I make my bread doughs in the bread machine and bake the bread free form on a sheet of parchemnt paper sprinkled with cornmeal. If you want to use the pan of hot water in the oven you would leave it in the whole time. It should not have made your rye crust that hard. I prefer to bake my breads in the am and them pop them in the over for 5 minutes at 350 degrees . This makes an excellent hard crust for french and italian breads. I took a bread class from a great instructor and this was the bes thing that I learned from her bread classes.