Using your Wood Fired Pizza Oven to Bake Bread

BBQSpitRotisseries · Post by **BBQSpitRotisseries** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:18 pm

A lot of people seem to think that a wood fired pizza oven is just for cooking Pizzas but one thing that really tastes amazing in a wood pizza oven is bread. The smoke and fire gives it another level of flavour and the crust becomes crunchy.

So to try something new in your wood fire pizza oven, here is a basic recipe for wholemeal bread:

Ingredient :

2 ½ Cups White Flour

2 ½ Cups of any type of Whole meal Flour

1 teaspoon Salt

1 packet of Yeast or 1 tablespoon of Yeast

1 tablespoon Oil- ( Most people prefer olive oil to follow older traditions , but vegetable oil will work as well )

2 Cups of Water

The best way to start making the dough is to blend in the two types of flour , the salt , along with the yeast in a large mixing bowl . Then add water and oil and mix well. Ensure that the dough does not have pockets of dry flour. To achieve this knead the dough thoroughly. Place the dough into a clean container that has been greased with either oil or just a little bit of whipped butter. Then you roll the dough into a ball in the middle of the greased or oiled bowl . Using a moist kitchen towel, the bread needs to be covered and allowed rest for 1 to 1 1/2 hours so that it may rise .

After the dough has raised, it should be placed on a baking stone which is sprinkled with ground cornmeal or semolina to stop it sticking . The bread needs to then be baked at 250 degrees Celsius for about 40 minutes . To prevent the bread from burning, check the bread after 30 minutes. Once baked to perfection, allow it to rest for 30 minutes and then tuck in.

chrisg · Post by **chrisg** » Mon Apr 28, 2014 6:54 pm

Be simpler to use Atta flour than having to mix two, it's wholemeal, just very fine ground, but a TABLESPOON of I assume fresh yeast?

I think you may have meant a teaspoon but it's best prepped in warm water in a small bowl with some sugar or honey until it foams to demonstrate it is alive then added to the flour in a well made in the flour in a large bowl for initial mix followed by vigorous kneading. Bread is never going to be much good without solid kneading, it stretches the gluten sheets, essential to good bread.

That said I can't think of a reason not to cook brilliant bread in a pizza oven, in fact I think that's how my local independent pizza joint makes great Chiabatta

Posted somewhere here the basics of bread, didn't make mention of where to cook it, but a hot oven ? Definitely a great place

Cheers

BBQSpitRotisseries · Post by **BBQSpitRotisseries** » Wed Apr 30, 2014 1:21 pm

Cheers,
Will definitely keep on experimenting

Buccaneer · Post by **Buccaneer** » Wed Apr 30, 2014 1:46 pm

chrisg wrote:

Be simpler to use Atta flour than having to mix two, it's wholemeal, just very fine ground, but a TABLESPOON of I assume fresh yeast?

I think you may have meant a teaspoon but it's best prepped in warm water in a small bowl with some sugar or honey until it foams to demonstrate it is alive then added to the flour in a well made in the flour in a large bowl for initial mix followed by vigorous kneading. Bread is never going to be much good without solid kneading, it stretches the gluten sheets, essential to good bread.

That said I can't think of a reason not to cook brilliant bread in a pizza oven, in fact I think that's how my local independent pizza joint makes great Chiabatta

Posted somewhere here the basics of bread, didn't make mention of where to cook it, but a hot oven ? Definitely a great place

Cheers

Gents, the mark of civilization for me, great bread!
The idea that kneading is essential to make good bread is false, and in fact is detrimental to the home baker.
That very process is in fact the industrial detriment due to commercialism, time being money and storage being costly.

For us at home, we can make artisan bread that commercial bakers dream of.
The trick is not to knead at all.
Make your hydrated dough and put it into a plastic tub, put it into the fridge for a day day or two, two being better.
Then fold it a couple of times to get your loaf shape and then bake.
The development of flavour in this time is way above commercial, and the gluten stretch is phenomenal compared to kneading and trying to force the stretch.

Cooked in the Big Steel Keg, the true Swiss knife of barbecues!

HTH

chrisg · Post by **chrisg** » Wed Apr 30, 2014 2:51 pm

I have NEVER heard of that and been baking bread for years

I'm interested to give it a go, your pic certainly looks impressive

Cheers

Ciapek · Post by **Ciapek** » Wed Apr 30, 2014 6:15 pm

Bucc, more info please.
I'm an avid bread baker, and now I need to know more !
Ciabatta is the only no knead path I have taken, please give me more food for thought.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Smokey · Post by **Smokey** » Wed Apr 30, 2014 6:28 pm

Sounds a bit like the no knead and ferment process ?
I'm no expert on bread, But Buc sort of describes how I make Pizza dough or loaf from sour dough starter rather then using any added yeast. It takes two whole days in the fridge then out to warm.
There is learning afoot

chrisg · Post by **chrisg** » Wed Apr 30, 2014 6:55 pm

A fermented dough I can imagine, don't do them myself, I seem to have always lived with women who do not leave enough room in the 'fridge and if I get another 'fridge they fill that as well

I'm very interested to learn more and give it a try, probably in some sort of A/B with conventional kneading.

I mentioned in my piece about bread that I use and endorse using unflavoured Vitamin C to halve the amount of kneading, and the time-to-bake but I'm REALLY curious about no-knead bread

Cheers

Bear · Post by **Bear** » Thu May 01, 2014 1:14 am

Buccaneer wrote: Make your hydrated dough and put it into a plastic tub, put it into the fridge for a day day or two, two being better.
Then fold it a couple of times to get your loaf shape and then bake.
The development of flavour in this time is way above commercial

+1, sometimes I leave it for 3 days.

This method is a must for home made bread if you want great flavour IMO.

I always make pizza dough in advance also.

Buccaneer · Post by **Buccaneer** » Thu May 01, 2014 11:38 am

Okay, after giving this some thought I realize I am going to be using recipes to get this done so I guess I must start a thread.
I'm no baker, it is my weak suit in cooking, but I AM dedicated to diving into the science of understanding what happens so I found efficacy in getting great bread without the long arduous learning curve.
My reading made me realize, or theorize from opinions of bakers in forums, that they understood kneading and gluten is to be made into sheets.
Like lamination.
My understanding was that a lump of dough was really a collection of...um...you know those steel wool clumps of shaved steel we use to scrub pots with?
Well, those. Millions of them.
The finished loaf is a million strings forming little nets inside which there are trapped gasses, carbon dioxide and so on, in bubbles.
So, in my imagination the goal was to get the gluten to change from clumps into strands so it could do the job.
Yeast does that.
Searching the idea that water and yeast and time would gently allow the process to take place let me stumble onto some people doing just that!
I was away in a rush because now I was just following a well trodden if fairly unknown track carved out by others, my betters in this!
I have struggled to remember their names because a link would save me a heap of typing.
I'll probably yell it in a minute and scare TFO...

Now the use of abscorbic acids (vitamin C) in my understanding, is also detrimental to artisan bread, but Chrisg could well be right and I wrong, so we need to explore.
It serves to help oven spring, the name for the desired rapid rise when dough gets heated.
The down side it seems to me is a uniform tender and smaller set of crumb, or the bubbles.
So, if you want bread for your sangers in a lunchbox it is useful, but for those artisan loaves it is not?
Opinions from you bakers?
Maybe I have that wrong?

Soon as I get time, I'll start a thread and put in what I am doing to get decent bread despite not being any chop at baking.
That way we all benefit from it being put though it's paces by guys better than I at baking bread!

urbangriller · Post by **urbangriller** » Thu May 01, 2014 12:39 pm

Ascorbic Acid retards the rise in wholemeal breads. It weakens the gluten structure in longer fermented doughs. Primarily it is used to "cheat" an impression of freshness and to make the rise faster in a commercial/bread machine baking operation. If you are cold proving or long fermenting, leave it out!

Cheers
Chris

Buccaneer · Post by **Buccaneer** » Thu May 01, 2014 1:25 pm

Ciapek wrote:Bucc, more info please.
I'm an avid bread baker, and now I need to know more !
Ciabatta is the only no knead path I have taken, please give me more food for thought.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Okay, Ciapek and Chrisg and others interested, I have posted here http://www.aussiebbq.info/forum/viewtop ... 35&t=13491 my home process with a few details.
Be great if you experienced bakers gave it a whirl and came back with your input so we could all benefit!

chrisg · Post by **chrisg** » Thu May 01, 2014 1:59 pm

I'm certainly going to give it a try.

My mention of Vitamin C had to do with time saving and very little else, used in the classroom environment. What UG says is fundamentally correct, pragmatically what it does is consume the yeast faster so you only need to knead once.

I don't do it in most breads I bake but then I enjoy kneading

I'd more seriously be avoiding it in a fermented bread because the small amount used would I think need the distribution through the mixture that kneading provides.

I suppose it probably does impart "freshness," dunno, whenever I bake the bread always seems pretty much gone before it has cooled

I suppose it's worth considering that bread has been being made for a very long time most places in the world and it is only relatively recently that a baker could have the luxury of a long ferment in a cold 'fridge

Now to see if I can steal some 'fridge space

Cheers

BBQSpitRotisseries · Post by **BBQSpitRotisseries** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:18 pm

Sour dough Bread cooked in a wood fired pizza oven - Best bread i've ever had! Might have been the 3 days preparation that made it oh so much nicer!

If anyone wants the recipe or tips let me know and i'll post a link to it.

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