Getting oven up to temp. after raking out & mopping for bread

[KEmerson]

Hello gang,
It's been a while since I did breads in my WFO and I was new at it to begin with. I've forgotten a few things and need some help.
This question might do well in the breads thread... We'll see.

Once the oven is heat-saturated, coals & ash raked out, hearth swabbed, door closed... How long should it take for a 42" to regulate back to bread baking temps? I'm pretty sure I have not allowed enough time.

Also, if you're making bread there comes a time when the dough has to be shaped and set aside to final proof. Depending on how much dough there is, this can take a while. It's time away from the oven. Do you just make sure the oven is raging and hot before leaving it unattended for 20 minutes or so? I don't have a partner to tend to one aspect or another. Just me. I often get back to the oven after the dough is scaled and shaped and rising to find the fire low and needing a good kick up. I would be nice to not have had to leave it at all, but...
Thanks all
Kim

[SableSprings]

Kim, welcome back to the bread side of the WFO. I usually start a fire in my 39" dome late the night before I bake - to start heat loading the bricks. I add more wood to the fire in the morning (temps tend to be in the 300-400F after the overnight fire) to bring the dome & hearth temps up to 600-700F (I use and recommend an IR temp gun). I pull out the ash, sweep, and then use my copper blow tube to clear the hearth floor. I dampen the oven with my insulated door until the temp drops to 600 and then close the oven for at least an hour. My oven is insulated well enough that the interior comes to equilibrium around 575F and will hold that temp for several hours. I recommend that you take some temp profiles (just hearth and dome) when you pull out the fire and start the cool-down process...it really helps to have some graphs showing you the temps in the oven over several hours after the fire's been removed. I can post one of my old temp profile graphs from my oven if you'd like.

I target my final shaped loaves to be ready to bake after the oven's come to equilibrium. I tend to bake 15-20 400g baguettes in 2-3 15-20 minute batches. Since I'm retired and don't like getting up at the crack of dawn, my doughs do a cold overnight ferment - usually a poolish and levain component. I bring the dough components up to room temp, mix them, and then do final flour additions. A two hour bulk ferment, then sizing & shaping. I'm ready to bake after the final shaped loaves are ready between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. I've done pizza and just left the oven door partly open for an hour to cool it down to bread temps...but it depends on what you're baking. Obviously, the high hydration doughs will do pretty well in the 550-575F range whereas the whole wheats, fruit, and Challah type breads need to have much lower baking temps...again, you need to get some temp graphs for your oven's performance and cool-down profile.

I NEVER bake loaves of bread with a fire in the oven...Focaccia yes, loaves of bread no. The couple times I tried it, I got smokey bread that was downright unpleasant and frankly, pretty ghastly when toasted the next day.

Hope this helps

[joes]

Sablesprings,
Great advice. Getting things going the night before seems to be the right approach. I have used my oven 5 times now so I am still getting accustomed to the ovens heat retaining behaviour. I have started the fire in the morning just for bread and also used residual heat from the night before's pizza. In the morning the oven is still at ~400-ish degrees so I think that is the approach. Any comment on using a tigert torch propane to get things going. Wood is a precious commodity for me.

How do you manage creating steam in the oven? The two times I baked bread I didn't bother, yet got great expansion. Still playing around.

Cheers,

[SableSprings]

I'm actually a little surprised that your oven has dropped that much after pizza...do you have an insulated door? With the normal ceramic board below and blanket insulation above, you should be seeing higher temps than ~400F. If you don't have an insulated door that you close up the oven after pizza or the oven still has some dampness in the insulation it won't retain the heat as well. If your oven insulation is dry (and adequate thickness), it won't take much of a fire to bring the oven up to bread baking temps from 400F. I prefer baking my baguettes around 575F -- takes about 15 minutes from dough to done . I'm not wild about using propane torches to bring up the oven temps...a little too directional with the flame and you can create some real stress in the mortar/masonry with uneven, rapid heating . I'm kind of surprised to hear in Canada that wood is a "precious commodity". I go to a cabin at Hihium Lake (1.5 hours north-west of Kamloops) in BC and we are "fanny deep" in standing dead timber from beetle kill. I'm not wild about using pine for the Casa2G90 we installed there, but it certainly works well enough for everything from bread to pizza to suckling pig.

I have gone both ways with steam addition for bread. As you have noted, you can get pretty good oven spring without adding humidity...it's just that by keeping the surface of the loaf from forming a crust too early it can achieve maximum expansion. If I'm only doing a small batch, I generally use a pump water sprayer just to ensure my crust doesn't dry out and set too early. I've seen these sprayers in the Gardening area of Home Depot and most gardening shops. Usually run about 1-2 quart size and you pump them up to pressurize. To use, you simply press a lever/button and get a pretty nice, steady mist. (Beats the hand spritzer that you have to constantly be working the handle to spray .) When I use it, I spray the chamber just before I start loading in the bread and then after it's loaded. I also try not to spray on top of the loaves...more toward the dome of the oven. If I'm doing larger batches (8-12 loaves in the chamber) I find that the amount of dough in the oven creates enough steam to keep the crust from forming too early and thus promotes good oven spring (especially with dough that's over 65% hydration).

Hope this helps (or at least gives you some additional insight how at least one other baker works the oven).