New Oven
As I think most of you all have deduced over time, I am straddling the fence between home baking and becoming a small commercial upstart. Outside of a 3-day course with Jeffrey Hamelman and James MacGuire at KAF, I have learned this craft though a lot of practice, a lot of frustration, and a lot of really good advice from within this community. For that I am very grateful.
With humility in hand I want to introduce you to a new member of my family:
This is a Doyon Artisan 3T1 with a stone surface and built-in steam generator. I have abandoned gas for electric and this oven has 12 heating elements inside; 6 on the top of the baking chamber and 6 under the stone deck. You can set the top temperature separately from the bottom, and you can even control 4 of the heating elements closest to the door separately from all the others. The baking chamber is sealed so a single 1- 2 second blast of steam is all that is needed to humidify the chamber. At the desired time a vent is opened and the steam is released.
The deck will accept 3 full sheet pans. Since I bake directly on the stones or on parchment paper, my primary interest is to be able to bake 12 baguettes at a time. Thus far I have been suitably impressed, yet am finding that I am having to learn the nuances of baking, temperature and steam control all over again.
Just had to show off the new baby.
It's beautiful, Jim.
Question, if maintenance is needed where do you go in a small city? How does that work?
<I'm dreaming>
thank God my wife hasn't seen this post. hehehe...
Dan
Any maintenance I can do myself. I have been a hand's-on guy since the day I could first hold a screwdriver and I am well-versed in the necessary disciplines for this box. While Fedex is a wonderful thing, the Doyon importer is about an hour away, just over the border into Canada.
Send me your wife's email address. I'll cc: her :-)
... a wonderful piece of equipment by the look of it; I wish you many loaves of happiness for you and your many satisfied customers!
I want one. Not practical for home use but who cares...lol
Nice piece of kit. I presume it'll be 3 phase, given your US 110v supply? How many watts?
Lance
Thanks Lance.
8,000 watts. This particular model comes out of the factory wired for 3-phase but they offer a single phase conversion option. The oven is wired 240 VAC single phase (I wouldn't be able to run it otherwise) and connected to 50 amp circuit. It's more power than I need but on occasion I use the same outlet to power my MIG welder.
You can order this oven with up to 26 kWatts of elements but I just don't know why someone would need that much heating capacity. The stones are up to 500 F in about an hour, maybe an hour and 10, and I am not seeing any real drop when the deck is loaded with 40 F bread.
Setting deck to 500 and the top elements to around 450 makes for some pretty impressive oven spring. As the manufacturer states, the heat transfer is forced vertically because of the temperature differential. For the first time in my baking experience I am having concerns about too much oven spring.
Another really cool thing is that the deck lighting is really good and the door is glass. You can sit and watch the loaves rise in the oven right before your eyes.
Thanks Jim. I always suspected that a commercial oven was going to give better oven spring and after reading your description, I can understand why.
How does the steam generator work?
Lance
When I first started this quest about a year and a half ago I plumbed a Riemers AR-4 steam generator into my Blodgett 911-P deck oven. The AR-4 held about 2 gallons of water and created a continuous 5 psi. of steam. I would turn on the steam and let it continue to flow for my desired steam time.
The Doyon is quite different. It has a chamber on the back of the oven that contains two heating elements. These elements heat to 560 F over about 30 minutes. When I press the steam button water sprays on the elements and is immediately converted to steam. The steam enters the baking chamber with a whoosh and remains there until I open a vent.
So, the actual steam activation time is less than 2 seconds with the Doyon. The baking steam times remain the same. With the AR-4 I would shut off the steam after some period of time and the remaining humidity would escape through the flue. With the Doyon I I open the vent and the humidity evacuates into the free air.
If I steam too long the plates cool down. It takes 6 - 8 minutes for the plates to recover. There are little flashing lights that let me know when the plates are hot again. If I am baking without steam I can turn off the steam elements and save a little energy.
A nice holiday gift for yourself! How wonderful it is for one to pursue his dreams! Best of luck to your new business!
Yippee
All you need to do now is dump that Ank and get yourself a proper (spiral) mixer! ;-)
Lance