Frankly, that sounds scary and seems like a lotta work to me. I bake sourdough starting at 500F and I’d worry about even wet towels at that temp, plus not sure I’d want to eat the steam of a wet towel. Opening a steamy dryer never seemed like a yummy flavor (compared to steamy bathroom). Kinda has a bit of a wet dog appeal to me. And it sounds like it still wants you to do the ice cube trick in another pan (which ended up rusting mom‘s cast iron pan when I tried it).
Frankly the easiest answer here is a Dutch oven. Plus, it gives excellent results. Excellent. I’ve never looked back after that. Toss the bread in the preheated Dutch, quick spray the hot lid with water, put it on…the end. I can share my bread meetup group all agreed it was the best way as we did a bake-off of methods test. About 15 of us tried several methods and dutch oven was the clear winner.
If I want a long loaf I’ve done the hot water wet roasting pan lid over bread (but that was before I owned a baking stone). I did that using a lowly baking sheet inverted. (Oh the humanity!) However, I find little reason to need a long loaf. Except for parties as a base for an appetizer and frankly I just buy a baguette for that. I actually have a clay baker, but haven’t tried it for bread. It is said to give great results. It could give me a rectangle, but again, haven’t felt the need. I haven’t even used the baking stone because the Dutch oven is easier. I have mom’s old black cast iron one that went camping and made horrible pot roast on the stove top (sorry mom). Feels good to bring it back into service for such a noble thing as bread. Ymmv.
