How to Not Burn the Bottom of Artisan Dutch Oven Sourdough

Are the bottom crusts of your artisan dutch oven sourdough loaves, getting too dark?

That happens a lot with dutch oven bread. You are placing your sourdough, in a cast-iron dutch oven that has been preheated to 550 degrees, and then bake around 400-450. Depending on the size of the loaf, the bottom crust might get overdone or burned.

One way to avoid this is to bake smaller loaves that don’t stay in the dutch oven as long.

But another way, is to place something in the bottom of the dutch oven to diffuse the heat.

I had woken up thinking about this, several mornings in a row, and it dawned on me. I had a stone or marble trivet in one of my cupboards. The hubs had gotten it for me, but we just never kept it on the table and it was relegated to the bottom of a cupboard, out of the way, but not quite sent to Goodwill yet. Anyone relate?

The marble trivet was exactly the size needed to fit right inside my enameled cast iron dutch oven. I scraped off the 4 little foam pads on the bottom, and set it inside my “sourdough bread only” dutch oven. Yes, friends, I only use this dutch oven for bread.
It was a cheaper enameled dutch oven, and I’ve read lower quality enameled dutch ovens can have lead issues, so I don’t feel like simmering soup in it. Plus, since it’s a designated bread dutch oven, I never have to look for it. It is always in my bottom oven, unless I’m baking something else.

So, here you can see me lowering the trivet into my bread dutch oven. The fit is perfect.

I confess, this was an experiment that I just hoped would work for my longer baking sourdough breads.

You can see here, that this loaf of Kamut / Whole wheat Sourdough, got a little overdone.

I will call this a success! The bottom was done, but not too done!

Let me know if you try this, or what you find works even better! I was actually thinking of getting an unglazed clay tile, when this trivet that I already had, came to mind.

Your sourdough baking friend,

Anne Dovel