San Fran sourdough how to get shiny, orange, blistered crust.

I assume you are referring to the same kind of orange shine exterior that the Tartine Country loaf boasts on the front cover of Chad Robertson's book for example.  I was able to achieve similar results by incorporating A LOT of steam.  They are able to achieve this easier in professional ovens, with high heat and steam injection.  My results can be found here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/41089/happy-holidays-tflers-some-sourdough

Not quite there but getting closer.

Good luck!

John

Yes, I agree steam is key to shiny crust. 

I agree with the steam part, but I also think that cold proofing would help you achieve blisters all over.

I've found that baking in a dutch oven (closed environment) got me the crust i was looking for, but only if I used no flour to shape, and I proofed the bread in the cold dutch oven (basically a bench proofing), which then went into a hot, preheated oven to bake (such as the picture of my "oakland sourdough" recipe).

This worked well in the oven I had at my old place, which was a nice viking oven.  In my current apartment however, I have had terrible luck with this same method (standard cheap apartment oven), and have adjusted to pre-heating the dutch oven.  This requires me to proof in a basket or on a cloth, and the flour used to keep it from sticking to these surfaces seems to hide the shiny crust below (such has my recent boule bread picture).  That or it's something totally intangable that I missed, but I just can't get that same crust in the current oven.

Achieving the look of San Francisco Sourdough French Bread requires persistence and practice, practice, practice. In my case it took around three years to finally achieve repeatable results.

Some hard learned pointers:

1. Always develop the gluten first using just flour and water before adding anything else.
2. Always steam - in my case I use an inverted stainless steel steam tray pan sprayed on the inside with Pam to prevent sticking. It is spritzed with a couple of squirts from a spray bottle before being placed over the loaf on the stone. Bake for 10-15 minutes before removing the cloche. The SS Cloche creates a small volumetric space around to the rising loaf trapping the steam keeping the crust flexible and extensible - required to reach a maximum oven spring rise. This works really well in the case of gas ovens where steaming any other way is nearly impossible.
3. Use highest temperature your oven can achieve - 500 dF in my case. You can turn it down after the cloche is removed but I never do.
4. Always retard the dough for 9-12 hours to develop the depth of taste.
5. Control the sourness by varying the length of over-ferment of a 30% levain. In my case it's around 12 hours.
6. Score well and and at a low elevation angle to achieve good ears.
7. Proof in open bannetons using non-glutenous rice flour to prevent sticking.
8. Always be aware of time and temperature of the dough.
9. Always use timers.
10. Always use scales.
11. Never be fully satisfied with your results - this is the quest for the perfect loaf...,

Below is a shot of our Pain Quotidien (daily bread):

Wild-Yeast

Hi Sarah,

Do you use a baking stone? If so how thick is it? 

Wild-Yeast

I've been fighting for the same thing for quite some time when I found out it is a lot of steam right after you take it out of the fridge. This is my kind of results.

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