One of my favourite customers came in this morning and we got chatting about sourdough. She's a fantastic baker and brought me a sourdough brownie recipe a while ago, when she came for an overlocker class. Anyway, I told her the sad tale of the demise of Claude the Starter, and she very kindly popped back in this afternoon with a little pot of her own 40-year-old starter - which was originally given to her by a professional baker from Wexford! How kind was that?!
I've never used a Dutch oven, but I might give it a try after my recent failures. Is there anything I need to do differently? Do I need to put a tray of water in the oven, for instance - or does the Dutch oven do the job that the water would?
Although I've only done the Dutch Oven method once (twice if you count the one in the oven now that I'm not confident about) I think that the other part of the not needing to add steam story is that the bread needs to have a high level of hydration in order to create enough steam in the first place. So I don't think it would work on a non-sticky dough, at least not as well. I am not experienced though. 
Anyway, we'll see in less than an hour. I'll brace myself.
