Rather than opening up in one direction, where the ear lifts and the bread blooms, the dough just spreads apart with no real purpose. Without the proper score angle, the dough doesn’t have clear directional path to bloom.

On the other hand, if you score too vertically, the dough will form a double ear of sorts, but it won’t be fin-like it will be more bulky and round. It will start to lift the top part of the score, the shelf, only to realize it’s too heavy, So, it will start to collapse. If you score your dough at too sharp of an angle (think parallel to your work surface), your dough will likely be up against the same problem: it can’t lift the shelf. The blade angle of your lame is important for similar reasons as the depth. We’ve found that the optimal scoring depth is approximately 1/4″ / 6mm. This makes your loaf appear flat with less volume.

If the escaping steam can’t lift the shelf, then there is no bloom and shred which is what creates the ear your dough will simply allow steam to escape through the score and not open up, or bloom. Think of the score like a shelf that you’re creating, not just an incision that you’re making. In addition, if you score your dough too deeply, there ends up being too much dough for the steam to be able to lift. Steam will always find the weakest point in the dough in order to escape. As you can see in the video, the loaf that wasn’t scored suffered from multiple blowouts a blowout happens when the steam has no place to escape. The score is a road map of sorts to tell the steam where to go. We score bread to give the water in your dough a place to escape as steam as your dough heats up in the oven. No matter what type of bread you’re baking, scoring depth is one of the main reasons that bakers end up with an imperfect score.

Zatoba black walnut bread lame