Richmond, VA Bread Oven

[rtnathan]

Hi all, great to be part of this community. I'm a retired chef, pastry chef and baker (among other things) in Richmond, VA. I've been mulling a bread oven for some time. I don't have tons of space and it'll mostly be a test oven, but I'd like to build something that with handle a bunch of loaves, stay hot for a couple of days and manage to keep steam in contact with the loaves. Most of the pizza ovens I've worked with have had domes or arches that are just too high for steam management or have their doors too larger or on the wrong side of the flue or are just too thin to bake for long after the fire is cleared. I've found great resources on this site and I've only scratched the surface. I'm around if anybody has any suggestions. Also looking for a mason that knows this stuff that is close enough to help me out. - Rick

[SableSprings]

Welcome to the forum community, Rick! I have a 39" (ID) brick dome and use it primarily for bread. I fire it with a load of wood at night and normally bake between 15-20 loaves in the cleared oven (ashes removed). I generally do batches of 8-10 baguettes at 575F (ish - no temp dial ) and then fit in larger whole wheat rounds a little later as the oven cools down about 100F. I did not provide as much floor and dome insulation as I wanted ($$) originally but I can still cook roasts, chickens, or a couple half sheets of biscotti after my bread bake is done. I'm keeping my weight down by giving the bulk of my bread bakes to my neighborhood... Kind of my retirement hobby. I have a brother-in-law with brick working skills to help me get started but did most of the work myself. Didn't have any masonry skills to begin with & you'll find that's a common theme for the WFOs built here.

I suspect you'll find friends that will help with the build when they find out there may be pizza & bread rewards in their future. Just perusing the documented build threads and downloading the free plans from Forno Bravo for now will be well worth your time (especially the newbie survey thread by LBurou in the Newbie Forum section).

[rtnathan]

That sounds great! Exactly the kind of thing I want to do - perhaps a bit smaller and less production at first. What's the inside height of the dome? Is it a half sphere or is it flattened?
Thanks!

[SableSprings]

In my signature line is a link to my build thread of The Dragonfly Den. My oven is a Pompeii style (half sphere) not the flattened Naples style. I think all my specs/dimensions are in the build thread and my opening height to internal height ratio is less than the perfect 63% but performs just fine for my bakes. I'm on the road right now so I don't have those specs at my finger tips (or in my memory ) at the moment so hopefully the build thread will have what you need.