The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

in need of some advice

tracker914's picture
tracker914

in need of some advice

Hi,  I have a bit of a dilemma which i'm hoping to get some input. This year I've started making wood fired bread for a couple farmers markets. My biggest problem right now is my oven is small and can only fit 17 loaves of bread at a time, so I have to fire and re-fire the oven several times. I was at first thinking of building another wood fired oven a 8 foot wide by 6 foot deep so that I can fire it once and bake around 100 loaves per market, 50 or so at a time. My question is should I think about building another oven at this point, or try and find a commercial space with a commercial oven. I have the space and the know how to build the oven, finding the time to build it is a problem at this point, I also have a day job and the response to my bread has been phenomenal, more than I could have imagined, which I guess is a good thing, which brings me back to my dilemma.

Any words of wisdom are welcome. I know a few of you have gone down this road and hoping to avoid some of the pitfalls of moving too fast or in the possible wrong direction. for reference I'm in the Putnam valley area in NY. I would also consider leasing a commercial oven space if there are any such in my area should anyone know of any or looking to sublease their space for a few days a week.

 

Thank you

Angelo

 

pmccool's picture
pmccool

since I don't have direct answers for you.

- Why does your current oven require firing between bakes?  Inadequate mass?  Inadequate insulation?  Other?

- Can you modify your oven inexpensively to address whatever comes out of the question, above?

- Are you baking from your home?  If yes, will it be practical to continue there when producing larger quantities? 

- What's your break-even point for the cost of a new oven versus the income you can generate with it?  And how long will it take you to reach it?

- How much bread can you produce before your day job (or relationships, health, market demand, etc.) become a bottleneck?

Some of those have hard number kinds of answers, others are more subjective.  You'll want to think about all of them before spending money on a new oven.

Paul

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

A bit of an outside-the-box answer here - I read somewhere of a bakery that uses a blowtorch to heat up the brick in their bread oven. That might be worth trying to re-heat your oven between bakes. It's quick and relatively inexpensive (compared to building a whole new oven and then being stuck with it when you decide you don't want to do that anymore, or the market / customers go elsewhere, or whatever).

Just a thought...

tracker914's picture
tracker914

I didn't even think about the torch, I think that may actually do the trick, I need to get the oven back up to 550 from 375 or so, so a good 15 minute blast might be just what the doctor ordered. I originally built this oven to make mostly pizza and a small load of bread so I didn't go with the mass that would be required for extended bread making. 

 

my plan was always to use my home as the business, I have a 40x40 garage and use half of it for a baking area.

building a 6x8 oven would cost me in around 5k and alot more  in sweat equity , but finding the time is a problem at this point. So I think I'm going to make due with what I have for now and get thru this season and then figure out what to do over the off season.

 

thanks again for the advice.

Angelo