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Creates some steam, which crisps the crust. You can also open the oven and spray in water with a spray bottle, but that lowers the oven temp. a few ice cubes doesn't.
Generally, I use the small, 3 ounce Gladware round containers for ice; I freeze a dozen every night. 6 of those work great.
A salt-water wash instead of an egg wash gives an interesting flavor.
My recipe does not require 3 days of rising; mine is an adaptation of a medieval Hungarian (and other Eastern European countries) recipe and is about as non-specific as a loaf of bread can be.
Start with 1 c water and a 1/2 c SD starter or 1 T yeast proofed in 1/2 c soured milk.
Add a mixture to taste of whole wheat, barley, oat and rye flour (usually 2 wheat, 1.5 barley and .5 oat or rye in this house, the latter depending on who will be eating it, as DH hates rye in all forms) to at least 4 cups, until dough is "right" (the kitchenaid is useless with this recipe because this is the mystical "feel") , 1 Tb salt and 2 T oil (linseed and/or butter or lard is technically correct, olive is not. I tend to use either ghee, butter or canola, depending on what I have at the time.)
I let it rest usually overnight, but not more than that. Medieval bakers would have started the dough around Nones (3 or so in the afternoon) and baked it early in the morning, as soon as the ovens could be stoked back up to baking temps; baking was usually started around dawn in the late summer through to Lent and an hour or so after dawn from Lent to late summer. (This has to do with the fact that from late summer to Lent, there was enough food to eat three or four times a day, but as the supplies ran low, starting around Lent, fasting became a necessity until the next harvest.)
The loaf is shaped (it does well as a cottage loaf, but really shines if braided and salt-washed.) and placed on a baking stone to simulate the brick/mud beehive ovens I don't have space to build. Ice goes in the bottom of the oven and the bread bakes for 45 minutes (or until the probe thermometer reads 160.) It then must cool for a minimum of 1 hour.
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