The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Opinions or Experience with Haussler Master Stone Oven?

Valhalla's picture
Valhalla

Opinions or Experience with Haussler Master Stone Oven?

I'm interested to hear your opinions or experience you might have with Haussler ovens. I know they are quite uncommon here in the US so this might be a stretch. My needs are for a non-professional baker that does take his baking seriously and most importantly enjoys it very much :-)

The oven is to fit somewhere in between my 30" Wolf dual-fuel convection and Le Panyol model 83 WFO. Sometimes the weather here in New England is not ideal for doing a lot of work outside with the WFO, but I do bake all winter long. Another advantage of the Haussler for me is that sometimes during the week I'd like to bake, but balancing the timing of my dough, WFO temperature, and taking all of those endless Zoom meetings makes it so that I'm not always baking when I want. Knowing that the Haussler will be ready exactly when my dough is ready would give me more flexibility to, er.... multitask!

 

Thanks in advance!

Dominique's picture
Dominique

Hi, 

Same here I have been talking with for a few months with Pleasant hill grain about this oven... Non-professional use as well mainly for baguettes ( perfect size oven...) I am just pending the electrical specs before making the jump as I would need a new 220 V line. Looks like an amazing piece of equipment.

Believe they will receive a few of them at the end of Feb...

happy to continue to exchange on this...

Take care

Dom

Valhalla's picture
Valhalla

Hi Dom - I put an order in back in early Jan and hoping to see something by the end of Feb. Not a lot of details on power, if it comes with a cord etc. I live the size for baguettes or a bunch of bagels. I'll still be using my WFO, but this will fit in nicely I hope.

I'm trying to figure out a nice strong short table to sit it on. 33" x 40" dimensions are a tad larger than a standard. I think I'm going with two 36x20" dunnage racks.

Dominique's picture
Dominique

Hi,

Spoke yesterday with PHG and looks like they are coming in june now....:-(....

If you are interested I have the manual for the oven... in german but google translate works well... 

it is pretty big and heavy so will so how I can manage... Haussler is selling a stand for the oven but might be pricey...

Let me know about the manual.

Cheers.

bufflehead's picture
bufflehead

Hello Valhalla and Dominique--Did you ever get your Haussler ovens? And do you use them a lot for baking bread? I have been thinking about getting one for several years--because I cook a lot of rye bread and could use the high temp, the thermal mass, and the small size in my very small kitchen.  But there aren't many people who have posted about how they've become part of their kitchen routine--which makes me wonder if these ovens have a steep learning curve or if they are somehow tricky or forbidding. 

Thank you. 

 

Dominique's picture
Dominique

Hi, 

Got my Master oven...in November. Perfect delivery in a crate

It is a gorgeous oven built like a tank but also very heavy ...

I have used it a few times for various purposes. Here is my first impressions ( please not this is my first stone oven.... I was using my Thermador steam oven prior and I am not a professional ;-)...)

The oven heats up in about 45 min but as stated in documentation the temperature stabilize only after a couple hours due to the inertia of the stone... stone reach temps around 350 C even if you set your oven at 220 C....

I had mixed successes with baking so far... Pan pizzas ... amazing results with a great bottom crust. Roasted vegetables amazing results keeping the veggies very moist. As far as bread goes a few challenges.

I burn a batch ( eg : you have to wait a couple hours for the temperature to set. Otherwise had some challenges on the oven spring and set the right temperature and steam...almost every batch ( baguettes or sourdough..) little oven spring... no or very small ear... as read on the forum it is rather challenging to set a "deck oven" correctly to get your bread rights... Happy to share more and connect to anyone who might have the same oven to share tips and tricks... Happy backing in 2023 

 

Valhalla's picture
Valhalla

Hi Dominique - I too have my new Haussler "Master" that I just started to bake in. It is one solid large oven to say the least. I had an initial problem that I think occurred during shipping that caused some of my bakes to be "off" a bit because one of the heating elements wasn't coming on, but problem solved and it is working as it should.

I think this data will help you with your new oven. It really helped me! I put a thermocouple inside the oven and logged the temperature during preheat. 

I started my preheat around 12pm with standard temps for bread recommended by Haussler for bread which are 290ºC top heat, 190ºC bottom heat.

12:00pm - 1:20pm the oven preheated from 56ºF (cold basement) to 658ºF (348ºC) peak temperature which overshoots the setpoint by quite a bit, but not equilibrated yet

1:20pm - 3:00pm - here the oven heat is redistributing and saturating the stone. Take note, this is more than the 2 hour pre-heat that Haussler recommends and at 2 hours the oven was still almost 600ºF (315ºC). I think the oven should be pre-heated for 3 hours not 2 hours.

3:00pm - 4:45pm - here you can see the oven cycling around the set point temps and it has fully equilibrated. There is about 36ºF (2ºC) of hysteresis when the oven cycles on and off.

4:45pm - I loaded my bread, turned off the oven to allow the oven temperature to fall during the bake, and removed the probe which is why the temp drops back to 60ºF

5:30pm - My bake was done and I put the probe back in the oven to monitor the thermal decay over the next few hours

Two key things, if you preheat for only 2 hours, you will be loading your bread in the initial temperature spike and could be trying to bake at too high of a temperature not allowing for good oven spring. Recommendation - preheat for 3 hours

Second, I've found the oven really holds moisture. If you fully load the oven with high-hydration dough, and add 60-100 mL of water for steam, it is going to be hard to get an ideal crust (...ask me how I know) Recommendation - decrease water to ~40mL for a full oven of high hydration dough

Hopefully you find this helpful. Happy to share more insights as we get these amazing ovens dialed-in.

 

 

 

 

Dominique's picture
Dominique

First of all a big big thank you... extremely useful information....looks like I am baking too early....may I ask you what thermocouple you are using ? I am using a laser gun to measure heat and not sure it is 100 % accurate. Your breads look amazing. You are right with the steam... I tried to use 100 ml ( 2 x 50 ml) and got too much moisture for the 6 baguettes I was baking ....I will try another batch friday or saturday... will share results. Thanks again.

Valhalla's picture
Valhalla

Here are a couple examples

Méteil Bread

Sourdough Baguette

Both formulas from from Sourdough Baking - A Treatise (Thomas Teffri-Chambelland)

 

Dominique's picture
Dominique

Beautiful bread ... and I am French.;-) .. I have ordered your book as well... will be a nice addition to my bread books...

May I ask what flours you are using ?

I live in LA area and was able to find some T65 "tradition flour" from France otherwise using Central Milling flour. Love to find a T65 or equivalent from the US at some point ....

Thanks for sharing

Valhalla's picture
Valhalla

Great! 

By the way, I am not the author Thomas Teffri-Chambelland. He is the amazing baker, not me! The book is absolutely fantastic. 

The flours I use are King Arthur Sir Galahad for Type 55 equivalent, the T65 I used for the baguette I ordered from L'Epicerie who import Le Moulin d'Auguste from your home country. Amazing flour, but also amazingly expensive when you factor in shipping. The T80 I used was from Central Milling.

 

Baekerin's picture
Baekerin

Hello

I have the mono and I am interested in the master and would like to know what the Nena plugs have to be . It is not listen anymore on the Pleasant hill site . And they really could not help me much :( could I use the plug of the mono or do I need a new plug ? Thanks on advance 

Valhalla's picture
Valhalla

The power cord on the oven did not come terminated. It does not have a plug. When you install the oven you need to either add a plug or wire it directly into your electrical panel 

Dominique's picture
Dominique

Hey, Again thank you for the info on oven temp... last batch was much better, still very thin crust but getting better :-) need to master better the steam.... and when to open the vent...

I brought back the book from Thomas from France last week... a lot to read but very teaching. 

Would you mind sharing the reference for your thermo couple ? I would probably want to invest in one to better monitor my heat .

Thanks again