No-knead sourdough bread is in the regular baking rotation at our house so I thought I’d share a couple of solutions to things that come up. (A little background on no-knead bread is here.)

First, there’s the matter of burnt bottom crusts. Putting the dough into a very well-heated vessel in a very hot oven can yield a dark and bitter crust once in a while. This has to do with the bottom of the pot getting hit with the greatest heat first and throughout the baking time. I’ve tried taking the bread out of its pot after 40 minutes and finishing it in the open air of the oven: it does work, but takes away from the simplicity of the no-knead method. (If you have a convection oven, this might not ever be an issue.)

Playing around with our ceramic cooker outside, which can sail up past 600 degrees, the necessity of a heat diffuser for anything that’s on the grill for more than a couple of minutes gave me an idea. If you slide a cooking sheet on a rack beneath the bread in its pot, the heat won’t hit the bottom full force. I have yet to see a bad crust this way.

The other thing can come up during very hot summer weather: the dough becomes floppier and harder to handle. Anyone working with artisan bread is familiar with wet and floppy dough. However, too much is too much. Adding more flour to stiffen it up drastically changes the character of the bread. A simple solution is to chill the dough in the fridge when you turn the oven on. It takes 30-40 minutes for our oven to heat the ceramic cast iron pot sufficiently. That’s perfect for cooling down the dough enough so that it naturally is easier to handle. (By the way, I’ve found putting fully-risen dough in the fridge until I can get back to it can be baked without returning it to room temperature.)