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Well I've been busy this week baking bread for a xmas craft show we have in the lunch room at work. I had a pretty good result with yesterdays bake, and sold out within 14 minutes of arriving at work today! I made lepinja, sourdough boules in both wholemeal and white, and rosemary & onion foccacias.
Earlier in the week, I did a load of bread but found that the oven temperature dropped very quickly, and while they came out cooked the crusts didn't have much colour. I fired up the oven until the dome was clear, a bit under 1.5 hours from the first twig igniting. Then I spread the coals and left for another 10 minutes before raking out and baking. Initially the temperature was over 250c (that's all I can say as I am using a standard oven thermometer until I get an IR one). However after doing just 1 load of 12 small baguettes, the temperature dropped to around 160C. My thinking was that the inner surfaces of the bricks must have been nice and hot but the not the outer parts, and as soon as I took out the heat source the temperature started to equalise and cool down overall. Does this make sense/seem likely?
My oven has a 100mm floor (4 inch) of clay pavers, and the dome is made out of halved heavy clay pavers. I have minimum 80mm of castable insulation under the floor and outside the dome. It's has never been uncomfortably warm to touch on the outside so far. My door is just pine plank until I put a better one together, and I stop it burning by soaking in water in advance.
With my second bake yesterday I built a bigger fire from the start, and probably used marginally better wood as well. The dome was clear after around 1 hour, and I made a little space to do a few quick pizzas using scraps of dough. They cooked in around 60-90 seconds as usual. Then I raked the fire back to the middle and built it up again using 6-8 quartered small logs. This started to die down after another 30 minutes and I cleared a space again and did my 4 foccacias. I spread the coals over the floor and left them for 10 mins before cleaning out the oven.
First I cooked 4 lepinja, which were done very quickly as in the pictures below. Then I gave the oven a good burst with a mister hose to get some steam, and put in 8 x 850g sourdough boules. These were done fairly fast as well, maybe 25 minutes. After taking these out the oven was around 170C, so I don't think I could have pulled off another load of hearth-style breads at this point.
I guess my question after all that rambling is whether this is typical behaviour for a pompeii oven? Do I need to look at refiring if I want to do more than 2 small-moderate loads, or could I get more retained heat if I fire it even longer? This lot came out well and I wouldn't often need to do more but a lot of people are asking me for more at work so you never know.
Of course my thermometer sitting on the floor might not be that accurate and it will be good to get an IR model soon to get a better idea about temperatures. I almost wish I installed thermocouples now, would have been interesting at least!
Earlier in the week, I did a load of bread but found that the oven temperature dropped very quickly, and while they came out cooked the crusts didn't have much colour. I fired up the oven until the dome was clear, a bit under 1.5 hours from the first twig igniting. Then I spread the coals and left for another 10 minutes before raking out and baking. Initially the temperature was over 250c (that's all I can say as I am using a standard oven thermometer until I get an IR one). However after doing just 1 load of 12 small baguettes, the temperature dropped to around 160C. My thinking was that the inner surfaces of the bricks must have been nice and hot but the not the outer parts, and as soon as I took out the heat source the temperature started to equalise and cool down overall. Does this make sense/seem likely?
My oven has a 100mm floor (4 inch) of clay pavers, and the dome is made out of halved heavy clay pavers. I have minimum 80mm of castable insulation under the floor and outside the dome. It's has never been uncomfortably warm to touch on the outside so far. My door is just pine plank until I put a better one together, and I stop it burning by soaking in water in advance.
With my second bake yesterday I built a bigger fire from the start, and probably used marginally better wood as well. The dome was clear after around 1 hour, and I made a little space to do a few quick pizzas using scraps of dough. They cooked in around 60-90 seconds as usual. Then I raked the fire back to the middle and built it up again using 6-8 quartered small logs. This started to die down after another 30 minutes and I cleared a space again and did my 4 foccacias. I spread the coals over the floor and left them for 10 mins before cleaning out the oven.
First I cooked 4 lepinja, which were done very quickly as in the pictures below. Then I gave the oven a good burst with a mister hose to get some steam, and put in 8 x 850g sourdough boules. These were done fairly fast as well, maybe 25 minutes. After taking these out the oven was around 170C, so I don't think I could have pulled off another load of hearth-style breads at this point.
I guess my question after all that rambling is whether this is typical behaviour for a pompeii oven? Do I need to look at refiring if I want to do more than 2 small-moderate loads, or could I get more retained heat if I fire it even longer? This lot came out well and I wouldn't often need to do more but a lot of people are asking me for more at work so you never know.
Of course my thermometer sitting on the floor might not be that accurate and it will be good to get an IR model soon to get a better idea about temperatures. I almost wish I installed thermocouples now, would have been interesting at least!
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