The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Rofco or Deck oven with Steam for small farm store bakery?

Hill Top Home Bakery's picture
Hill Top Home Bakery

Rofco or Deck oven with Steam for small farm store bakery?

We run a local community co-op from our little homestead where I bake for the members a specialty gluten free sourdough bread.  I want to add to what we can currently bake and have also been asked to be a part of a local farmers market, but not sure if I want to go with the Rofco or a used deck oven?

 

We live just north of Toronto, so getting a Rofco means shipping to friends in the US and going to pick it up as I don’t see a place that sells them and used is non-exsistant from what I can see.  The upside to the Rofco is that I can see me baking in this even when I’m no longer doing the co-op or farmers market.

 

I can pick up a used deck oven for a great price that is 4 decks and has steam in top two, it is just bigger then I really need.

 

Anyone baked on both and have insights or thoughts?

 

Thanks,

Marcy

grind's picture
grind

I'd go with a four deck. Chances are good that you'll grow into the bigger one. If I'm not mistaken, the decks come apart so you could always sell three of them as a unit and keep one for yourself should you stop doing the market. My 2 cents. Good luck.

Hill Top Home Bakery's picture
Hill Top Home Bakery

Thank you, and yes the decks do come a part.  This deck oven came up and looks to be in good shape, it is just HUGE, but I like your idea of scaling it down and removing maybe one or two decks.  

tourer's picture
tourer

I recently bought a 2nd hand single deck oven, have to say that I love it baked 40 loaves of sourdough from startup time of 4am, finished baking by 8:30am. ( next time will get up at 5am)Even with the steel hearth & no steam injection it works amazingly well. To create steam I just add some towelling in a small cake tin whilst warming up & then first part of the cook, it works really well, great to be able to adjust the 2 separately adjust the top & bottom elements . good luck with it

Hill Top Home Bakery's picture
Hill Top Home Bakery

That sounds amazing!  And love the idea with the towels.

 

Is your deck oven hooked up in a home bakery?  The one I’m looking at is 3-phased so from what I understand has to be hardwired into the space and most homes, ours included are single phase.

tourer's picture
tourer

Hi Hill Top Home Bakery- yes mine is a home bakery & we only have single phase. The oven I bought is a Berjaya & runs on single phase I can fit 8x 1000g loaves in at a time or about 12-13 600g. I did one load in my normal oven but the new one cooks so much nicer. We had been looking at bigger ovens but also would of needed to connect to 3 phase which was going to cost around $4000 plus the cost of the oven. We found this oven about 2 weeks ago from a bakery in a big shopping centre that had to close & bought it for $350.00. It cost another $350.00 for an electrician to wire it up to a new circuit. On Friday morning I got up at 4 am to switch her on & by 8.30 I had baked 42 loaves of sourdough it was pretty awesome. The oven has no hot spots & cooks brilliantly. I have a little stall that I run up at the front of our property once a week called "The Thank God it's Friday Stall". I sell sourdough 80:20 mix white to Wholemeal as well as a 50:50 mix, blue cheese & fig, Apricot, walnut & fennel , Olive , feta & vintage cheese as well as sourdough flatbreads, sourdough lavosh crackers plus an assortment of cakes, scone, biscuits & preserves. It is so rewarding to be making produce that people really value. This was such a good choice for us as it allows us to start small & see where it leads us without over capitalising. The oven paid for itself after the first week of baking! Good luck with your venture, is yours also a home bakery? Regards Vicki

Hill Top Home Bakery's picture
Hill Top Home Bakery

Thanks, Vicki!  Your bread combinations sound delish!  Yes, we have a small food co-op where I bake for members only right now but a new farmers market has approached me for doing bread once a week.  It is an untested market so I want to expand cautiously.

We had an electrician assess our place and it looks like we will not be able to do a 3-phase hook up :(  I'll look into the Berjaya, is this originally for Indian bread?  My gluten free sourdough bread are 900g each so I would likely do 8 loaves at a time in one of these.  My two ovens now hold 4 each at a time and I bake on stones so this would give me 16 loaves per bake, which is okay. 

Povitalian's picture
Povitalian

Vicki, any chance that you can share more info on your Berjaya oven? I've been thinking about buying an oven because I just started selling my homemade breads.

Could you share the model number or any other info?  Anything that you can share would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Scott M of POV Italian Cooking

tourer's picture
tourer

 Hi Scott, I love my Berjaya Deck Oven, I bake 50-70 loaves every Friday as well as cakes & biscuits. I can bake 14 1000g loaves in tins per bake or about 8 free form, 12-14 smaller loaves per bake. We bake 6 different types of sourdough.

The steel deck works really well & I add steam during the heat up using tin with tea towel & water in it but pull this out just before putting the loaves in as the oven is always full. The steel deck has very fast heat up & generally first bake is ready within 10-15mins subsequent bakes are ready as soon as I have scored the loaves ready to put in.

It is a Berjaya Model BSP-E6KW-1N, temp range 20C to 300C, 220-240V ( single phase) measures 1220x800x500 & weighs 64kg,

So for a few hundred dollars we have a micro bakery. Would love to upgrade to a 3 deck oven as it would decrease the bake time but until we put 3 phase power on this will be the way we go.

Highly recommend using something like this it makes life so much easier along with stainless steel benches, couple of converted freezers to fridges for retarding bread, bakers rack & a 15l bowl mix master great for doing the shaggy dough mixing bit ( I was starting to get issues with elbow & shoulder) then just the normal stretch & fold.

Let us know if I can give you any further info, we are now looking to go to solar so will change my baking time around to when the sun comes up & my hubby will do the morning shift up at our stall at the front of our property until I finish. Best of luck let us know how you go.

Povitalian's picture
Povitalian

Thank you for responding and for the additional information that you provided.

I've been online this morning and unfortunately it doesn't appear that Berjaya ovens are available over here in the United States.  I've been looking for a cheaper alternative to the Rofco ovens since I want to test the waters a bit before making a large investment.  The Berjaya deck oven would have been a great oven to try since it appears to be an affordable oven.

Again, thank you for the response!

Scott

Sasaki Kojiro's picture
Sasaki Kojiro

Hello Vicki, 

I'm also looking for a single deck E6KW Berjaya and your reply in this thread comes up. Thanks so much for all your sharing! I have no experience with deck oven and hope that you can help me understanding 2 more points: 

- With this deck oven, Is the steel deck inside good enough for sourdough baking or should I buy an additional baking steel to maintain the heat? 

- For the steaming inside the oven, I read that you removed the hot towels when get the dough inside the oven. Have you tried leaving the towels inside for the first 15-20 mins baking? Can you share any tips managing the steams inside deck oven, as I heard too much steam is also no good? I'm also unsure how steam can spread evenly inside the deck oven. 

Again, thanks for all your sharing. Very precious to me. 

Warmest regards,

Giang

tourer's picture
tourer

Hi Giang, I love my Berjaya deck oven so much I went & bought a 2nd one which I have stacked on top of the first one. Yes the stainless steel deck is awesome to bake on either free form or in loaf tins. These days I tend too bake more often in tins as I can fit about 14-15 in the oven at once, when I do free form I can only fit in about 8 depending on size. As for steam I now only score my loaves spray with water & put in the oven. My loaves generally get that beautiful tear in the top that I love. So don't worry about putting extra water in the oven if you have enough bread in there they seem to generate enough steam on their own. I also use these ovens to bake my sourdough croissants, flatbreads, pizza bases & an assortment of biscuits & cakes. If we had 3 phase power I would swap mine for a triple Deck. I tried to attach a picture of my oven setup & the types of bread that I bake in it but I can't seem to attach them to this message, if you would like to see my set up send me your email & I will send you some pictures. Let me  know if you would like any more  info. Regards Vicki

Sasaki Kojiro's picture
Sasaki Kojiro

Hi Vicki, your bread looks so good!! I'm pretty to new to the forum and this does not seem to have direct messaging option. Do you mind dropping me an email to Minhgiang.tr@gmail.com? I know life of a baker is super busy, hence I appreciate all your time and help. 

Warmest,
Giang

tourer's picture
tourer
tourer's picture
tourer
Joyofgluten's picture
Joyofgluten

Hello there on the hill top

Most deck ovens run on 3 phase electric, (it much easier to do steam injection with electric than gas)

For the price of a couple of new Rofcos you should be able to pick up a good used multideck oven. It would be ideal to pick one up that is no older than 5 to 7 years…used but not old and tired.

Some people make fine bread in rofco ovens, but i can confidently say that any of these bakers would be overjoyed with the improvement in product and efficiency that a proper deck oven offers. It would be like having a great new set of wings.

Also with a multideck electric oven, you don't have to heat all the decks up, which is great for a slower bake day.

Happy baking to you and good luck on finding a new oven

cheers

Daniel

steinofenbrotroeschenz.com

Hill Top Home Bakery's picture
Hill Top Home Bakery

Thank you, great information.  I may have a issue with the 3-phased hook up as my micro bakery is a part of our home and we are single phased?  

Anyone put a 3-phased deck oven in a home before?  

tourer's picture
tourer

Hi Hill top Bakery we have a single phase Berjaya deck oven- absolutely love it. Would now love a multideck of the same but this does require 3 phase & where we live in Australia it would cost us about $4000 to upgrade to.

Best of luck

Vicki

grind's picture
grind

that will turn single into three phase.  There are rotary ones (TEMPCO) and electronic ones.  Also, a qualified electrician should be able to rewire a three phase into a single phase.  It's not that hard and it shouldn't be very expensive.  Not sure about how that might affect the steam generation.

Jane Copeland's picture
Jane Copeland

Hi Vicki

Thanks for all the useful information you’ve posted about your Berjaya oven.  I have a small home based sourdough business and am looking to buy an oven that can bake 15-20 loaves at a time.  Sounds as if you are very happy with the Berjaya.  Could I ask where you are based in Australia?  

If anyone else has any advice on ovens to use for a home based bakery, I’d love to hear them.

Thanks, Jane