All these little bakeries - they're
like little lights hidden away in the countryside.
- Alan Scott
In August of 2003 William Davenport built a 5x7 foot
retained heat masonry oven on our property in East Calais, based on a design by Alan
Scott. Construction lasted about three weeks, but then it was necessary to "cure" the masonry by building a series of small fires over a period of several more weeks. We actually began baking test batches around early October, and I would say the oven was probably not fully seasoned until sometime the following Spring. We baked and sold bread all Winter, but the oven didn't really "sing" until it reached full seasoning. Certainly, curing an oven in a Vermont Winter is not the ideal! But the difference, once the oven was fully cured, was astonishing - much less effort firing and baking as it settled into its own unique routine.
Chad Robertson of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco tells me the French bakers he knows say an oven isn't really in its glory until at least six months of regular use. Absolutely ALL the residual moisture in the bricks, concrete, foundation and insulation must be driven off, and the underside of our oven dripped with "sweat" for many weeks.
Now a wood
fire burns gently for up to twelve hours each baking day, and creates
sufficient heat for at least 6 batches of about 30 loaves each. The heat is allowed to soak deep into the masonry overnight while the doughs rise in a refrigerated room. About 6:00 the next morning, the doughs are ready and the oven is wonderfully saturated with a mellow, intense heat that, after thousands of years of technological progress, is still the best environment for bread baking. To anyone contemplating the commercial use of a masonry oven, I highly recommend the method of a long firing, overnight mellowing, retardation of the dough, and early AM bakeoff. I spent so many years getting up at all hours of the night to bake, I was deeply grateful to Chad for his advice on this variation of his baking method.
There is a renaissance
occuring, a return to some time honored methods of producing food. The increasing
interest in sustainable agriculture is one, the revival of wood-fired ovens
for baking is another. This project is for us both a means to make a
living, and a template for others to follow -- people who are seeking authenticity
in their lives -- right livelihood.