I'd definitely appreciate any advice people can offer.
I've just baked a boule of the basic sourdough bread and it came out pretty tasty. There's one downside: after I let it cool for a few hours on a wire rack, the bread's solid crusty shell softened along with the rest of the boule itself. What looked like a hard boule with the crisp, outer shell of a good baguette became soft and almost cakelike after cooling. It tastes fine, but it's unlike the crispy boules I've seen in good bakeries.
So here's my question! How can I make my bread maintain the solid, crispy structure it has when it's fresh from the oven?
Here's the bread below. Oven spring could've been better, I suppose. It didn't really open up as much as I'd hoped.
On a final note, many thanks for the podcasts and videos on this site. They've been a terrific resource.