Deck Oven height? 5", 7" 8" 12" For home use AB-1616
With the new AB-1616 law passed in CA. I will finally be making the tiny hop into baking commercial bread. Already have my first customer lined up, and we are designing breads she will be buy (I'm having too much fun doing that...)
I'm looking at small deck ovens to use at home, I would like gas with steam but seems small deck ovens are more on the Electric side of things. I've read a bunch of the forums and many of my questions have been answered, but what is still baffling me is the HEIGHT of the ovens, I see ranges from 5", 7", 8" and 12" I know my final loaves are between 4 - 4.5 inches tall.
What are people using in full bakeries?
I understand that 5" is more than enough for a pizza, but babka bread can be 10" tall. My starting menu, is going to be a few designer artisan breads, 11"x6"x4.5" along with bagels. I would like to buy knowing I have room to grow. Any help or suggestions?
Thanks /Andy
I'm in the same place as you. But in the UK. Looking for a small deck for small home business. Feel like I've got a tonne of reseach to do and no decent resources when I look :(
Will keep an eye on this thread though
(www.bbga.com). They have a message board for the members and you can find a lot of help there for questions like this.
bbga.org the .com leads to a lawyer's office. :)
From the basic research I have and talking to a couple of oven mfg'ers I figure 8" for your standard loaf sizes. What I also found is that small tends to go toward pizza and not bakery. Though I did have a great talk with Peerless ovens owner (he answered the phone :-) and they do have a small space, 4 rack with optional steam, though they don't provide the steam generator The model was 2324B When I priced it out for what I wanted it came up to about $5,000 usd. Since I am really just starting and "friends" giving you that advice to not do it, I ended up buying a second stove. Being the holidays I found a self cleaning gas oven for $500 My assumption is that the self cleaning part would make it a little more insulated and will get the oven up to 550 without any problems. I will be using Romertopf clay bakers for my sourdough bread. I will be limited to 4 loaves at a time but figure I should be able to back 16 sourdough without a problem a any day and in the mornings bake my white bread loaves.
I was also looking at the Cadco XAF-113 but decided against that as I wanted to run Gas which is so much cheaper, I can heat my pool in the dead of winter and the gas bill doesn't come close to the electric bill. The oven looked nice because it offered steam but since it plugged in I looked else where. It was also in the $1000 price range, and my new oven is only $500
I did find all kinds of ovens, the internet is wonderful for that, and shipping anywhere in the world. Then one of those friends asked, "what about service" so I was grounded and looked more towards companies that have support in the US.
To recap,
- Didn't find any small deck ovens for home based business, Peerless came the closest, smallest foot print and 4 decks (~$5K price)
- Figured out 8" or more needed for bread. Go higher if doing fluted pans loaves (Babka...)
- No great options on small ovens with steam, decided on Clay bakers with a squirt bottle
/A