and have a noticable effect on the crumb and crust.
The biggest thing for chew though is making sure you’re doing autolyse, and work your bread after the final mix. After adding my starter/yeast and mixing thoroughly I regularly stretch the dough to develop it’s gluten. I pick the dough up and dangle it letting gravity stretch it down, then fold it together, and rotate and repeat to search in all cardial directions. I usually do this every 30 minutes for the 2 hours immediately after mixing the dough, for a total of 4 or 5 sets of stretch and fold. From there, let it rest and rise.
It’s worth noting that I like my bread very chewy, so modify as you need. I only got here through a bit of reading and years of trial and error. Good luck!
