Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

[SCChris]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

John, How is you build going?

Chris

[lwood]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

Heat loading is a very important concept. If I just get my oven up to 500F and let the fire burn down, not continuing to have a raging fire until the dome clears. The oven will drop back down to 300F in a matter of minutes. The reason is that the total mass of the oven has not reached the 500F temperature. Until the dome clears, you cannot guarantee that the oven is heat saturated. The reason it clears is that all the refractory has come up to passed the flash-point temperature of the soot. Once the oven is heat saturated, the oven will maintain the 500F for hours and is much easier to maintain that temperature with the addition of one or two pieces of wood. The cast iron pan and aluminum foil example is a great one to get the concept of heat loading. But this is a concept the newbie has to understand, or the oven can play games with you. Every oven is different, so you have to get to know your own oven.

[KEmerson]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

This is a brilliant discussion and education. Jay & Iwood are like professors and John & I are students. But with passionate & dedicated professors. If I ever forget to thank you... well, I won't.

Heat loading isn't mentioned much in many of the various bits I've read back at the beginning, when I first started this project. So it did seem that getting the oven up to temp. was enough. But it sure didn't work that way in practice. Yes, my oven temps have dropped rapidly enough so tat once I got the coals out, mopped the floor, closed the door and got the bread ready, the hearth was already too cool to bake. That day was a disaster.

I have been a baker professionally on occasion and I can tell you that all ovens are different and require getting to know them. You develop a bit of a relationship with each one. Bakers especially have to be adept at this whereas meat roasting chefs have less a worry. It's just one reason I love to bake breads.
I cannot thank you two enough for these great descriptions and for just having the knowledge. Tomorrow I am doing some sourdough and some standard French baguettes and I am itching to get at that oven. Aside from the fact that the family is now already into the last loaf of bread in the house (we have not had to buy any in a year!) I almost wouldn't care about baking bread just to play with the fire and oven. except, of course, that baking will help the learning curve. Again, thanks.
Kim

[KEmerson]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

How can we know when the oven is fully heat saturated, as opposed to just clear? Is there any set time or formula or something for figuring it out? Or is it trial and error per oven? Once the refractory has cleared there's no next change to look for, so I imagine a sense of timing is all there is. But how does one sort that out? Wait? And wait some more?

[dmun]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

If you're a professional baker, and you need to get repeatable results, this is the one situation where thermocouples, set halfway into the dome, will give you a reliable read on how much heat is stored in your brick. When the oven first clears the inside of the brick is considerably cooler than the inner face. As you continue to fire the dome approaches (bit doesn't reach) equilibrium. It takes some practice to get it, and you can do it without temperature readings, but it's a little subtle.

I don't do much bread except pitas at blazing heat. The only time I go for a longer firing is for the Thanksgiving turkey, which I didn't do this year.

[lwood]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

The clearing of the dome is a good indicator that the oven is close to heat saturation. As long as heat is being pulled away from the interior surface of the dome, it won't clear. When all the fire brick reach > 600F the dome will clear. That is when the oven is close to the saturation point. I would get the oven up to 700 or 800F before I would remove the coals, just to be certain. Allow the oven to cool to 500F and you should be good to go baking bread. Without thermocouples, this is the only way I know to assure your oven is heat saturated. As Jay, said getting the oven to the correct temperature at the right time the dough is ready is the art of the whole thing. Working on that myself.

[lwood]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

Once you get the oven heat saturated, it should stay at 400F for hours. So that gives you a much bigger window to operate in.

[KEmerson]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

Ok, I played with heat saturation and the perimeter fire. I love the perimeter fire idea! No going back, now. And the oven was saturated as well as I can imagine. I did some baguettes first and then some sourdough boules. By mistake I lit a second fire between loads (well, it's not like I accidentally found myself lighting a fire. "How'd this match get in my hand?" I mean it wasn't a good idea in hindsight). And I loaded the sourdough while the oven was just too hot. I'd also been distracted a moment. Anyway, the baguettes came out beautifully while the sourdough tops scorched. I can at least salvage them for eating by scraping burnt crusts and end up with just fine sourdough.

Thank you all for your time, patience and answers. Here, have a look at the baguettes.

[lwood]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

Beautiful baguettes, you know this discussion has helped me with my bread making also. Jay's sound advice and insight is invaluable. I baked some bread on Saturday and it was not perfect but a lot closer than before. Thanks for prompting the discussion.

[lwood]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

Just curious Kim, why did you light a second fire?

[KEmerson]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

My wife asked me the same thing. Then I asked me the same thing. I'd forgotten part of the lessons learned in this discussion. Mainly the part about a well heat saturated oven will get back to baking temps. So I was trying to refire for heat again. Which is likely where I made my mistake and so charred the sourdough. It just makes me want to get back at it. I'm glad you got closer to the perfection we seek. I completely understand the experience of not getting it yet but realizing you've just gotten closer. It's what gets me back out a.s.a.p.

[lwood]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

We are all allowed a few of those, what I call "mind farts". You still got great looking baguettes and a lesson learned.

[KEmerson]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

I love mistakes. They're the lab for learning and learning is the fountain of youth. And I ain't getting any younger on my own.

[kmrice]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

I've been following this thread and fired up my 44" Forno Bravo Casa2g110 this weekend to apply what I've learned. Previously, I had a lot of trouble with very scorched loaves and uneven baking. The family was getting tired of my telling them a little charcoal on your bread is good for you.

I made my doughs, timing them based on the assumption the oven would take abut 5 hours from lighting to baking.

Built a large fire in the center and kept it large for about 1.5 hours, long after the dome initially cleared. Then, spread it out more or less evenly all over the floor, and shut the door for one hour. Removed the coals, swabbed it out well, and shut the door until the door thermometer read 500f, which took about two hours. Floor was pretty evenly heated - no serious hot spots. Loaded it with about 18 pounds of bread (four, three pound miches and six one pound batards).

Best results I've had to date. No scorching, excellent browning, great oven spring. After the bread came out, I closed the door and the door temp got back up to about 475 in about fifteen minutes. I baked about three pounds of focaccia, after which the oven was still at about 475. At that point I wished I had more dough, but called it a day on the baking, got the fire going and did 8 pizzas.

The two keys, for me, were giving the oven time to cool down (in the past the dough was ready and need to be baked, before the oven was cooled down) and spreading the fire out and closing the door to let the floor temps even out.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread - I think I've got my oven more or less under control with your help.

Karl

[texassourdough]

Re: Tall fire, yes. Wide fire too.

Hi Karl!

Glad to hear our discussion helped! Sounds like you did well! What temperature to start at and how long to bake are aesthetic issues and therefore highly variable - as are ovens... so all comments about temp are subject to rejection!

Still,I think it is worth commenting that 500 is a pretty low starting point for a lean, artisanal type boule or bread. 540 to 560 seems to be a more common preference, but a lot of us also like our breads on the dark side so...take that with a grain of salt!

Your temps indicate your oven is working pretty well. And your prep is appropriate... You might consider holding the swabbing until the temp hits say 530 to 550 and clean and swab it and immediately load it. That way the humidity from swabbing will help humidify the oven as you load and should give you even better crust. NOTE: the temp will probably drop well below 500 by the time you get the oven loaded. But as you note, your oven temp bounces back nicely so.... That is what it is about. And I am convinced that the oven temp recovery profile is part of the magic of a WFO for bread.

Bake On!
Jay