Hello from Pennsylvania

[McLane]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

We had our weekly kitchen staff meeting this morning, and one of the items up for discussion was my research on a brick bread oven. What became even more clear, is the need to make lots of bread, with pizza being a "wouldn't it be nice if we could serve pizza once and a while" deal. I suggested that we should investigate the possibility that we leave room for a second oven, so that if this takes off we will have room to grow. I shared the info that it's easy to cook bread in a "pizza oven", but hard to make pizza in one that is designed to bake bread. The thought that we will be interested in a commercial gas-fired, stainless steel behemoth is a thing of the past, especially in light that anything we looked at was priced in excess of $20,000. There seems to be a definite commitment to build a brick oven from scratch, although we are open to the possibility that we may opt for some commercially manufactured parts, such as preformed dome components. Being new to this subject, I do not yet know the pros & cons related to construction methods and/or materials of a brick oven. Be patient, I'm a fast learner, but I don't know anything yet; as I'm operating totally outside my realm of expertise.

There is talk about us entering the small-scale retail arena as a means to offset operating costs for the kitchen. There has also been talk of creating a monthly dinner theater/improve night type of production to offset the cost of the food service, as we currently budget about $1200 per week to feed people at our various services. One thing we do not want to do, is throw our hat into a retail venture that is already in place within our community. Edinboro is a college town, and in its existence as such, there are 7 pizza shops currently operating in town. We have no interest in entering a market that would directly compete with ventures that are already in place. There are however, no shops in town that offer bread of any type save the local supermarket, and I'm not aware of a wood-fired oven being used to prepared any type food in our entire region. With that said, there is a very real possibility that we will enter the "small scale" bread business, where due to the lack of any financial overhead, coupled with the volunteer nature of the church, we could offer an incredible product to our community at a relatively low cost. The real question that will remain at the end of the day is, do we build round or barrel, and how big does it need to be.

Several of you have offered to assist me directly on this project, and I thank you so very much for your willingness to help out. I will be in touch with you soon, as the current schedule will have us "breaking ground" on the kitchen renovation sometime this spring. What I need to do now, besides continuing this dialog, is to comb through the threads on this site so that I may learn as much as I can about the art of baking with wood. Then, with your help, we will embark on a truly fantastic journey!

Again, many thanks,

Dave

[brokencookie]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Hey Dave
If you are going commercial or feeding so many of the "public" have you checked with your local health dept regaring their requirements for an oven ? In my county I have to use a certified and inspected kitchen for any food item sold to the public.
Besides my day job as a QA/QC chemist I run a small jam making operation. It took me almost a year to convince the local health dept that a 100 year old process was safe ! I basically had to train an health agent before I could get approval to market a product. I then had to complete a dept of agriculture course in food manufacturing before selling the first jar.
These things are do-able but can be time consuming.

Not to rain on your parade, just a few thoughts that might help avoid some complications.

Bruce

[McLane]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Hey Dave
If you are going commercial or feeding so many of the "public" have you checked with your local health dept regaring their requirements for an oven ? In my county I have to use a certified and inspected kitchen for any food item sold to the public.
Besides my day job as a QA/QC chemist I run a small jam making operation. It took me almost a year to convince the local health dept that a 100 year old process was safe ! I basically had to train an health agent before I could get approval to market a product. I then had to complete a dept of agriculture course in food manufacturing before selling the first jar.
These things are do-able but can be time consuming.

Not to rain on your parade, just a few thoughts that might help avoid some complications.

Bruce

Very good point Bruce. The driving force for the renovation is that in order to charge for food (as in a dinner theater or similar production), the kitchen must be certified by the Health Department of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. PA health regulations also state that at least 1 person who is certified in food safety must be on the premises at all times. We currently have 2 certified food safety individuals, and I will be taking the course this summer to get certified as well. This renovation will be quite spectacular, as we will be adding a very large walk-in cooler/freezer to our tools, as well as a state-mandated fire suppression/ventilation system that we currently lack. We currently are able to prepare a whole lot of food fast, as we have a good deal of commercial quality food prep equipment. But our kitchen in its current setup does not have the ability to be certified, so operating something as simple as a monthly dinner theater is out of the question until we build the new kitchen.

[brokencookie]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Sounds like you have it covered. Good for you !! It's nice to see someone in a church plan and execute. I have run into many congregrations that stumble into things and fly by the seat of the pants.
In addition to a food handlers permit, I also am a card carrying food services/ safety manager. I think you will find that the course work for your certification is not especially difficult, just detailed common sense ( with a few govermental hoops to just through). Good luck

Bruce

[brokencookie]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Just reread your last post. You are required to have a fire suppresion system ?? Is that for the kitchen itself or due to the public seating areas.

In my area I get a lot of hassles about septic systems, plumbing, and refrigeration equpiment. The inspectors have not yet commented about fire suppression.

If you need fire suppression in the kitchen area they might get sticky about locating it near the WFO.

Bruce

[McLane]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Yes, you need a certified ventilation system as well as a fire suppression system. The type of system has an official name, I think it's called a "halo" system, but I'm not sure.

[james]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

This is all very exciting. It will be great to watch your progress and help in any way we can.

There are two basic issues you will have to address with local authorities -- safety/fire and sanitation. FB is in the final stages of UL approval for our ovens, and I have learned a lot about these topics -- including how time consuming it can be. :-)

I agree with the idea of talking to your local authorities, including building, fire and sanitation/health early. You can tackle the issues, but you need to start early.

James

[brokencookie]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

It's probably a Halon system. We have them at the refinery when I work. It's a nice system. It is capable of putting out types A,B, and C fires (virturally all varieties), leaves no residue, and will not destroy electical equipment like a water or chemical powder system.
Just some more random thoughts. A ventilation system is basically an air exchange. My lab has a requirement to exchange all of the air in the lab 6 times an hour. This is a bit extreme for most applications. However, the more air exchanges you have, the harder it is to maintain temperatures. FB Forum creed -- You can never have enough insulation.
During your planing, check to the direction of flow of your ventilation. Having your blower push cold air directly into your ovens is counter productive and makes them fuel hogs. We have found that we can maintain the needed exchanges without blowing air directly onto heating sources. Some of ours run @ 1100 Degrees C ( just a little datum for the metric guys). When the air blows on them we can only get up to about 1025 degrees C. So we adjust our vents to blow parallel across the front of the unit and not directly at it.
Maybe you can put your oven on the outside of the building with just the opening exposed to the kitchen area.

You can't always think of everything, but you're doing a great job. I can't think of anything you appear to a missed.

Keep up the good work

Bruce

[McLane]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Maybe you can put your oven on the outside of the building with just the opening exposed to the kitchen area.

That idea came up very early in the discussion, but with the winter temps that we have around here (last Sunday the high was 5 degrees F), the thought is that it would take far too long to heat the unit up to a temp that would bake bread.

[CanuckJim]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Dave,

Just a point or two to stress. You WILL have to educate fire officials about what a WFO actually is, the fact that it does not radiate heat, the fact that the chimney does not smoke, the fact that very few, if any, sparks are created outside (providing proper wood is burned), the fact that the entire operation is meant to keep heat in, not bleed it into the building, the fact that it is neither a woodstove nor a fireplace. My fire chief was very sceptical at first, but then he came to the conclusions, A. I'm an eccentric loony, B. My oven is a giant, eccentric, BBQ. Moral: he's weird but harmless.

It might be a lot easier for you, as suggested, to build the oven in a lean to attached to an exterior wall, with only the oven mouth projecting into the kitchen area. This might solve a lot of regulatory problems, but I'm not all that certain in your location.

From a strictly commercial point of view, the margin on bread is low, the margin on pizza is high.

Go figure.

Jim

[brokencookie]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Dave,
A. I'm an eccentric loony, B. My oven is a giant, eccentric, BBQ. Moral: he's weird but harmless.
Jim

Ha,Ha, Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Same experience I have had. But they probably added

C. Persistent Pain in the Rear (with crazy technical questions)

[james]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

From a strictly commercial point of view, the margin on bread is low, the margin on pizza is high.

Go figure.

Jim

I'm going to start a VPN pizzeria when I grow up.
James

[brokencookie]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

I'm going to start a VPN pizzeria when I grow up.
James

Don't grow up James. It sucks the fun out of everything !

[gjbingham]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

Jim,
Is that really true about the low margin on bread? Maybe in Canada? The stores and bakeries around here charge $3.50 a loaf for artisan baked bread. Same price at the farmer's markets. I rarely buy it because its so expensive, and I can make my own at home (once again, though rarely do).
George

[CanuckJim]

Re: Hello from Pennsylvania

George,

The margin question has to do with time, not cost of ingredients, unless you're adding things like olives or walnuts. True artisan bread baked in a wood fired oven takes an enormous amount of time: wood gatering and cutting, firing the oven, making and forming the dough, retarding, baking. Unfortunately, the word "artisan" has been co-opted to mean simply the shapes, not the method. You have to sell a lot of bread to make ends meet, and I charge $7 for a kilo sourdough boule. Pizza is another matter. What does Pizza Pizza (yeech) sell a large pizza smothered with so so ingredients for? Add up the time and ingredients costs involved. You probably find that a $12 pizza like that costs about $1.50 to make. People are used to $2 loaves of Wonder Bread AND $12 junk pizzas, but they're not used to real bread.

Jim