Small artisan bakery
Hi Freshloafers!
I'm seriously entertaining the idea of opening up my own bakery in Cyprus (think Mediterranean, but I am currently in Michigan) in the near future. I'll focus on limited production (250 loaves/day) of wild yeast breads and depending on how scheduling/demand works out, I am thinking of rotating in a pizza day/night. I have a lot of home baking experience, tried working at a seriously high-volume artisan bakery for a little while as well, and made pizzas at a very nice SF Bay Area restaurant, but other than that I don't really have any commercial experience. Once I move to Cyprus (hopefully soon), I will slowly start laying out a serious business plan, start slowly (maybe in a garage), and then move into my own space. We will see... I also yet to play around with flours from that region to produce the high quality products I am visioning...
In any case, I have a more or less good idea of the equipment needed to start this endevour, but the areas that I really need research on I guess are the temperature-controlled proofing cabinets/closets, mixers and bread ovens. No clue on proofing cabinets/closets... for the mixers, I really want to use a diving-arm mixer to imitate the gentle hand mixing... Regarding the ovens, I first wanted to go with an Alan Scott brick oven but then eliminated that idea thinking that I am not going to have a consistent/reliable source of wood in Cyprus. So, I am thinking electric/gas ovens... I have no experience using a commercial oven other than the Baker's Pride deck oven I used for making pizzas.
I'd appreciate any general feedback, but also specifically on the equipment I mentioned above. If you have knowledge of equipment available in Europe, that would even be better. Also, any suggestions on how I can get more experience on using commercial ovens/mixers? Classes or do I need to go to a local bakery? Or can I just figure out how to properly use an oven for example by talking to the experienced FreshLoaf folks or other bakers?
And finally, are there specific oven-types that I can both use to bake hearth breads and make pizzas?
Thanks much!
Hazim