Scoring Bread, my endeavor to learn

I went back to Hamelman and Suas to reread what they say about steaming. In both cases, they assume a commercial oven. Since you have a powerful steamer, I feel that their comments are applicable.

1. Both agree to pre-steaming the oven immediately prior to loading.
2. Immediately after loading, steam the oven with the vent closed.
3. There is a small variance in the recommended timing. Hamelman suggests a four to six second burst, while Suas calls for a lesser time. Suas's formula methods have steaming time in the area of two seconds. Hamelman calls for a secondary burst (he calls for another "hit" of steam) for sourdough breads after a minute or two lapse.
4. You can have too much steam, as excess will delay the formation of a skin, allowing the loaf to flatten.
5. How do you know when enough is enough? The initial steaming should form a thin (let me repeat, thin) layer of water on the dough.
6. Close agreeance between them on opening the vent after one-third of the bake time.

After rereading about steaming, I think I might be over steaming my own hearth breads. (Note the thick crust in my pic)

gary

nor on their success at what angle they use - assuming that they are successful at scoring.  

Here are two screen shots of me scoring a 68% hydration dough.  As you can see, the angle of the blade is not perpendicular, nor is it at any sharp angle at all.  This seems to be an "appropriate" angle to score these relatively low hydration doughs.  In truth (but why should I start now?) I really haven't a clue as to what angle I do these at - it works and I choose to not be any more concerned with it than that.  At least for me it works.

Now, if this was at a higher hydration, like 76% or 78% my score would be more sharply angled, and probably a little less deep into the dough.  My feeling is that higher hydration doughs, being that they have a heavier concentration of water in the dough than lower hydrations doughs, are heavier, so to speak.  I'm not discussing the overall weight of the dough itself, but rather about the flap that one is making during the score.  if the flap is not sliced "thinner" - meaning it is at a less sharp angle, then the dough is heavy right there, and there isn't sufficient body to support that weight.  Hence, the flap may well decide not to open, or even flop closed.

You are talking to someone who lives day in day out with real ocd which ain't no fun bit its sure a helpful thing when it comes to baking (look at the positives I guess). Main thing to note is that you are on the fast track to amazing loaves and not far off. You noticed the same thing about many of the videos where they over emphasize angle and then demonstrate at near 90 degrees. I do think that in some cases its a bit of a,political illusion considering the lame has a curve and that sort of tricks the eye into thinking they are going in at around 90. In other cases they sure are slashing directly down - some,of Alan's pics below look like downward cuts but closer inspection you can see the blade curves in. As for how can it be that an ear develops with a straight down cut, well I dunno ? I would guess it has something to do with the surface tension being unequal just by virtue of the pattern - after all the real quest is to get a gringe on each side and one is always going to be more pronounced than the other (since nothins ever quite equal). Actually in reality in my case I ststed that I sort of come,down onto the loaf from above but there's probably a slight angle - so yeah its one of those things that when you first started it seemed impossible but jist due to practice, well things just work better. The reality is that you'll obsess and try that and that and eventually develop your own unique way. All the advice is there mostly to help prevent going down paths that are flat out wrong so you don't trial and error every little thing. Oh yeah oven! I have a gas oven and use lava rocks as well as a towel to plug the vents amd retain steam. That's another thing - it took many tweeks to figure out just how much water to use - too much and I noticed the internal temperature dropped much, too little and too dry a crust with less expansion. Everything is a balancing act right ? Ever bake is a minor adjustment for a minor improvement but as already mentioned man your bread looks great. Just keep on having fun !