I'm building a bread loader or two.

[mrchipster]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Here is an example of a comercial loader for home use called the "Super Peel" it might give you some ideas on what to do.

I do not own one and have never tried it but food of thought.

Super Peel? - The Ultimate Baker's Transport Tool

Chip

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Ok, it's been a while but here is an example of the very basic loader that I've been thinking about or at least along the lines of. It need tuning and needs to evolve, but it's a start. The yardstick keeps the linen from pulling into the oven. It hold outside the oven and when the bottom of the linen is pulled, the plywood is pulled out and the loaves are deposited on the bake stone.

Oh yes, the loaves need work, shaping and slashing but otherwise but the loader worked.

Things I learned and what needs to be refined.

1 There is a fair amount of resistance when the linen is pulled and I need to add some cornmeal or rice flour between the linen and the plywood.

2 The direction of the face on the plywood needs to be perpendicular to the direction that the linen will be pulled to avoid the potential to catch.

I'll need to increase the size and complexity when I make something for the WFO.

Chris

PS The cast iron and shelf there on were replaced after the bake was finished.
And the Boules baked in the cast iron and, of course, my helper.

[Les]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

What keeps the linen from turning into smoke when this is moved into the oven I watched a video yesterday with a guy dropping three loaves from one peel - way above my pay grade

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

The linen is unprotected and I need to do some testing above 500F to verify that I don't need some underlying protection in a WFO. At a pre-heated 500F oven on the bake stone I'm not smelling any smoke but it's not staying on the heat long. I'm imagining a couple of hardwood skids that raise the linen off the WFO deck and allow me to slide the whole thing into position.

Re Pros loading loaves, I've seen boules loaded 3 to a peel, pretty slick, but I haven't seen shapes like baguettes and epi dropped from peels. I'm sure it's done and I have great respect for the pro that can do it en mass. Yep, Way above my grade..

Chris

[vtsteve]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Every time I do baguettes, I wish I had a rectangular oven . I have an 18" wide x 36" bread peel; I can only place 5 full-length baguettes at a time, in the middle of the floor. If I try to slip in a couple more on the sides, they usually come out bent .

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

vsteve, so with the bent baguettes, slice before anyone sees them.

:-)

Chris

[texassourdough]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

The loader looks interesting! The boules look great. Welcome to the DARK side!
Jay

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Thanks Jay! As I said, the loader will evolve and hopefully can be practical for the WFO.

Chris

PS. The battard / bagettes are IDY not sourdough. I needed dough that could be / can be made quickly and without worrying about much of anything and the instant dry yeast, IDY, is convenient that way. It's not picky about temp and proofs quicker than sourdough. As time goes on and I get more comfortable with shaping and the device I'll go sourdough starter.

[JOSHUAFINANCIAL]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Hi - I know this is a pretty old thread, but wondered what happened.
Chris I came to the same conclusion as you.

I'm about to try a different (slicker) material than linen or canvas, as well as sanded maple instead of sanded plywood.

Here's a hand-held commercial bread loader. It's a couple inches too wide for my oven, but might work for some folks: Deck Oven Loader - YouTube

The hard way:
It occurred to me that most conveyor systems have rollers underneath the conveyor belt. and that would reduce most of the friction.

how about a design something like a ladder with the rungs closer together.

Use dowels as rungs. Run the dowels through pieces of galvanized pipe cut to size before attaching ends to the rails. These pipes can act as rollers. Use a food-grade adhesive to create some light tack on the pipes and on the underside of the conveyor belt material. (Maybe honey would work!) This light tackiness will roll the pipes under the conveyor in lieu of bearings.

Or - use some heavy aluminum bar stock and wood to create a sturdy rectangular frame. Use the dowel+pipe rollers only on the two ends, and only at the top of the frame. The canvas (or whatever conveyor belt material) would have to be made to stretch taught between the two short ends of the rectangle. Then the canvas only has friction at the points touching the two pipes (one at each end of the conveyor loop/rectangular frame).

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Josh,
I'm going simple stupid on the first loaders and I'll see where it takes me. I hope to load 8 - 900 gram boules next sunday. It might not sound a bunch of loaves but I hope to get it in a single sweep. The simple stupid device, my first WFO loader will be about 40" long and something like 19.5" wide. The door is 20, the linen is 18 the depth of the oven floor covered by the loader is about 36". I awoke to the awareness that we home bakers use a few friction reducing materials and corn meal is just one of them. Since the area that I want to reduce friction is between the linen and the board, the loader platform, and since what ever the material is used to do this will end up on the linen not the deck, I could use corn meal and not worry about it burning. I have another candidate in mind, parchment paper. The cornmeal may be the best option in the end but for slippery and a tolerance for heat, in this case very brief heating, parchment can't be beat. so I'm taking a sheet of nice birch plywood and sanding clean the delivery end, with a bit of a bevel, and wrapping about a 7 foot piece of parchment and then about a 7 foot piece of linen over this. I may just cover the top of the ply with the parchment, using tape to hold it, but I wouldn't want the tape to peel on delivery. I want to add a couple of wood rollers, I could use something else but I don't want to cut the bricks or leave some nasty residue.

More to come as I have more time to write.

Chris

[cobblerdave]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Gudday Chris
I now use rice flour instead of cornmeal after seeing it in the forum. Works as well and no crunchy bits
Regards dave

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

The rice flour is the way to go for under the pizza on the peel and flouring the bread proofing tools like brotforms and linen etc.. It may be that like these rice flour between the linen and the loader board is what works best. It's simple and available..

Chris

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Ok, Saturday morning at 7. To proof a loader I need a batch of bread to load, so.

I soaked overnight;
330g of fresh milled Rye
330g of fresh milled Spelt
3840g of AP flour (Guisto's Organic All Family All AP flour)
3L of spring water

The night before I also mixed 1600g of levain at 100% hydration
300g of starter
650g water
300g of WW flour
350g of AP flour

The oven floor at 6am was 700F, so I'm ready to mix but I want the levain to have a bit more time to ripen..

At 7:45 all of the soaker and 1550G of the levain were combined and 20 minutes later 90g of salt and 130g of water were mixed in. 50g of starter were held back to continue the starter.

My standard starter is;
50g of WW flour
50g of AP flour
100g of water
50g of starter


Chris

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

Continuing..

Included is a picture of the levain and the soaker before being combined, the dough after mixing and adding the salt mixture, and the new batch of starter.


Chris

[SCChris]

Re: I'm building a bread loader or two.

The loader.
The plywood id 18" by 46" 3/4" birch cabinet grade, it's over kill but it's what I had. I cut a 45 degree angle on the delivery end and kept a 1/4" of vertical to facilitate the linen rolling back. I sanded all edges and attached 4 wheels, two small ones at the delivery end and two larger ones about 3/4 of the way back. I wrapped the loader with 15 inch wide parchment that was taped in place for the test. I then wrapped the loader in linen that I sewed a small pocket in one end to hold a stick to keep the linen from being pulled into the oven and around the plywood. This is I suppose is a dead many for the pulley. The front wheels allow about a 1/4 inch of space for the returning linen so no weight of the loader sits on the linen.

The loader works very slick. The loaves roll off the end and drop nicely onto the oven deck.

My estimation of how much space the loaves were going to take on the linen was on the low side. If I had reduced the hydration or the amount of dough from 850g to 750g I would have avoided the loaves kissing each other and would likely have had a better bake. I was able to put 11 loaves into the oven, the full 9Kg plus of the batch. I could also have not worried the deck temps down so far, another 30F would have helped the color.

Chris