Rustic Sour Dough Loaf

Now the oven has been insulated it is time to try my regular bake in a wood fired oven.  This is the first time I have done my regular weekly bake in a wood fired oven and over the next few weeks I will be refining my technique until I get the results that I want every time.

This week I chose to bake just 9 loaves as I don't yet know how the oven will perform.  As it turns out, the oven holds heat very well and looking at the cooling rate, it looks like we will be able to bake at least 5 full loads per firing.  

not quite a full load

The oven holds steam extremely well which results in a superb oven spring.  I have been experimenting and improving my technique for  a few years, but in a regular oven have never managed to achieve close to these results.

Shame you can't hear the crust crackling as they cool

With the long slow fermentation and natural leaven, this bread take 3 days to make, but the result is incomparable to a commercial baked bread in both flavour and texture.

Good structure to the crumb

There is still some work to do on the oven before we can start to bake seriously, but I think we are not far away now.