Secrets to french bread?!
Answers:
There are three things that I have found that help make a better french loaf
1) Use a pre-ferment recipe. essentially it means starting the yeast activity the day before you make the bread. Not really much more difficult, just requires you plan. Google pre-ferment to get recipes
2) Use a stone that is pre-heated with the oven and a peel to slide the bread onto the stone
3) Steam. It's the burst of steam thats important (not a constant flow of moistness). What I do is to take some boiling water and put it into a pan in the bottom of the oven. I take a small cast iron skillet (very small) and heat it stovetop for 5 minutes. One minute after I put the bread in the oven, I put the hot cast iron skillet into the hot water in the oven and create a burst of steam.
To create steam in the oven you need an oven proof bowl of water and turn the oven on low heat and put the water on the bottom of the oven to create the steam.
used to work in a bakery and baked at least 40 french bread per day