I'm about to start my second go at this recipe. The main issue I had with the first one -- though the bread was absolutely edible -- was that I didn't let it do its final rise for long enough. I thought the heat would make 2 hours fine, and the dough looked nice and puffy, but the crumb was off. (I've made this mistake before with other loaves, so I know what's up.) I'm going to try 3 hours this time and see how it goes.

I'm thinking of letting them steam longer, too. I have an oven with a steam function, and I used it at max strength for the first five minutes, as the oven's recipe book gives for normal french bread. Are there any suggestions for this kind of thing? Fwiw, the crust was lovely, but so much of the joy of bread (for me at least) is in the experimentation.

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