I recentlig purchased a few baskets and have made a few breads since.
The first time using them, I left the cloth inside the basket and covered it with flour. I was running out of time and had to take the breads out of the baskets before they had poofed enough. They collapsed into a flat bread when taken out of the basket. According to fluffiness, they were like my old breads, not fluffy.
I have gone back to basic and studied lots of sourdough movies. One challenge it that most movies show bread with white dough. And I use as much wholegrain as I can. First I give the flour and water a rest before adding the yeast. I have dropped my "no dirty hands" method. Now I tear and fold the dough by hand many times. Although I still use the handmixer to stir in the starter. The dough seems really to hang together when shaping it.
The second time using the baskets, I took the cloth out of the baskets and added a lot of flour to the basket. Let it poof overnight in the fridge. When taking out, the dough was glued to the bottom of the basket and became a disaster like described above. It was still my best bread ever, apart from the shape. It was pretty fluffy.
To make it more difficult this morning, I am using an traditional type grain, called emmer (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. dicoccum), although I added a little traditional type wheat as well. I might need to bake them in the shape, as these old grains have less gluten than modern grain and might not keep their shape as well. I will check on the farmer's webside if they have some advise.
I think that keeping the cloth inside the poofing basket is the best method to take the dough out of it. The dough will fall out of the basket nicely and you can then carefully drag off the cloth. But ypu won't get the pretty pattern that the baskets have when using the cloth.
