How a loaf gets baked is dependent on what type of loaf I am baking. If it is a soft sandwich loaf it is straight forward. Preheat the oven to the specified temperature. When the oven is up to temperature put the loaf pan(s) in the oven, bake for the prescribed time and remove from the oven. Easy.
If it is going to be a crusty loaf then it becomes more challenging. I want to hear the crust cracking (the song of the bread) as it cools. To get that the baking needs to start out with steam an be baked at a high temperature. Artisanal bakeries use steam injected deck ovens but they’re not practical for most home bakers. First is cost, then there’s the weight and finally the venting.
The internet is loaded with hacks to help the home baker to get results like an artisanal bakery. I have tried a number of them with varying degrees of success.
My favorite is to use an enameled cast iron dutch oven. This only works for round loaves so that is a limitation. The dutch oven we use came from L. L. Bean years ago. It is unique in that the handle on the lid is cast as part of the lid. No worries about a plastic handle melting at the temperatures used. It has stood up to 500+ F numerous times. Some of the newer enameled !cast iron dutch ovens I have looked at are limited to 400 F. I have also read reports of dutch ovens breaking in the oven at high temperatures.
My practice is to preheat the oven with the dutch oven in it with the lid ajar for 1 hour at 500 F. When the dough is ready to go I transfer it to the dutch oven on a sheet of parchment paper. If the dough is at 75% hydration or more the lid goes on, the oven shut and the temperature reduced to baking temperature, usually 450 F. If the dough hydration is less than 75%, I will spritz the loaf with water 5 or 6 times before closing things up and reducing the temperature.
A different method is needed for anything other than a round loaf. We have a pizza stone that we have had for years that pizzas and bread are baked on. My practice was always to spritz the loaf with water when it went in on the stone and then 3 or 4 more times during the first 10 minutes of baking. Results were just barely ok, but not always consistent.
Then I learned about using an inverted roasting pan over a loaf on a baking stone on Northwest Sourdough. This of course will work with both round and oblong loaves. Again, lower hydration loaves will need spritzing. While this works better than not covering, I prefer the results from the dutch oven. My wife prefers the results from the inverted roasting pan on the stone. I like the thicker, chewier crust from the dutch oven and she likes the thinner less chewy crust that results from the inverted roasting pan. My guess is that the dutch oven is trapping more steam than the inverted roasting pan.
Finally, this past week I tried a different method. This works if only baking one loaf of bread. It uses the dutch oven. The dough is placed in the cold dutch oven. The covered dutch oven is then placed in a cold oven. The the oven is turned on to baking temperature which in this case was 450 F. Timing starts when the oven reaches the set temperature. This time it was 20 minutes with the lid on, then 20 minutes with the lid off. This worked flawlessly with results equaling the preheat everything method. And with less fuss than worrying about burning yourself loading a loaf into a 500 F pot. Just take the loaf out of the fridge, slash it, set it in the cold dutch oven, cover the pot and put it in the cold oven and turn it on. No need for parchment paper but I did dust the bottom of the dutch oven with a little rice flour. There was no sticking at all when the loaf came out of the pot. This will be my method going forward if only baking one round loaf.