Bread in a Pizza Oven

[CPLATTER]

Re all those extra croutons, it is worth pointing out that they work extremely well in place of bread slices to provide a base for the cheese in French Onion Soup. Even better, their smaller size makes them easier to eat than a full slice of bread covered with boiling soup.

[Tim F]

Hi all, glad I found this thread!

I'm starting to plan my own brick oven as the electric oven with pizza stones can't keep up. My biggest question at the moment is what kind of oven I should make. Pizza and bread baking are equally important to me, and I'd like to have an oven that could cook in the order of 10-20 loaves of bread fairly easily, with the idea of maybe selling a few loaves at our local country market on the weekend. Is this a realistic expectation from the Pompeii oven designs on this site? If anyone has advice or links about this I'd be very grateful!

[Dutchoven]

Originally Posted by Tim F

Hi all, glad I found this thread!

Pizza and bread baking are equally important to me, and I'd like to have an oven that could cook in the order of 10-20 loaves of bread fairly easily, with the idea of maybe selling a few loaves at our local country market on the weekend. Is this a realistic expectation from the Pompeii oven designs on this site? If anyone has advice or links about this I'd be very grateful!

Pizza and bread were equally important to us and we found this forum a year or so after we built our oven(barrel vaulted) and we bake bread for our local farmer's market. If we were to do it again I feel like we would build a pompeii. 20 pounds of bread should not be an issue as far as heat retention goes expecially if you learn the quirks of your oven. The round shape of the pompeii may make it a bit difficult for larger volumes of let's say baguettes due to the shape but round loaves should be fairly easy.

What size oven diameter were you thinking? Our round loaves usually occupy a space of about 1 square foot, that allows space on all sides for good browning. If you did the pompeii in a 40 inch diameter you should get between 8 and 9 square feet of cooking space(if my math is correct). Insulating your oven very well should allow you to bake at least two but more likely 3 or 4 loads of bread(depending on their type).
Hope this helps!
Dutch

[Tim F]

That's a big help, thanks. I haven't settled on a size yet but I think 40" would be about right!