September 8, 2015 - 8:36am
Best home oven for a farmers market baker
Hello,
I bake for my local farmers market. Right now i'm making under 50 loaves per market, but selling out every time and i wish to expand. I do no kneads in cast iron pots and can only bake two at a time, so i'm looking to at least double that. I also do whole grain sandwich loaves.
My question is: what is the best home oven (convection, preferable) that i could potentially fit 4 cast iron pots in. I would like to spend $2000 or less.
Any other advice welcome.
Thank you!
Elena
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you can't fit 4 pots in your home oven?
you might try oval ovens, they might make more efficient use of the space.
Also, keep an eye on Craigslist, used gear shows up all the time around here, there was even a whole pizza business up for sale! ($15K)
I cannot fit 4 pots in my home oven. Otherwise I wouldn't be in this predicament. ;)
I have a mid range 30 inch Maytag, I can fit 4 in mine...
Although I do use ovals.
What is the economics of your farmers market? Price per loaf, any costs other than bread like stall rental?
Oh, other thing I forgot: check with a local Pizzeria, see if you can use their ovens off hours. Might be worth it.
Our market only runs about 3 months out of the year--In Wyoming, but I have had a good deal of success so i'm hoping that i have enough of a following to get people on a weekly bread schedule throughout winter. My sourdough is $6 per loaf, specialty whole grain is $8. I pay $8 per farmers market for a table. I will look into oval dutch ovens, but i'm in the market for a new oven. we are moving to a new house that has a really old oven and it looks even smaller than my current oven. And my current oven in my rental is pretty nice and a newer whirlpool, but anything on the lower racks get burned. thus, i will be getting a convection oven. My question is: what are some that are recommended by other home bakers.
That is pretty good economics, so about $5 in profits per loaf. Not bad at all!
Have you considered going "whole hog" and getting a wood fired oven in the back yard?
It *is* pretty good, eh! It's been pretty crucial for my family, and since i'm the only person doing fresh bread i get all the glory, for now! ;) My husband and I have been talking and he is planning on putting in a wood fired oven. I just need to light a fire under his buns, so to speak!
I figure it would cost about 2K if I did all the labor to put in a large Pompeii oven, which would give me quite a bit of capacity, maybe 6 to 10 loves per load?
If you could double your production, you could make that back in a "season" not to mention have capacity to do more if there is demand.
50 loaves, baked 2 at a time - assuming a 45 minutes turn around, that's over 18 hours solid baking.
So your first loaves are essentially a day old when you get to market.
Even going to 4 at a time, assuming you can manage a 45 minute turn around it's still 9 hours solid baking. Staggering the ferment and proves must be somewhat challenging too... (Do you get any sleep at all in that period?)
You really ought to consider a commercial oven of some sorts.
I bake 5 days a week for local shops, markets - however I've yet to top 50 loaves in one go (42 is the record for me). I have a Rofco B40, Lincat EC08 and a cheap domestic oven. The rofco can bake 12 large loaves at a time and no need for DOs either. The Lincat can do 6 - it has water injection, no DO's there either. My domestic oven (standard UK fan oven), can do 4 large loaves as ovals, not rounds. Only 2 as rounds. (And I don't use a DO in that either)
I know of a couple of bakeries near(ish) me who have banks of domestic ovens - one has 4 and one had 6 before they moved into a unit and bought a deck oven...
It's great that you have an outlet for your bread, but don't burn yourself out in the process...
-Gordon
I make roughly 36 loaves for each market. I bake my sandwich loaves the day before, since i personally feel their flavor actually improves the next day, and i package them as soon as they cool. The no kneads are baked the day of, since it is an evening market.
That is helpful, the Rofco looks especially awesome and is around what I would like to spend. Thank you!
There's a few here using them - also search for "the weekend bakery" as they have an article or 2 on theirs.
Heres the inside of mine...
er - baking empanadas - it's not just for bread :-)
-Gordon
for 24 loaves... And my new goal in life is to acquire the Rofco. I'm a quarter of the way there! empanadas, yum! i bet it does pizzas well too.
So-far the only Pizza I've done in it has been large square tray type pizzas. It comes with 3 trays and silicone liners which are great (I ordered a 2nd set though - and they have been handy) It will go up to 300C though which ought to make quite a good classic pizza.
The empanadas were for a recent outdoor event - I baked 200 of them along with 4 trays of pizza, pizza "pinwheels", pesto pinwheels, a few trays of sweet buns and of-course sourdough bread.
You can heat the top shelf separate of the bottom 2 which is handy - using it right now to do the 2nd bake of some biscotti...
-Gordon
Elena, the Rofco does look great. If you are going to keep using dutch ovens, another option is Cadco aka Unox . A few of them come with humidity injection, but many others don't, though that should not be a problem using dutch ovens. Used ones are available pretty regularly on ebay. I have a small one, and am very impressed with the quality. The full size countertop model is 13 inches H, 27 1/4 wide, 18 3/4 deep ( KAF 193)
I can bake 18 loaves at time and have yet to invest a whole heck of a lot. How is your electric service? Is 220v possible, if so you could start looking at good used pizza deck ovens. Some have high enough chamber dimensions to allow for bread baking. They are also easy to hotrod with steam, you could also then abandon the cast iron and increase the yield.
cheers&happy baking
have a look there under, mini bakery, joy of gluten
Must get round to photoing/blogging my relatively new bakehouse sometime soon. It's gone through quite a few changes this year though. In theory I can bake 20 large rounds or 18 rounds + 4 ovals at once - 3 ovens though. A lot of my customers take smaller loaves though - the Rofco can do 6 smaller (500g) loaves per shelf or 4 x 900g ones. I looked at some deck ovens but all are either three phase (stupidly expensive to install in domestic property here) or if they can be converted to single phase would require some house re-wiring (to provide a circuit of 48 amps @ 230v) Also my bakehouse is upstairs - another challenge..
How do you get on with the spiral mixer? I recently got one - from (you guessed :-) a pizza place - well from someone who bought it privately when working in a pizza place. It was a good price and in pristine condition too. Only one speed, but it seems fine. Fixed head/bowl, so somewhat challenging to empty & clean but I think I have the hang of it now...
Liking the hotrod steam gizmo! Might be do-able in the Rofco as it has fairly tall cavitys (and the steam trays they sell take up too much deck space) The down-side of the Rofco is that it's all pop-riveted together rather than screws/bolts )-:
Cheers,
-Gordon
There is a well established farmhouse/market baking tradition here in Switzerland, which makes for an interesting array of used equipment. So far, I've been able to piece together a decent setup for a minimal investment. Having 3/phase 380V power makes it quite interesting. Earlier this week, I dragged home yet another oven....
The spiral mixer took some getting used to. I've learned to use cooler water to make up for the increased temperature development. At first, i had problems with dry flour deposits hanging on the bowl edge, I now add the flour after the water porridge/preferments etc and get by in most cases, nicely without having to use a scraper. I'm glad that it's a two speed unit and very glad that it also sports a timer. I've also found that it is very helpful to remove the doughs immediately after mixing, it's simply too disruptive for the dough to do it later. Most of my doughs are in the 12kg range and I max out at 16kg, this makes for better use of my time.
Would it be possible to hang the Rofco steam boxes higher up on the side walls of the oven, that would free up deck space?
cheers and pleasant micro baking
daniel