The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Baking Timetable

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

Baking Timetable

HI Fresh Loaf

 

I have been baking rustic artisan style breads for a year and am wanting to move towards making this an occupation. I have a full time day job, so I have been mixing my dough, bulk ferment, shape and then slow fermenting overnight in the fridge and baking before work.

When I start the bakery/coffee shop I want to have bread be ready to buy at 8am. Can anyone recommend a time table  that doesn't involve working in the evening. I would like to prep the dough during the afternoon and bake early the next morning. I am worried though about the bread over fermenting ( 5pm to 5am )

For a long second ferment, what is the ideal temp  ? I'm sure I will have to use a fridge to retard the fermentation, but i don't want to stop it altogether.

Thanks

Warren

 

 

jimbtv's picture
jimbtv

I am currently baking two breads for sale and I manage them differently. I start refreshing my starter two evenings before my bake, then build my levains and poolish around 7AM the next morning. We are now a day before the bake. Sometime in the late afternoon I do my final mixes and fermentations.

For my baguettes I will let the dough ferment for an hour, do a series of stretches and folds, then put the bulk dough in the fridge overnight @ 40 F to continue a cold bulk fermentation.

For the Pain au Levain I will do a series of S & F over two hours then let the dough rest for another hour, divide, rest, shape and place in bannetons covered with plastic wrap, then off to the fridge @ 40 F. for a cold proof.

Early the next morning I start up the deck oven then remove the bulk baguette dough from the fridge and let it warm up at room temperature for an hour. I then divide, shape, and proof the baguettes. By then the oven is up to 500 F and the baguettes go in first. Near the end of the last batch of baguettes I drop the oven temp down to around 450 F and remove the Pain au Levain from the fridge. After removing them from the bannetons and scoring, they go into the oven for 40 minutes, 20 of which are steam. After the steam I drop the temp down to 425 F.

All of this can be managed with some time in the afternoon/evening, then some time in the morning. You can easily adjust the times to suit your schedule. The retardation times are not that critical so if you need to get things done sooner the afternoon before the bake, do the final mixes and fermentation sooner and get things into the fridge. A couple of extra hours of retardation won't make or break the final product.

Best of luck with your new venture.

 

Jim

 

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

HI Jim

 

Thanks for the help. Those times sound perfect for what I am wanting to achieve.

 

cheers

 

drogon's picture
drogon

I do the home-based microbakery thing, baking bread 5 days a week and the only thing that would get me away from the "split shift" thing is a big retarder - which I don't have space for. So right now, it's prep. sourdough starter/levian mid-afternoon, mix/knead in the evening, dough ferments overnight at room temperature, up at 5am to scale/shape/proof and first lot is in the ovens by 7am.

A retarder would let me shift it all back a little and do everything in one lot - starting at 5am, so I have the ovens on timers, get up, load first lot from the retarder into the ovens, start on the mix for tomorrows breads, then first lot out the ovens, 2nd lot in and I'm continuing with the mixing for tomorrows bread, and so on. I can tend to the dough through the morning, stretch & fold, or just leave it to then do the scale/shape/proof and into the fridges by mid-afternoon. Then relax... until 5am the next day... Or something like that.

Fortunately I'm self-employed (IT geek) and have been for 15 years, so I can still do a little IT work to keep things ticking over - don't give up the day-job until you're 100% sure about it, and good luck!

-Gordon

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

Hi Gordon

Good work on doing 5 days a week. Sounds like you are more than a micro baker. How many loaves are you making per day ?

I am wanting to get up to 100 loaves / day for it to be financially viable so I have alot of work to do. I haven't looked into "retarders" but I was thinking about buying the glass door drinks fridges, like the ones you have in restaurants/bars/petrol stations. They are quite big and should be able to hold the large plastic containers that the dough will be fermenting in. Do you think this would work as well ? Speaking of retarding the fermentation, what is the ideal temp  for a 8-12hour fermentation in a fridge ?

Thanks for the advice...

Cheers

drogon's picture
drogon

Here, (UK) there appears to be some sneering if you don't have a big deck oven or a big wood fired one, or employ people. Some places are working in an industrial unit, employing people and still calling themselves a microbakery.

I bake upwards of 200 loaves a week. My daily max. limit is about 60 loaves and 3 trays of sticky buns, however I run out of space doing that and it gets a bit tight. That's aiming to get out the door by 9:30am from a 5am start. I could easily do another 30 if I had someone to deliver and slightly more room.

Almost all my breads are supplied wholesale - that cuts down the profits. I I had a shop, it would be a cafe type place, selling cakes, tray bakes, and just one or 2 simple savourys for a light lunch. That model seems to work well over here.

Those drinks fridges should be fine - check if they have a dehumidifier - if-so, then you'll need to wrap the bannetons, or cover tins, else they'll really dry out - if you're retarding shaped dough. Tubs with lids ought to be fine.

As for ideal temp. no idea. right now, I only put my 100% rye loaves in the fridge overnight in tins (much to the annoyance of some here, telling it it'll never work) and I put them at the top of the fridge which is at about 8°C. Tehy rise by about 1.5 times overnight. I have plans to build my own little retarder/proofer and my aim there is to get it down to 4°C if possible as I want to practically stop all fermentation for yeasted laminated doughs (e.g. croissants) more than sourdoughs.

-Gordon

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

Thats a big work load especially if you doing it on your own Gordon.

I am going to start out with a supply route to restaurants, cafes wholesale and to my work colleagues retail.  I also want to have a shop eventually - small, serving coffee and bread to begin with - almost like a Italian espresso bar. If you have the capacity and your expenses are kept low , you can make good money.

My home fridge goes down to about 5degrees and i wondered if that was too low, the shaped doughs could rise more. Its pretty warm where most of the year(Durban, South Africa ) so leaving the loves out overnight unless its mid winter probably wouldn't work. But i think ill be able to get a drinks fridge second hand for a fair price.

thanks for the advice

cheers

drogon's picture
drogon

I had the advantage that I started small - just 2 loaves a day for a local shop. I didn't set out to be a baker - it just grew and it turns out I appears to be OK at it. (I do get asked to supply more bread from further and further afield too - which is nice that word is getting round, but I'm sad that I can't supply them...)

So at 5am, I have tubs at room temp (I try to keep them at about 18°C and have various places in the 'bakery' and domestic kitchen I can move them to at different times of the year!) I have to get the first oven load ready by 5:30 if possible - that's up to 30 loaves, so one a minute - that's tub to bench, scaled into lumps, pre-shaped, shaped into bannetons/couche (couche is much faster!) then a quick breather and slightly more relaxed to the 2nd oven load.

I have 3 ovens - Rofco B40 - 12 large loaves, Lincat EC08 - 12 small loaves and a 68l domestic oven - 6 tins.

I aim to get the 2nd load proofing by 6:15, then it's make up sticky bun time - I do this from scratch, standard sweet yeasted dough and get that on the bulk ferment by 6:30. That's a tray of up to 25 buns. At Easter time I was making 3 trays a day. I normally only make buns 2-3 times a week.

So at 6:30, chance to clean up a little, check the paper work, get the trays and bags and labels ready. Quick email, forum check... 7am, or just before I load up the ovens, set timer for 12 minutes, check more paper work, print labels if needed. 7:15-7:20 turn ovens down, loaves round, open vents on Rofco, set timer for 21 minutes, shower, get ready to unload ovens to cooling racks, load 2nd lot into ovens, 12 minute timer... shape buns, start bagging loaves, timer, 21 minutes, finish loaves into the trays, breakfast, 2nd load out ... buns in, maybe baguettes, ... It seems somewhat tedious/monotonous, but it's never quite the same day to day. Adjustments have to be made.

Oh, in-between, make cakes, cookies, tray-bakes, brownies, etc. for some local cafes too...

Then there's the day-job - currently making a robot to help clean the kegs, pipes, etc. in a local microbrewery... :-)

-Gordon

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

HI Gordon

 

Wow, i need some time to breath and take that all in. You have obviously been doing this for some time. Your routine is precise, something that I am going to have to work on. How long have you been baking like this ?

 

The main challenge is going to be my ovens. I can only afford single phase electricity and the ovens available are smaller than yours. The Avnil is 800mm x 600mm bake space, so ill be able to get 4 x 500g ciabatta in a single bake. I am going to get 2 decks so its 10 every 30 mins. So it will take me 3 hours to make 50 loaves. So i might have to get 1-2 more of the same ovens to increase the load. Its not essential right now as i am also starting like you did, 4 loaves a day to work colleagues. But I want to start doing 10 loaves, some to a cafe and the rest to work colleagues. As it grows i can get more oven space. The markets i want to do on the weekend will be the only large amount - 30 – 50 loaves, but in time.

 

Its really exciting and I’m really looking forward to getting it going.

I made a few loaves of onion rye this morning and they smelt amazing !

 

cheers

Warren

Onion Rye

drogon's picture
drogon

the breads been going regularly (5 days/week) for just over 3.5 years now. Been doing small/hobby commercial catering for a few years more than that. (got all the tickets/insurance/inspections, etc.) The breads really did start with 2 loaves in a new wholefoods shop that opened then, although I'd been making bread for some years prior. So it was a gradual start and I was able to ramp down my IT business as the bakery side got going. Mostly.

Single phase electricity is the issue I have - it's not feasible (nor economical) in a domestic setting here. The Rofco B40 runs off a 13A plug (UK, so 230V, 3.1Kw), as does the Lincat. That was the limiting factor. The Rofco really is like a small deck oven - it can take 12 large loaves at a time. The Lincat 12 small loaves (It's a GN1/1 size oven - 530x330). I fitted that with 3 10mm thick steel plates to act like a little deck oven. Works well. I don't do ciabatta that often - it's not a seller here. Savoury loaves don't sell that well too.

 

-Gordon

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

HI Gordon

what part of the UK are you in ? I lived in London for a few years around 2000 but i travel there for work at least once a year and i believe the artisan style bakeries are growing alot. I noticed a few international european bakers opening up chain cafes in London too. Any places you would recommend i go see if i am that side of the world.

bikeprof's picture
bikeprof

I am a cottage baker and one of the keys to my low overhead operation is a DIY walk in cold room/retarder (and I retard everything but my baguettes overnight rolling them into the cold room on bun racks).

I use a Coolbot...which is a great piece of equipment and the support from the company in the design, building, and use of this controller and the cold-room had been phenomenal.  I highly recommend checking it out.

oo7wazzy's picture
oo7wazzy

HI

I would love to have a walk in retarder ! But alas thats not an option but thanks for the advice, something to work towards.

 

cheers

Warren