FIRING INFREQUENTLY – A COLD OVEN

Life is easy with a wood-fired masonry oven when your routine involves much baking and daily firing of the oven. The masonry and the whole structure stays permanently warm and hence the daily firing is a topping up affair, with less time taken, less fuel used.

This article concerns the other extreme, when your baking in the wood-fired oven is sporadic, and it is allowed to get completely cold. Maybe you are an amateur baker that only gets to it at weekends, or perhaps you are a semi-pro who only fires and bakes on the days when you prepare bread for your local market. At PANARY when I am in the phases of the year when there are no courses being held, I fire and bake in it only once a week when I have my commercial baking day to sell the bread in local shops. If it is only fired once a week, while it will not have become damp, it has definitely gone back to stone cold by the next time you fire.Continue Reading

When customers for the large ovens are finding out about technical details before they place an order, it is clear that they are often confused about the position of the chimney, and the basic simplicity of an oven that is fired on its floor.

The basic oven that is fired on its floor is the ancient and classic design that we have had for millennia.  The domed chamber is built with only one opening – a doorway that is used for loading the fuel and subsequently releasing all exhaust from the firing phase; and later, it is used as the aperture through which the food to be cooked is pushed in and pulled out.  This simplicity requires that the chimney base has to be placed directly outside the doorway.Continue Reading

Masonry ovens

Often I am asked – what is it that is so special about masonry ovens?

When my interest in baking grew to an itching urge to find out all I could within a few years so that I could set up my own bakery, these ovens were always called “brick ovens” by the old bakers.  They were often made with simple house bricks, perhaps with firebrick placed around the furnace area and where the flame path gushed out into the chamber across the front of the crown.  The big bakers’ ovens had a twentieth century improvement – a remote furnace, placed in a front wall, and when I began baking they were more likely fired with oil or gas.  At that time, the 1970’s, those I came across were already survivors, some would have called them relics of the past.  But quite a few bakers still used them, more in the country towns than the cities, particularly if they were still in good condition.Continue Reading

Educator Profile –  appearing in the monthly newsletter of Slow Food UK, September, 2009

Master artisan baker and Slow Food member Paul Merry met with Catherine and Henry on their trip to visit the Dorset convivium. Paul has been involved with craft baking and masonry ovens for over thirty years, and has been teaching courses for fifteen years. He kindly took the SFUK team on a tour around the watermill, Cann Mills near Shaftesbury in Dorset, where a range of flours are made using its traditional stones and sieves. Next door, Paul holds a wide range of bread making courses. Here, Paul took some time away from his classes to answer a few questions…Continue Reading