Need professional-baking tips asap!
So I recently just about got on board with a small bakery, but I have absolutely zero professional, in-kitchen experience! I have been baking and formulating my own recipes. studying, etc. for several years on an at-home level and finally took the next step to working in a real baking environment. All of this would be of smaller concern to me if it were not that the owner wants me to implement my recipes and ideas to expand the bakery.
The bakery in its current state more focuses on pastries and cafe foods while [the reason the owner wanted me] I am a bread-based and gluten-free inspired baker. The bakery also begins its opening shift at 5am, which right off the bat I knew needed to be stretched earlier towards 2-3am for doing actual loaves. Since the owner is also a bit new to the business, everything will pretty much be an experiment in regards to how to manage everything. So the specific things that first popped into my mind was:
- As the bakery has a relatively small output (its located in a very small, quaint town) and it also opens its doors to customers at 7am, what would be a fairly appropriate time to begin morning prep? (I will be making French breads as well as sourdoughs which require a couple additional rises after the initial proofing)
- What is the average output of breads at your bakery in the morning? What is a good way of calculating how much should be made?
- As I will be making gluten free breads, how should I go about prepping? My little brother has a terrible intolerance to wheat and gluten, so I sympathize when it comes to cross contamination. I would like to minimize the contact as little as possible to make it enjoyable for patrons who have allergies, not just to those with a preference.
Are there any other tips you would like to leave me with? I feel completely ready and capable of doing whatever it takes to bring my baking skills to a professional level.
Thanks for your guidance in advance! Everything is very much appreciated.
and can only offer ideas. That is my disclaimer.
Why don't you make the sourdoughs the night before and bulk ferment overnight? This way it's up at 4am for shaping and final proofing. Ready for fresh bread at 7am.
Or. Make the bread through the day, bulk ferment, knock back, shape and final proof in the fridge overnight. Ready to go straight into the oven at 6am. Really fresh bread ready for 7am.
You can retard for up to 12 hours so always have some on the go.
If I think of anymore then i'll post them here.
I run what's known as a microbakery in the UK - on the small side - making 8 to 26 loaves a day (and 26 really is only Saturdays right now).
I'd suggest forgetting about gluten free. Yep - irritating, but for just one person to start with, it's not worth it, even if he is your brother. (Make a nice gluten free cake instead - easier - its what I do)
Do you have a proofer/retarder? Or even a big fridge? That's going to be the key to managing it. You can make up dough and loaves, pastries, etc. the day before, put them in the retarder (fridge), then take them out at 4-5am, into the oven by 6am and on the cooling racks well before 7am (7am? Really early time to open!)
Otherwise it's a minimum of a 4am start to give you a 3-hour cycle for conventional breads.
Sourdoughs are another way - providing you can keep an even overnight temperature somewhere (and for some, that might well be the fridge. My bake starts at 9pm when I mix/knead the dough, then zzz and up at 6:45 to scale/shape/prove, into the oven by 8:30 and in the shop by 9:15, give or take.
Sounds fun - sure you know what you're about to undertake though?
-Gordon
I have been in business my entire working life and what you now have to understand that you are going to view your products through a different lens, not isn't this just the best bread I ever made but can I make a profit making this bread. For the sake of round numbers if your labour is $100 a shift the real employee cost is closer to to a $130 so just using rough estimation you would have to produce close to $500 in saleable product during that shift. I know gluten free is popular but it is still a pretty small niche.
Night work sucks the life out of you so I would do everything in my power to shift the workload to be closer to normal waking hours. I know when you first start and all the excitement gives you the drive that enables you to work extraordinarily hard but six months down the road it is old hat and your real life will need attention. The way I look at it do you think working nights will be the source of fond memories in ten years or regrets in losing out on family etc.
Gerhard
Maybe speak with the owner on overall sales. You could gauge what to expect on some level knowing how much sales the current business is doing. Then ask the cafe how much bread they use daily as you'd want to be the replacement for whatever bread was being used. It sounds like cold bulk/retarding is going to be the most efficient use of your time. It will allow you to shape/bake right away and spend the rest of the day preparing doughs, starters, mise en place for the following day.
If you have solid gluten free breads maybe limit to one variety a day and always bake in a tin or on a pan with parchment so it's never on the same surface with your wheat based breads. But it can't be truly gluten free if it's produced in the same kitchen.
Josh
I am not a professional baker and do not work in a bakery.
Good advice so far. I agree with forgetting about gluten free. If there is contamination between the flours, your g.f. flour could pick up some gluten and cause a nasty reaction with someone who thought he was buying a g.f. product which wasn't really. That could potentially land you in legal hot water. Better safe than sorry.
You should decide on a bread menu, perhaps just yeasted French bread to start with. Are you going to offer rolls as well as loaves? Sourdough will be an entirely different kettle of fish, so maybe that's in the future?
I went through this as an exercise last year. Paramount in any manufacturing operation (you are manufacturing bread) is to manage your time and personnel. Make up a production schedule. Use a spreadsheet program such as Excel or (free) OpenOffice.org. How many employees are there and how many shifts? When does the bakery open (7 am) and when does it close? When do the employees come and go and eat? Is the bakery open weekends and how will you cover them? If your employees are non-exempt you will have to take any overtime into account in their scheduling. In addition to scheduling your employees you will need to schedule your mixing, proofing, scaling, shaping and bake times. You will need to scale your output to sales. You need to do this so your employees will be in and out without excessive overtime and so they get a meal period. Check the wage & hour laws in your jurisdiction. If it's just you and the owner working 12- or 16-hour days, 7 days per week, you're going to burn out sooner or later.
Based on a 7 am open time, your first bake will need to be finished by, say, 6:30 am, then let the bread cool and put it out for the first customers at 7 am. That means your first bake will start around 5:30 am. If your first shift starts at 5 am, you will have 1/2 hour to preheat and load the ovens. With the bake finished at 6:30 am, you can then start mixing the next day's dough, then scaling, shaping and proofing. You can take a meal break while the dough is proofing, then load the proofed dough into the fridge for tomorrow's bake. So maybe something like this:
5:00 am -- preheat and load ovens
5:30 am - 6:30 am -- First bake
6:30 am -- cool and put out loaves
7:00 am -- bakery opens, proof yeast and mix tomorrow's dough
8:00 am -- scaling and shaping
9::00 am -- Lunch time and begin proofing
10:00 am -- Proof yeast and begin mixing your second bread, assuming there are two breads on the menu
11:00 am - scale and shape second bread
12:00 noon -- end of proofing first bread, load first bread into refrigerator for overnight hold, begin proofing second bread
3:00 pm -- end of proofing second bread, load into refrigerator for overnight hold
3:30 pm -- you've now put in 10 1/2 hours
And that's just for bread. It will have to be interleaved with pastry and other bakery products.
There will be blocks of time when you're just waiting for the dough to proof. Such is the baking business.
There should be at least two mixers and two ovens on the premises for two reasons: a) to accomodate your regular production, and b) for redundancy. If your mixer or oven conks out and you have no redundancy, you're out of production and will have no product to sell. You may as well close shop and you won't make any money that day.
What happens to the surplus/unsold product? That's more the owner's worry, as is insurance.
I wouldn't fuss too much about the nuances of your product at first. Focus on getting saleable products into the store for sale to your customers. Finesse comes after you've got that down.
Make sure you have enough sheet pans to handle all those loaves.
that came to my mind was the question of how you'll be paid for your work. If it's by the hour, that's straightforward enough, but if it's more complicated, then you should probably ask yourself how many hours you're willing to put in per week and the minimum you're willing to receive for that amount of time, also per week. Then, you can talk with the bakery owner to see if some kind of arrangement can be worked out whereby you make at least said minimum. Depending on various factors, you may also have to look at how many loaves you'll need to bake and/or sell per week, how feasible this will be with the equipment available, etc.
What capacity does the oven or ovens have , and when they are available this will determine your production time table. to be truthful we really need a lot more information to be of any assistance. What does the place have that is available to you, otherwise we are just stabbing in the dark.
Regards Derek