Esperance with BreadLocal - and I'm all mixed up!

So it was off to Esperance. I’d been averaging a workshop every couple of weeks so far. Suddenly I was flat out. In Esperance I had a busy itinerary, with two Bush Baking workshops and a demonstration bake to do; all in the space of about a week. In addition, I had to cast an eye over BreadLocal’s home based microbakery.

BreadLocal is the brainchild of Tiff Brown, who came to study with me some years back. She has continued her study of bread and pastry production processes in multiple countries over the whole time, and now creates sourdough loaves and croissants which are second to none. I was looking forward to catching up and seeing what was going on for her production wise. She had a few questions and things to try while I was there. It was going to be a fun week!

Tiff runs her bakery on a Market Master woodfired oven which was designed by Craig Miller and myself. Hers was a late ‘pre production’ prototype, but you wouldn’t know it. It is a very well thought through piece of wood fired cooking equipment. My own oven, Luna, was the third generation prototype which, via a couple of other ovens, led to this one. Campared to mine, Tiff’s oven is streets ahead.

The Market Master firebox blazes!

This was the first time I had ever seen her oven in the flesh, though Craig always sends me plans and fabrication pictures. There in Tiff’s nearly complete bakery, the Market Master looks formidable. I’m immediately jealous.

Tiff had been having some issues with steam generation in her oven. The system Craig developed has evolved from the one I have in my oven. Hers is certainly a better looking setup, with nice stainless water cylinders and proper plumbing. Tiff, however, wasn’t happy with it. She needed substantially more than the oven was generating.

Tiff loads from bannetons ready for scoring.

We gave the oven a run the following day, and I was going to have a look at this issue. Tiff was also interested in exploring ways to make her baking more child friendly.

Tiff’s setup is at her home. It’s a converted garage, with two kitchen spaces - an oven room and a dough room. It’s been really well thought out, and built to a high standard by local tradespeople. When I arrived, the place was a flurry of activity, as these tradies were flat out getting the dough room finished in time for the upcoming workshop. To make matters a bit more complex, Tiff had also organised a rather large catering gig at her family’s farm just out of town on the weekend.

Oh, and did I mention that Tiff was also about 6 months pregnant; with a small (but delightful) boy (Ned) who was heading towards eighteen months when I was there? Yep. (Or, as Ned would put it, ‘No way!’)

Tiffany isn’t your normal baker. Indeed, she’s in a league of her own. Over the coming week I observed her super human powers gradually emerge.

Part of the mission for us while I was there was to explore ways she could make her baking session each week more ‘family friendly’. Her one full day each baking week had become a bit long, and Tiff wanted to work out a way of alleviating this issue before she had two little people to hang with very soon. I’ve been an advocate of the retardation process for many years, and Tiff had seen it in action at my place, so the plan was to see if it could be worked into her routine.

While I was there, we were also going to experiment with her oven. Tiff had been mainly using the top deck, as the bottom was too hot. The idea here was to figure out if using the bottom deck was at all workable in her typical bakery routine.

Meanwhile, I was prepping for my two workshops and demonstration bake (which was at the catering event I mentioned earlier). Part of Tiff’s idea was to make sure I had plenty of gigs to help pay for my trip there. For that I was eternally grateful, as this trip was expensive to do. The distances involved are enormous, no matter how you travel - by air or land, there is a cost.

Esperance, for anyone who is not familiar with the area, is on a remote piece of coastline in Western Australia. It’s a minimum of four hours’ drive from Esperance to the nearest proper town. It’s 3420 kilometers to my place from there. It’s a pretty place, with pink salt lakes, coastal wetlands, beaches, and large swathes of wheat country all around. Beyond that, you are going to be crossing the desert to get there. But wait; there’s more! It’s also a busy little tourist hub, and a grain focused port is a vital part of the town’s mixed economy.

I love port towns.

Esperance is a most unusual, diverse place. Farming, salt lakes, wetlands, coastline, tourism, the port, and I’m sure there is more in the mix I haven’t been able to touch on.

Tiff is a very accomplished organiser, and she had decided to have a go at catering for a hundred people in an old wool shed on her parent’s farm while I was in town. It became increasingly clear to both of us that she had a bit on her plate. I did too - though for entirely different reasons.

We busily worked our way through the week; her extended family all converged on the house and attended to an enormous list of coordinated activities painstakingly worked and re worked by Tiff as the week unfolded. We worked our way through her bake, and were successfully able to use the bottom deck. However, surprisingly, using both decks actually slowed her down. Tiff believed she was able to bake faster with only the top deck. This amazed me, but I could see what was happening, and she was definitely right.

Loaves after ‘shuffling’.

Large double deck wood fired ovens are worked like conveyor belts. The baker ‘sets’ the formed dough on the hot bottom deck, and then transfers the ‘set’ loaves to the top deck for ‘crusting’. Once the dough is crusted, it is taken out or rotated, and at the same time the next load is put in for setting. This process works with the natural ambience of the oven; the fire is baffled away, underneath the bottom deck, sending flue gases all the way around the deck to the top. The heat is captured by stones on the roof, and radiated back down for the crusting part of the bake. In order to achieve the ‘conveyor belt’ effect, and to maximise the extra labour involved in ‘shuffling’ the bread from bottom to top, the baker needs quite a bit of dough to ‘work’ through the decks. Then, the heat in the bottom deck is gradually absorbed by the ongoing loading of cold dough. Basically, the longer the baking process is maintained, the faster the oven gets. This is, of course, only works when you can fire the oven continuously.

Tiff’s bake, at this stage, was relatively small. From time to time she did larger volumes, but to efficiently make the oven work to the conveyer effect, we really needed a bigger volume of dough. Thus, for now, the top deck would be the most efficient way for Tiff to use the oven.

It turned out the oven’s steam was adequate - but it wasn’t enough for her needs. Tiff’s workaround involved a garden hose and a spray gun, and her crusts were amazing using this technique. She’d simply spray the walls of the oven just before loading with the spray gun.

My feeling was that more moisture in the final proof would eliminate the need to spray down the decks - and the oven’s steam system would then be adequate. Moist dough, fresh out of the proofer, always gets better oven spring - but if the baker can’t achieve this due to not having a proofer, steam in the baking deck will do a similar thing. The drier the bakery environment, the more steam you need! Not sure what the annual rainfall of Esperance was, but apart from it’s coastal orientation, around it on three sides was desert. Dry air would be the norm.

As yet, Tiff hadn’t invested in any proofing gear so we looked at ideas which would work for her. Without getting any more technical than I already have, there are some really inexpensive ways for a craft baker to proof their dough, and Tiff and I discussed ways she might do this in her bakery. Once she’s set these things up, I suspect she won’t need to blast her oven with a garden hose for steam!

I made a batch of dough in her mixer for the event Tiff was catering for, as well as a batch by hand for the workshop. I also made a batch for running through Tiff’s oven, just to see if a slower proofing routine would work for her.

It was about now that the chickens of my ‘constant change’ methodolgy (from being on the road without proper refrigeration, consistent flour or water) came home to roost. I had been (over) confident in my process up to now. But recent issues with the bread we baked at the last Bush Baking workshop had highlighted to me that something wasn’t right - and I had no idea what it was! I was about to find out over the coming few batches of dough just what a mess my ‘system’ was in!

The first batch of dough for Tiff’s oven just sat still - I left it overnight, out of the fridge, and nothing much happened. When it came time to cut it, the dough felt strange - not ripe, not over ripe. Time, however, was moving on, and I was keen to process the dough so I could squeeze it in the oven after Tiff’s bake was done. I cut it, rounded it, and allowed the dough to rest and re gas. Normally, this might take a couple of hours - but after the right amount of time, not much happened at all. My dough was inching along, and it was a relatively warm day. Nothing made sense. I ended up baking it in two separate lots, and while it was acceptable, it was hardly to the standard I am used to baking. Tiff’s dough, done with a short bulk proof, was far better. She had worked with the temperature, using a ‘build’ technique, refreshing and establishing a fairly quick dough overnight.

Ten kilos of hand made dough.

My hand made dough, which I built the next day, did something completely different. It began to break down, almost straight away. I managed to make another hand dough, and this time I put it in the fridge as soon as I made it. I also made another dough in the mixer, which was for the event the following day - and this went straight into the fridge also.

My sourdough technique is based around super slow fermentation. Allowing the dough to proof at less than ten degrees is pretty normal for me. Why was this happening?

It was at this point that I arrived at my first harsh discovery; I couldn’t diagnose what was going on for my dough until I had removed all the variables. The issue was even more challenging, you see, as almost EVERYTHING was a variable.

The flour, the water, the starter, the temperature; I had not been able to manage consistency with any of these things on my gypsy journey. How the heck would I be able to figure out what was going wrong until everything was consistent again?

Secondly, how could I control temperature, with my third world evaporative cooler (which wasn’t even working properly?) It was clear I had a bad case of Erratic Bread Syndrome.

Faced with chaos, I had to return to basics. I fed the starter, and refrigerated it in Tiff’s fridge. I purchased a bag of Wholegrain Milling baker’s flour from Tiff, a flour I was very familiar with. I decanted a tankful of Tiff’s water - though later I purchased spring water from the supermarket. I could taste the clay in the local water, and I was certain it wasn’t reacting well with my process. From that point forth, I began feeding my starter more often, as temperatures in the trailer could not be kept below 15 degrees consistently.

It wasn’t until three bakes later, at a workshop at Yirri Grove Olive plantation, that things began to work again. In the mean time, I had been witness to varying levels of failure at every bake - from ‘lumpy’ dough, to ‘flat’ dough, to ‘mediocre bread’ at best. It was soul destroying stuff; especially when you are trying to teach others how to make great sourdough!

Tiff’s event at the wool shed was a total success. The locals came out in force and enjoyed the day immensely. Tiff and her crew of helpers presented a damn fine spread of wholesome country fare, while outside the Bush Bakery MkII and I worked the dough and baked it for an audience of keen home bakers.

I used the dough which had been made in the mixer and kept cold. It survived till baking, but still didn’t really elevate as I have been used to. Nonetheless, everybody who came had so much fun kneading and rough rounding, it didn’t seem to matter.

Having made some mitigation steps for my next bake, which just down the road the next day, I was hopeful that the Erratic Bread Syndrome was not actually a thing. I was prepared for Yirri Grove on lots of levels. Stay tuned for the beginning of the solution, as well as for me discovering new parts of the problem.

Wallarobba to Werribee - the tour so far

The daily routine on the road has kept me away from the keys this past few weeks. And before that, well, I was building the trailer. Not to mention putting the bakery and household into storage for a while whilst I go on this mad adventure. Time, it seems, has been spent on these things, rather than 'telling the story' of these things.

Now I'm settling into life as a traveller, the time to write has become a bit more possible, so here's an update. It's too daunting to play too much catchup at once; so much has happened already, so expect a few chapters of this story to appear over coming months.

While I was working on the Bush Bakery Mk II, the weather was fine most days. The trailer was safely housed in an old shed at Wallarobba; it had a roof over its head, and while cold nights were beginning to set in, the days were hot, particularly under the dairy shed's tin roof. There was a smidgin of rain at the farm while I was building the trailer, but I was able to ignore it, due to the dry shed the trailer was housed in. Thus, water and cold were not so much in my face. I managed to waterproof the roof of the trailer; it was a token effort at best - and I barely considered the fact that I was heading south, towards the polar winds driven from the Antarctic, in the middle of winter.  

But, as I hit the road, so too did two weeks of heavy rain; the rain swept the entire east of the continent right at the start of my journey. I was taught a lesson in planning and design in the most awkward of circumstances. After the first three Bush Baking workshops being held in pouring rain, I began to sell my wares as the 'Bringer of Rain'. There had to be a positive spin for this, I reasoned.

The Bush Bakery had some major design flaws - it was barely waterproof, and after a couple of weeks of receiving the worst of the elements, the entire thing (made mostly of wood) began to look like it would fall apart at the first decent blast of sub artic wind (which came, soon afterwards). 

There were 17 people at the Berry workshop, who braved the weather for an overnight bake. Somehow, we managed to get some half decent bread out of the oven, but afterwards I had to spend a couple of days dealing with emergency waterproofing while still parked in what was rapidly becoming a muddy quagmire at Berry B & B. I was able to do some running repairs to the wooden structure in the pouring rain, but it was pretty dodgy.

Somehow, I got the Bush Bakery to Murrumbateman in one piece, though I have to say it was extremely waterlogged, and could well have come apart with a decent bump. In addition, all my bedding and clothes got completely soaked. Before I left Berry, I spent a couple of days tucked into one of the cabins at the B & B, drying stuff in front of the open fire. Happy days. Thanks Peter and Mandy, the owners and friends of mine; without your generosity I may well have been forced to call the whole trip off!

Fortunately, I had reluctantly invested in some decent tarpaulins while at Berry; I dried out much of my gear, and could at least prevent more rain from finding its way into the very delicate wet underbelly of the Bush Bakery Mk II.

The workshop at Murrumbateman ran more smoothly, though Bev (a past student and keen baker and oven builder herself) helped me get through the workshop with a degree of dignity still intact. Another trip to Bunnings before I left, and the trailer was ready to travel again - albeit still vulnerable to the ravages of rain. Cold had been temporarily abated by the loan of Bev's serious doona - thanx Bev!

Next, I arrived in Harcourt, at the Blumes Historic Bakery site. Jodie and Dave have been ultra busy, resurrecting the old Scotch oven and bakery, over the past 9 months since they attended a Masterbaker session at my old place in the Hunter Valley last year.

These guys describe themselves as 'serial renovators', and this became apparent very quickly, as their setup was nothing short of incredible. The scotch oven, almost exactly 100 years old, had been refloored and reflued; Dave had the good sense to add some under floor temperature sensors to the 72 tonne beast as well. The bakery itself had been refurbished beautifully, as well as the grounds and various buildings.

They found a space in the large woodshed for me and the Bush Bakery, so while it rained regularly, I was dry and had a chance to work on my cold weather setup while we worked on the various pre production processes in anticipation of the Blumes bakery re- opening - only months away. Their efforts inspired me to improve the trailer, which took the form of the addition of some old corrugatred iron on the wings. Dave donated some old iron, and helped me put it on. Gotta say, the trailer feels so much more solid now that it's coated in a layer of (recycled) steel!

The workshop went fabulously well, with a bunch of locals coming along for the day, making some great bread in the Bush Oven.  The proofer worked well too, powered by my butane gas burner and some terracotta 'heat amplifiers' which I've been using lately. These 'heat amplifiers' work to consolidate the diffusion of small amounts of heat in a small space. Thus, they are like mini 'mass heaters'; perfect for heating a bedroom or small kitchen, and I intend to cover their design and use in a future article. 

Jodie and Dave are 'heart' people - like me, I guess - and observing their process was illuminating. I can tell you that when these two get their bakery up and running over the coming months, it will be worth checking them out. I can see that it will be extraordinary, and that they will quickly make a name for themselves, as they approach things with a degree of thoroughness that is essential when you are trying to do something special. In short, I see them as 'up for the task'. We worked on their strategic vision, and then got stuck into the detail of how the proposed bakery would actually operate at a certain scale.

This is an exercise I really enjoy doing with first time bakeries - it means they get a handle on exactly what they need to get for their setup, as well as which suppliers they need to be talking to, what their production schedule might look like, and so on. We decided also to run a couple of trial bakes through the heated Scotch oven as well. These were pretty woeful affairs - just working out the variables in a virgin bakery is a pretty tricky undertaking, let alone actually get everything through an untried woodfired oven! By the second attempt, though, we had figured out lots, and had a markedly better result. Still not to commercial standard, but not far off. The oven itself is a gem - totally even, and very easy to work - once you get the hang of using a twelve foot long peel.

So Harcourt was a powerful experience for me. Here was a 100 year old piece of simple technology which was both efficient and accurate. The heat the oven was achieving was amazing - totally even, and totally strong. The bread which will soon be coming out of that oven will be nothing short of amazing - and I will be part of it, which makes me very proud!

My journey continued - Melbourne beckoned, and my youngest daughter was having a birthday. She's been southside for a good many years now, and visiting has always been tricky. This time, I had my whole kit and kaboodle - my dog, Pippa, my cat Mishka, and the Bush Bakery. No more airline mentality - this time we could check out her world properly, without the constraints of airline schedules to limit us. In addition, the Melbourne workshop was fast approaching. 

Finding a dog friendly caravan park was tricky - I ended up in Werribee South, on the edge of the bay, getting blasted by sub zero Arctic winds and a kind of feral stench created by the sewage plant at Cocoroc, where all Melbourne city's shit gets dealt with. Despite this, it was a really good spot to be. I was amazed by the size of the market gardens surrounding the suburb - it seemed like the cabbage capital of the southern hemisphere!

My organic brain was thinking of the natural synergy here. I know human excrement should not be used to grow human food - but hey, cabbages and poo both stink. Poo is basically nitrogen, and that's exactly what is needed to grow cabbages!

Being in zero degree nights near the bay also refined my camping set up - my trailer is half classroom/bakery, half 'boudoir' - so I spent a bit of time sorting out living with really cold weather.  By the time I left there I had created double insulated canvas walled sections under the wing of the boudoir - and had figured out the basic tarp system to keep me dry. 

I even prepped dough by hand in the trailer while the chill winds from the Antarctic were at my back. Really felt like I was starting to get the hang of this mobile baking routine. I haven't managed to build the bakers' trough, so I'm using my plastic tubs from the bakery. These are proving to be perfect for the task. I haven't 'kneaded' the baker's trough as yet...but this will happen, as I eventually will 'knead' more capacity. At this time, it isn't really required - the dough tubs work with 10 kg each, and I find them very easy to use in the existing technique. This will change, but for now, it doesn't knead fixing (there I go again).

Thus prepped, I headed off to the Melbourne Workshop. Which will be the next chapter. Keep you posted!

The reinvention of the Bush Bakery

The workshop

Nothing excites me more than a new project. I've been holed up here about 15 minutes out of Dungog, at my mate Craig Miller's Mum's farm; I've set up my work space in the old dairy shed. My base resource is what used to be my markets shop trailer. 

Your Challenge, should you choose to accept it...

For this project, I've set myself some really tricky challenges - not the least of which is to build the Bush Bakery Mk II almost entirely from existing materials - a kind of re purposing/recycling process. Essentially, I'm stripping out the inside of what was the shop trailer, and then turning it into a mobile baking classroom-cum-sleeping quarters for the Tour Down South.

I gotta say, I'm learning so much about recycling building materials, and how to work in this manner. It's about the third or fourth carpentry project I've done this way, and I feel as though I'm finally getting the hang of it. I've been working on it day and night for the past week in order to test it out before hitting the road properly in June. So far, I have spent a grand total of $100 on the refit; everything that came out of the old shop trailer has been broken down and reused in the new classroom trailer. My carefully laid out pile of timber, hardware, assorted building materials and baking equipment which came from both this trailer and my old classroom at Ellalong has been utilised well. Indeed, towards the deadline (Friday for Saturday's workshop) I was actually starting to run out of materials. Luckily, I managed to improvise well enough to get the new trailer ready for a trial run.

I took the newly repurposed Bush Bakery Mk II out yesterday for the first time to conduct an outdoor 101 class yesterday. I have been in a state of high anxienty all week, as I've been working on the trailer. There is nothing worse than equipment failure in the middle of a workshop, and so many things can go wrong when you are making bread from scratch with very little actual bakery equipment. Thankfully, everything worked quite well, and my students seemed pretty happy with the bread we baked, as well as the day in general. This feedback nourishes me and allows me to keep going on the project, knowing I'm on the right track.

One of the highlights of the day was just how good the oven I'm using works. This oven was made in 1924 in Massachusetts, USA. It weighs virtually nothing - maybe 5kg - and it can bake a few loaves at once. It was the inspiration for the Bush Oven which Craig and I are currently designing for the Tour, and yesterday was the first time I have actually used this beautiful antique oven. Wow! What a clever little thing it is. I've been reflecting once again on how we think we are currently really technologically savvy, and yet back in 1924 they made a super efficient oven which can do a lot of baking from not much at all. We fired the oven up with lightweight firewood, and managed to bake a baker's dozen worth of loaves in a just a few hours. The oven spring we were getting was nothing short of amazing. Crust colour wasn't great, but the crust itself was brilliant. Leathery, crisp and thin. Colour can be addressed in other ways - but black ovens like this one are notoriously difficult to put steam into. Nonetheless, Craig and I are now working with this idea for our new Bush Oven. Stay tuned for progress here.

The trailer currently is barely functional. I got the basics done for the workbench, but I had to improvise a way to hold wooden transit boards for final proofing which was barely adequate. The idea I am working towards is a kind of third world retarder/proofer, based around the same technology utilised in the Coolgardie Safes of last century - essentially coolers which worked by evaporating water. My version will have walls made of expanded clay pellets, which were used in an aquaculture setup here on the farm, and which will be wrapped in wire mesh. These pellets hold a lot of water, and the way I'm going to build it will allow air to pass around the pellets, causing evaporation as well as turbulation. Airflow will be provided by vents which are on the front of the trailer, so when I'm moving the Coolgardie will cool things down. When I'm stationary, the cooler can convert to a proofer by wrapping it up in calico and placing a water bath warmed by hot coals from the oven. If I build it right, it will seal well, and in theory will satisfy my hard core off grid requirements.

Plumbing for the Bush Bakery will be very simple. There will be hot and cold water, as you would expect; I've salvaged a stainless steel water tank from the Bush Bakery Mk I, and this will sit on the roof and be heated by the sun. I've used this incredibly basic technology before, and it heats water well, even on cool days. The tank will connect with a tap inside the trailer, and will also provide the water for the Coolgardie unit via a trickle feed system. This will have a valve fitted to regulate the water flow so that the cooler will have the right amount of water for evaporation. Cold water will simply come from a hose connection. Weight is an issue with this small trailer, so I won't be carrying much water when on the road.

I've written about the mixing tools here already - I'll be making a Baker's trough for this purpose. More about this when I've made it. Again, I'll be playing around with my version with a view to optimise it for weight, volume and mechanical advantage. By the time it's ready, I'll have most of the rest of the trailer's infrastructure complete, so there will be some trials to do before I roll on down the road with the Bush Bakery Mk II.

For the sleeping quarters, I'm going to have a simple fold out bed on the opposite side of the trailer to the kitchen. I've insulated the roof, and will be insulating the wings which fold out to provide shelter. I'm still deciding how to create walls and windows for my fold out bed - I'm tossing up between some sort of canvas/shade cloth roll down wall system, or something a bit more sophisticated made of wood. It will be the middle of winter, so it is going to have to be able to keep me and my dog Pippa warm and dry every night. Pippa's bedroom will be on the ground under the fold down bed. I'll be adding a mesh section under it to keep her contained while the moon is out.

I've got six weeks to finish and test my Bush Bakery Mk II. As usual, I am confident I will have it all good to go by then - but anyone who saw me a few nights ago before Saturday's workshop would know, sometimes I tend to be a bit more ambitious with my projects and the deadlines I set for them than is humanly possible. That's just the way it is. I can only plug away, and hope that I get a good run with things. Sometimes jobs like this can go smoothly and without too many hitches. Other times, stuff just eats up time, and progress is slow. This is a real risk with a project of this type - particularly when one is working with 'inventions' which one hasn't ever done before. There are many unknowns. In addition, my choice of re using and recycling as much as possible means I have to make do largely with what I've got. This is not simply an idealogical position - here at Wallarobba, it's a forty five minute drive to the nearest large hardware store, so you really can't just nip down and grab things on the spur of the moment. Buying hardware in this case involves planning, lists, and a flexible brain. Luckily, when we dismantled the Bush Bakery Mk I, materials were sorted and carefully dismantled because I knew they would be used again. Thus, my supplies are already waiting for me to use them - though I have no idea what things I will actually need as yet!

I do love a challenge. Keep an eye out for future posts right here to see how it's all going. If you would like to book for a Bush Baking Workshop, and see and use the new setup, you can book for any of the workshops here. Keep an eye out for new venues via our facebook page as well. I'm coming your way soon!