Fresh bread from the wood fired oven

I was doing some cleaning up around the oven yesterday afternoon when my neighbor stopped down and we got on the discussion of bread. We agreed to start at 7:00am Sunday. Well, it was raw, rainy and dark but I got the stove going first inside and then fired the oven. His wife made wheat bread, and I made a honey wheat with oatmeal. Onto the pics.



Getting it going.



Rocking.



Halfway there, pegged thermometer.



Probably one of the better dome shots. Done adding wood. cracks in the dome top opening, so it's almost ready to go.




Raked out the coal bed. Letting the bricks soak up the heat.




Neighbors wheat loaves pans coming out. I had the water-soaked wood baking door on the whole cooking time with a good spritz of water to the bricks before the loaves went in. My loaves needed another 15 minutes to cook after these came out.



My two free-form honey wheats out. We ended up trading a loaf for a loaf. We ate them pretty much hot out of the oven with butter and a cup of coffee. Hers were light and airy with chew to them. Mine where dense and sweet just like a steakhouse restaurant bread. Two similar breads, two completely different results.

i can see a wood fired oven in my future, one day. looks awesome, great job.

Yep, now I'll be making some sourdough....in the kitchen oven.

Jon that looks great ! I have always wanted to build one of those ovens maybe I will copy yours with your permission that is.

Pete

That's really nice. I would love to build one in my yard.

Looks good. Give me a stick of butter and ill go to town! +20 on building one of them things! Be well

Pete, I gleaned all my info off the web and in books. Mine looks similar to others out there, so build away!

Gotta love that...Fresh bread and butter!

Perfect!

Looks great, when can we place our orders.

zap

I've just seen those pictures and I'm now hungry, and I've just eaten.........

I never get tired of seeing pics of your wood-fired oven and food, Jon. Love it, absolutely awesome.

I can almost smell that bread from here in central PA!

Smell it? Ha, I can taste it!
Note to self.....Self, make bread.

Awesome !!

I'm a bread baker, love to play with yeast and different flours

I am sure that I will be reprimanded for this statement, But you gotta love a lady that loves to play with yeast!

*laughing*

Not, not in my book, especially when you used "lady"

Nice! Any favorite bread recipes? I'm looking for something hearty for the fall for dunking in soup or plastering butter on it.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html?_r=0
http://www.sourdoughhome.com/

Thanks Dave. Looks like I have some reading to do.

The middle link is for no-knead bread.
So stupid simple, even I can do it. It's really good, too.

Uggh.

Been looking for James beards Pumpernickel on line, can't find it. Fannie Farmers is fantabulous as well.

Don't forget the raisins !!

http://oneperfectbite.blogspot.com/2010/01/black-bread.html
http://bakers.tribe.net/thread/d0a09993-1b0c-4815-be41-b281bd34280d
http://www.isbn.nu/0394473450

looking good, I am going to try some bread after a pizza firing this weekend. will start a new thread with pics.

question?? how black is the inside of your roof getting?? and do you find it a bother not having a chimney? I have some discoloration on my pergola above the oven and have thought about eliminating the chimney when I apply the last stucco layer. once it is hot it seems there is minimal smoke anyway.

Glad to hear you are up and running ironpony. Looking forward to some food pics. I do have a little bit of soot under the roof, but I call it "patina". I pretty much figured that only so much air can go in and out of the oven. If I put too much wood on or bigger pieces, then I have incomplete combustion resulting in smoke. I split the wood into wrist-thick pieces and put in three or four on at time and it gives me a clean hot burn. I am relatively close to my neighbors and have much respect for them so I try to burn as clean as possible.

Since my oven is clay/sand, it has to be completely covered, so a chimney would probably allow some rain in and minor erosion issues. Also, I did not want to deal with flashing around a chimney. The clay also seems to expand a little and there is little movement at the firebrick floor, I would expect the chimney to have movement if I used a terra cotta one.

The other thing I do is put a firebrick on each side of the door to create a channel to direct air to the base of the fire. I could improve on it by putting a piece of slate across the two bricks to create more of a tunnel. The bricks seem to create more order to the incoming air to the fire. I got that idea off Youtube somewhere. On start up there is a flat layer of smoke just above the cooler inrushing air at the bottom of the oven. It is almost like stratified air. Cooler inrush air at the bottom and hotter escaping air after downdrafting. Building the fire at the back of the oven does wonders too. When I began after building it, I built all the fires in the middle of the oven. There was too much turbulence this way. Now making the fire in the back, air comes in, right to the back, hits the fire, up to the back top of the dome and out and down the top front of the dome.

Most importantly, I would not be able to get those rolling secondary flame pics that I like so much if everything went up the chimney.