In an online forum I have been a member of for several years, I’ve noticed certain trends in the questions asked. A few years ago, there were lots of questions about shaping techniques. And of course, there are the under- versus overproofed questions. But lately, I’ve noticed several questions regarding gummy crumbs and tough crust.

Lots of people jumped in and offered their opinions, and that’s great! But as with any hobby-based forum, there’s a lot of misinformation. For instance, in one thread, a person asked if the baker they used diastatic malt because they claimed that diastatic malt can cause a gummy crumb. I rolled my eyes when I saw that. I’ve used diastatic malt for years and have never gotten a gummy crumb. Softer, yes, but gummy? No way.

Others suggested lengthening bulk fermentation. Still others suggested shortening it. Some suggested doing more folds, while others suggested doing fewer folds. Holy shit!

For one post in particular, the picture the poster shared showed a nicely developed crumb. Upon inspection, it was ever so slightly underproofed as evidenced by the tighter bottom relative to the rest of the crumb. But it was close enough to be negligible. But indeed, the crumb seemed a little moist.

To be clear, the crumb was mostly airy, with a nice distribution of holes of diverse sizes, so gluten development wasn’t the issue (even though some suggested it was). In fact, in most of the posts I’ve seen on this subject, the crumbs of the loaves were mostly fine.

So, what might cause a gummy crumb? In all my years of baking, a gummy crumb is due to baking not being finished; specifically, not allowing enough time in the oven for the loaf to fully burn off the excess moisture from the dough.

Weather can have a lot to do with it. In summer months, when it tends to be drier, evaporation isn’t a problem. But when the weather turns and the temperature drops and the relative humidity increases, evaporation must be handled differently.

Irrespective of the weather, how does one fix a gummy crumb? Here are a couple of suggestions:

Bake at a lower temperature and a little longer. I know this seems unintuitive, but especially if you use a Dutch oven to bake your bread, sometimes the hot temperature (usu. around 475°F) doesn’t allow the crumb to get to a temperature that will evaporate the excess moisture. Then when you remove the lid and finally drop the oven temperature, the crust will brown, and the loaf will appear to be finished on the outside, but the crumb hasn’t had enough time to fully expel the moisture. By dropping the temperature of your oven to 450°F and lengthening the time with the lid on to 25-27 minutes as opposed to 20 minutes, you’ll slow the bake a bit but allow the insides to come up to temperature.

Remember, that first phase of baking with the lid on is where you’re trapping the evaporation of the water in the dough. You will still get a nice rise at the slightly lower temperature, and your crumb will have more time to get up to temperature. This also has the added advantage of slowing crust formation, allowing your loaf to really expand! It’s also why I’m a big proponent of adding a few ice chips underneath my parchment paper to keep the crust moist. The longer I can delay crust setting, the better chance my loaf has to expand from the inside (read: more open crumb).

After you remove the loaf from the Dutch oven, turn off your oven, then place the loaf right back on the rack for 15-20 minutes with the door slightly ajar. This is a process that Chad Robertson describes in his book “Tartine Bread” as curing, using the residual heat of the oven to help finish the bread. This does a final set of the crust but also serves to get that last bit of moisture out of the dough. I often do this with my sourdough loaves in the wintertime when the relative humidity is significantly higher than in the summer.

Finally, if you don’t have an instant read thermometer, do yourself a favor and get one. They’re less than $20. Why get one? Simply because to get a better feel for the doneness of a loaf, you need to take its internal temperature which should be no less than 195°F. You can’t simply rely on the color of the crust. It may look done on the outside, but until you take the internal temperature, you won’t know for certain.