Bread in a Wood-Fired Oven

[pyper7]

Hi Everyone....have been away from the forum and just getting back in touch after quite a while. Nice to see the community going strong!!! I am posting in Questions Forum because I'm looking to connect with anyone who has a wood oven and is experienced with baking bread in it. We built our Wood Fired Oven a few years back and have enjoyed many good meals from it. A link to our build is here https://plus.google.com/photos/11216...729?banner=pwa
I am posting in Questions Forum because I'm looking to connect with anyone who has a wood oven and is experienced with baking bread in it. We're not off the grid but we do have chickens, can food, make jam, grind all of our own meats and generally do a lot of hands on food prep. and storage.
Hope some of y'all can share your experiences with bread in a wood fired oven!!
BTW...I have moderate success in the house with bread baking. I have a good sourdough starter that I am getting familiar with so I know a bit about the basics. Thanks in advance!

[siberian]

We have a country Charm wood stove. Actually burns wood or coal. t has a handle on the right hand side of the stove. If the handle is in heat goes up the chimney. If the handle is out it circulates around the stove. While baking the top left is the hottest and bottom right is coolest. therefore we move the bread from top right to top left to bottom left to bottom right.

[pyper7]

thanks for your response! our oven is not a cookstove that is common in the home. It's basically what a vintage homestead may have that's similar to a beehive oven. But it's a separate structure that is completely removed from the house...kind of an outside kitchen. It's fired up with wood and it retains heat for days because of the thermal mass that insulates the "house" of the oven. That's when the bread is baked.

[maddy]

Pyper, I'd like to hear more about your "beehive" oven. Do you have any pictures? Is the oven meant to be kept going continuously? Does it have any secondary function--i.e., heating water plumbed to the house, or heating a greenhouse? A thermal mass oven that retains heat for that long has definitely piqued my interest!

[Belfrybat]

Originally Posted by maddy

Pyper, I'd like to hear more about your "beehive" oven. Do you have any pictures? Is the oven meant to be kept going continuously? Does it have any secondary function--i.e., heating water plumbed to the house, or heating a greenhouse? A thermal mass oven that retains heat for that long has definitely piqued my interest!

Lots of pics in the link he provided in the OP.

[7thswan]

No, but I have done extensive reasurch and plan to built one. I only have a lifetime of cooking with wood in a fireplace, and wood cookstoves, pits.I plan on useing fieldstone from our farm. Your Oven is Remarkable !

[ct01r]

We have a "squirrel tail" oven. It's from the mid 1800's, and is similar to yours. It's called squirrel tail because the flue is in the back of the oven, then goes across the top inside the masonary and vents out the front. This re-uses the heat that going out the chimney, and is shaped like a squirrel's tail that protects the squirrel's back from the rain.

Here's what we do, you can experiment to see what works best for you.

We build a fair size fire inside the oven and let it burn for an hour or so in the summer, several hours in the winter. The idea is to raise the temperature of the masonry above your cooking temperature, the bake off the residual heat. We don't have an active fire in the oven when we're baking. I've had the oven so hot, that the next day it was still 150 degrees. I was told that a hundred years ago, They'd bake bread first (about 375 to 400 degrees), the pies, then cake, then cookies, etc. You'd put the food in that needed the highest temperature first, then food using cooler temp's as you go. We've baked bread, muffins, etc. Usually we do it for fun at family reunions, etc. We've also use it at Thanksgiving and Christmas to keep dishes hot till dinner time. We're around the corner from you in Berks county. Send me a PM if you want more info or pictures. Unfortunately, I'm not too good with technology and can't post pictures on the computer very well. Good luck, you should have fun! Curt

P.S. I love your door! Looks heavily insulated and should help hold the heat in.

[homesteadforty]

Originally Posted by ct01r

...I've had the oven so hot, that the next day it was still 150 degrees. I was told that a hundred years ago, They'd bake bread first (about 375 to 400 degrees), the pies, then cake, then cookies, etc. You'd put the food in that needed the highest temperature first, then food using cooler temp's as you go...

ct01r is exactly right. Saturday is baking day at my place... it takes the better part of the day but there is down time while the oven is heating and as things bake (don't go far or forget though) to do other small chores and/or relax. At the end of the day I put in a roast, some beans or something in a dutch oven, set it in the clay oven and let it cooking low and slow overnight... Sunday dinner ready and waiting (Thanksgiving turkey is perfect like this).

I also have a smaller bake oven built into my kitchen fireplace and one in my wood-burning cook stove. These are great for small batch quicker baking.

BTW... mine is nowhere near as nice looking as ct01r's and only has a thick wood slab for a door but it does the job well.

[Tabitha]

thanks.
It looks like the bake oven from Hansel and Gretel. Did you do all the work yourself?

[MO_cows]

pyper, that is the "ultimate wood fired oven". Anybody reading this thread, go check out the photos in the link in the OP if you didn't already. You will be impressed.

[maddy]

Oops, sorry about not noticing the link. Those are awesome pictures.

Could I trouble you with an off-topic question? How did you do the stonework at the base of the oven? Did you cut the stones to make flat surfaces? If not, how did you get them to adhere to the sides of the oven without using forms and pouring the mortar inside (which always looks so hideous). Your stonework looks beautiful!

[Sanza]

I built myself a (peche) clay oven a few years ago and have used it for baking bread, buns and pizzas, and after the oven cools down a bit I cook casseroles in it. It's not as fancy looking as yours, and I just cover it with a piece of tin and a tarp but the clay heats up nicely and it makes the bread with crusts that are crusty but chewy. I'm not sure if the brick will make it turn out the same.

The main thing to remember is that the oven will cool off quite a bit after the door is opened so doing one batch of bread is about all it'll stay hot enough for, and then I'll put in a batch of buns which bake fast enough at a lower temperature. Then after the bread making I put in a casserole that can cook slower for a longer period of time.
I built mine in a rectangular shape so I can put my trays or pans closer together and use up most of the floor space in the oven. I now know I need to build an oven that has an inside floor space of about 3' x 5' because this 2' x 3' isn't big enough..lol. I can only fit in 2 big roasters and a dutch oven now!
My next attempt at a clay oven will have a 1/2 wall separating the oven from the firebox, in case the temperature needs a boost. We're thinking of roasting a small pig in it so we will need more then just a few hours of good heat.

If I remember correctly I think I posted pictures of building the oven on a thread here on HT
My Clay Oven

[gila_dog]

We built an adobe "horno", or wood fired oven a few years ago. We built it so that it would hold two 16" pizzas or a turkey roasting pan with room to spare. Adobe will melt in the rain so we put a metal roof over it. The main thing to understand about a wood fired oven is that the temperature will start high and slowly drop down over a period of hours. So you don't just set it for a particular temperature and expect it to hold that. You need to prepare a number of things to be baked, in advance, and then stick them into the oven at the right times. We start with pizza, which likes a very hot oven (500 degrees+). Then bread, pies, and finally a casserole or meat dish, as the temp drops down. We usually bake our Thanksgiving turkey in the horno. I really love the horno. It's a lot of fun for me to make the fire and then scrape out all the ashes and coals, and then run the baking process. My wife does all the hard work of preparing all the various things that are going to be baked.