Late T-Day Bread post

[MK1]

I know this is on the late side, but I had to show the Thanksgiving day bakery effort. Sorry I don't have a picture of the crumb, but my son absconded with all back to school, (he's pictured below).
It was quite a day. Started at 5AM firing the oven. It was a little hot (800F) at one when the bread had to go in so I used an electric leaf blower to bring the temps down. The long loaves are Reinharts baguettes, the boules are Hammelmans Vermont sourdough. The lad also made a chestnut pannetone that was outstanding. My son, Ian gets such a thrill out of this WFO. Thanks to all here.

Mark

[Pdiff]

Re: Late T-Day Bread post

Wow! Those are nice. Sure hope he enjoyed that haul!! Those boules are beautiful.

So here's a question for you and others: What kind of strategy or management do you use when baking that much bread? How many loaves are going in at once and do you move them around at all or just let them bake until done? I've baked as much as 8 at a time, but found it very challenging in my 42" dome. It was hard to keep track of which ones had been in the longest, etc.

Pdiff

[MK1]

Re: Late T-Day Bread post

Pdiff,
It takes the 2 of us to load as fast as we can. The baguettes are baked first and the last couple of minutes I sometimes move the lighter side near the edge of the dome.
It takes about 90 seconds to load the oven and they seem to all bake at pretty much the same rate. I'm sure there are minor internal temp differences but not too much that I can tell. The boules bake about 30-35 minutes so the average is pretty close.

Mark

[doughforthesoul]

Re: Late T-Day Bread post

Hi Mark,those loaves are beautiful. I am in slc,ut and would like to make contact with people who are baking with wood fired ovens. I haven't had much success finding anyone around this area. I am a newbie to this kind of baking and to be honest I have not baked much bread in my lifetime but I am starting my self education and it is quite the journey. How long have you been baking this way? Did you go to school or learn on your own? What part of Idaho do you live in? So many questions I know but thats what happens when your trying to learn as much as possible. Look forward to hearing from you. Carol

[Jed]

Re: Late T-Day Bread post

Hi Carol,

Welcome to this forum.

We are a collection of mostly back yard foodies, who were enticed by the challenge of building a wood fired oven to expand our culinary possibilities...

Several of the group have extensive bread baking experience and are happy to coach on the subject. Many of us are surprised that we can produce a loaf of bread at all, let alone a quality and style of bread that is good enough that we don't want to lower our standards so much as to have to buy a loaf of bread at the local grocery store!

If you read through these forum topics:

Hearth Bread and Flatbread - Forno Bravo Forum: The Wood-Fired Oven Community

you will earn an advanced education in this specific topic, baking artisan bread in a wood fired oven.

Good luck with your project and if you decide to build an oven, we can help (with the coaching from afar...)!

JED

[texassourdough]

Re: Late T-Day Bread post

Hi Mark!

I missed those first time through! Very nice! Good work!
Jay

[Pdiff]

Re: Late T-Day Bread post

Hi Carol,
I'd certainly second Jed's welcome. I don't know about Mark, but I live in the Northern part of Idaho, a bit far from SLC, I'm afraid. If you are ever "up this way", I'd be happy to show you an oven :-), but I bet if you search/ask around the forum here, you find someone close by.

Pdiff

[doughforthesoul]

Re: Late T-Day Bread post

Thanks for the welcome! Seems like everyone is friendly and willing to give advice. As soon as my sourdough starter is ready I will be joining the rest of you with many post and pics. Would love to build a wood fired oven but until then I will have to be content in a traditional kitchen. Happy Baking! Well this morning I think I made a mistake. I waited for my sourdough starter for 48 hours and then for some weird reason decided to add stuff to it instead of waiting for a show of bubbles and such. I started with 3.5 TBSP of flour and 1/4 c of pineapple juice from a can of pineapple. This morning I added by mistake 2 TBSPof distilled water instead of juice so I added 2 more TBSP of juice and added 4 TBSP of flour.
I need to know if I need to start again? Help
Carol