[Sca-cooks] Fwd: Oven temperature question

[Cathy Harding]

We are blessed with a bakery with a mass oven for neighbors.  they allow us
to "borrow" it several times a year.  (pictures of one such event can be
seen here  http://www.nwlink.com/~charding/baking.html )

The timeing and rough temperatures are to the best of my recollection.  The
bakery is no longer allowed to make bread for sale in this oven due to
health regulations.  But they have pizza parties occasionally.  The oven is
usually fired cold. We generally start a fire in the oven the night before
we intend to bake, and keep the fire going for several hours.  Part of teh
technique in this is building the fire in the front of the oven and pushing
it back so that the entire mass gets hot. At about 1 am we fuel it up for
the last time and close it down (put the door on it....)

about 8am (that's what we plan but it is often later) Bill goes down and
starts up the fire again, the rest of the house is making dishes, breads,
etc.  Generally about noon - 1 pm we are ready to start baking.  by this
time the oven is hot, the oven thermometer is off the scale, generally about
800 to 900 degrees.

Traditionally, (at least according to an Italian friend who always shows up
for this party) pizzas are baked in an oven with a small fire.  You
certainly get  a really delicous slightly smoky very crisp crust and very
fast, just a few minutes. after about 45 min of pulling pizzas out, The
coals are raked out, the oven swabbed and we move on to veggies, foccacia
bread, stuffed breads, etc.

this year we baked 20 loaves of bread made from spent grain from brewing the
day before (following the Rumpelstiltskin's first you brew, then you bake).
they went in about 5pm,the oven was at about 400 and dropped to 375ish
during the baking.  Next time we are taking more detailed notes, and someone
will be in charge of them (this years notes seem to have disappeared.) other
stuff, more veggies, baked apples, etc. come next and the last thing is
always a flan.  it went in at 8pm the oven was about 220 - 200. at almost
10pm the oven was still at about 190-200.  The next day the temperature was
about 100.

We are planning on building our own.  We have been collecting bricks from
earth quake damaged chimenies for several years. (we live in the Pacfic
North West)

One of the best books I have found is teh Bread Builders hearth Loaves and
masonry ovens by daniel Wing and Alan Scott.

Maeve
(An Tir, Olympia Washington)
-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces+charding=nwlink.com at ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces+charding=nwlink.com at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of
MD Smith
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 9:02 AM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Fwd: Oven temperature question


My experience baking in ovens built in the 18th and 19th centuries is
that they are fired once, the coals are raked out, the floor swabbed and
the breads inserted. The fires are not kept burning around the edges as
in a modern pizza oven.

Modern commercial bakers using vintage or reproduction ovens sometimes
keep them firing continually, but this has the unhappy effect of burning
the oven out sooner rather than later, and makes the floor hard to swab
for the proper steam. Hence steam injectors, which seem
counter-intuitive in a mass oven, and are hard on the masonry.

The time it takes to fire an oven to bread baking temperatures varies
widely according to (as Bear mentioned) the size of the oven itself, the
thermal mass around it and the fuel used. Other conditions that affect
how long it takes to fire an oven to bread baking temperature:

What was the prevailing weather the week before firing?

Is the oven outside, built on an outside wall or an interior part of the
fireplace?

If outside, is the dome protected from rain/snow?

Has the masonry been properly maintained?

Is this the first firing of the year?

Is the oven fired regularly (once a week at the very least)?

Are there fires in the fireplace routinely?

Hope this helps.

MD/Marged


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