I received an enamel Dutch oven for Christmas. I wanted to try Artisan bread but was scared to preheat it empty at 450F for fear of ruining it. I found your wonderful technique using the cold oven method and I can't tell you how perfectly my bread turned out. I made buttermilk rye and used your approximate timing of everything involved. I wrote down my rising times, cold oven to exact temp time, baking time, removing lid time and will use this as my future guide to baking Artisan bread. My bread is delicious as your well-explained experiences/tests took my first attempt of Artisan bread to a total success. Thank you so much for sharing with us.

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