Learning Objective
Baking bread in a wood fired oven. Expert advice and top tips.
Learning Objective: You will learn to be more confident about using your wood fired oven.
Many people are now confidently baking great pizzas in their home wood fired ovens (see our previous top tips on sourdough pizza), but are often anxious about using the residual heat of the oven to bake sourdough bread. I have been baking bread in a variety of wood fired ovens for over twenty years. Here are my top tips and simple tricks that will reduce trial and error, and maybe disappointment, giving you the confidence to bake beautiful sourdough bread.
Get to know your oven
The more you use your oven the more you will understand it’s character(istics). As a general rule of thumb the cheaper an outdoor pizza oven costs the less thermal mass (weight) it will have, and will therefore heat up quickly, AND also cool down quickly. This is great if you just want to make a few pizzas, but not so great if you want to use the residual heat in the stone/concrete/brick to cook or bake additional things once the pizzas have been made.
Factory made pizza ovens, of which there are now numerous brands, are no better or worse than home made pizza ovens, even those made from mud/cob/clay. Every oven is different . The key is to learn by careful observation how your oven retains heat in the sole(floor) and in the dome.
Buy an infrared laser thermometer online.
They can cost as little as £10, but try to get one with a temperature range up to 500c (930f), around £30-£40. With this you can accurately measure the temperature of the inner and outer dome, and the sole. If possible measure the temperature underneath the oven floor, it will give you a very good indication of how much heat is in the sole and how good the under floor insulation is. All these readings will give you a picture of how much heat is stored in the oven, allowing you to judge when to place the dough inside.
Don’t be put off by imperfect loaves – it could take 3 or 4 attempts before you are happy with the baked bread. Bread is never too burnt – you can always cut off a burnt bottom.
Generally after baking pizza the sole will be 350-400c, and the inside of the dome 440-500c . This is far too hot. For bread the sole needs to be 200-240c and the dome 250-300c.
Cleaning the oven floor
After pizzas I firstly move the remaining fire and embers and spread them all over the oven floor; when they have burnt down further I carefully remove any burning wood or embers and place them in a metal container, ideally with a close fitting lid to stop the oxygen. Then I use my pizza turner, soaked cotton tea towel and large bucket of cold water to mop out and clean the area where the dough will be placed. Don’t worry about small embers and ash around the edges. Use your blow pipe to blow any remaining ash from the oven floor. Mopping out the oven will decrease the sole temperature by up to 30c. If it is still too hot, repeated mopping will lower it further.
The skill is to synchronize the slowly rising dough and the cooling down oven.
To keep things simple I always make enough dough for pizzas and bread. Watching the pizza dough balls rising will give you an indication of when the larger pieces of bread dough will be fully proved and oven ready.
If you are ONLY baking bread and not pizzas, then you must heat up the oven to around 300c (bottom) 400c (top) , clean it out and then leave the oven to “soak” – let all the heat from the fire seep into all the oven. This is why it is very important to measure the outside of the dome and underneath the oven floor. A cheaper oven will have a much higher exterior temperature due to lack of insulation and weight. Whereas a more expensive oven will have much lower exterior temperature- in some cases the outside of the dome could be as little as 60c even when the inside of the dome is 400c.
You don’t have to burn and waste bread whilst you are getting to know your oven. After a pizza party, clean out the fire, put the door on, and for the next couple of hours check the temperature 5 or 6 times. Very quickly you will be in tune with the oven, and can progress to baking bread.
The larger the piece of dough you are baking the lower the oven temperature. 100gms pitta bread 350c sole, 1000gm boule 240c sole.
It is important to have a close fitting airtight door to keep the moisture inside the oven. It helps to achieve a thin, crispy shiny crust and more oven spring. You can use old dough to seal the door. See photo
If you don’t feel confident to bake your dough directly on the oven floor a great alternative is to use a Dutch oven or pyrex dish. Many of you will already be doing this to bake sourdough bread in a kitchen oven. Follow your normal procedure; make sure the oven door is big enough for the container. You can even place an empty cold Dutch oven into the oven and check its temperature after fifteen minutes; this will give you valuable knowledge of how much retained heat your oven has.
There are no quick easy ways to get great results. But hopefully with these top tips you will soon be confidently baking beautiful bread in your wood fired oven.
Please post any questions on the forum and Michael will reply. He is also available for online chats. See the contact information and quote the special members discount code.
