Baking in the Basement Woodstove!

Earlier I mentioned I wanted to try to bake in the woodstove in the basement where I am living. It looks like this: (Wouldn’t it inspire you to try baking in it?)

It has been cold here as of late, so I fired it up and ran it all night long. There were some nice coals in the morning.

I had some Mill Grain bread proofing in my Brod and Taylor proofer: (not sure how I ever did without the proofer)

I started another small fire to get the oven hotter. The fire lasted about three hours. Then I raked out the largest coals. It was over 800F, went off the scale actually.

I waited only half an hour and it was already at 500F. I worried about that but I put the dough onto the stone (which broke in two places).

The above picture was without a flash, the same one below is with a flash:

I tested the temperature when the bread had been baking for 20 minutes because I could tell it wasn’t hot enough. It was already at 250F after such a short time. I left the bread in and shut the door and allowed it to “bake” for about two hours, since I had business in town.

When I got back, the bottom of the loaf was nicely brown and crunchy, the top never did get brown, but the loaf seemed baked through. The crust was nice and crunchy all around and the crumb was nice too. Not only did the top not brown but the oven spring was abysmal. Also the loaf did not hold it’s shape, not sure why that happened except the stone broke in two places and was uneven.

Well I wanted to see if it would work, but I know now,  that unless I line it with a type of brick that holds the heat, it is not a suitable baking oven. The heat fell off quickly inside the stove, but the surrounding bricks hold a gentle warmth for quite a while. Perhaps if I would have placed the loaf in when it was at the 800F mark, it would have done better.

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I do have fun with these experiments. I hope you have fun with your baking experiments as well!

Happy Baking!

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