Rye Bakery Frome – a big fabulous 2 door dream oven
Rye Bakery Frome- how to work inside and out with one oven
There are ovens and there are two door ovens and I think we are the only company that can supply them. That’s what interested baker Owen Postgate when he contacted us in November of 2021 as he had a project at his bakery near Frome station he wanted us to look at. Initially he was a bit strapped for cash and was considering building his own oven and us supplying the bakers tiles and doors but he managed to secure a grant to cover the cost of the oven that left him with more options.
He had known about the oven we built at the Weald and Downland Living Museum where we had used a 2100 x 1400 ( FSP2100) bakery oven in a reconstruction of a old bakery building but thinking ahead, he asked whether it was possible to have two doors, one facing inside the bakery and the other at right angles outside on the terrace. Fortunately our partners Four Grand-Mere make a whole range of ovens with two doors at more or less whatever angle 90, 120, 180, 270 so we were able to supply and install on budget.
We eventually had the oven delivered mid April 2022 and got cracking on the build while Owen was away on a holiday researching Neapolitan pizza. Rye Bakery Frome is a very busy place with the good people of Frome coming and going buying baked goods and having a coffee in the communal seating area outside- not an easy place to work around if you’re building and cutting materials or creating dust. Fortunately they stop service at 3pm so there is a breathing space to catch up and do any messy jobs in the afternoon.
The build went well, refreshed and fed every day, Owen returned and was confronted by a fractious neighbour who had an industrial unit adjacent and didn’t want us on his land to fit the flue. The flue was originally going to run straight through the new roof but the landlord raised objections so we had to run it at 90° sideways to the edge of the roof and up above a crumbling dividing wall between Owens unit and the garage unit adjacent. Not easy but we did it and managed to get some straining wire to hold the vertical section steady.
We took the oven through a few firings before handing it over and now it is the centrepiece of pizza action on Thursday,Friday and now Saturday evenings and bread baking on retained heat early Saturday mornings. Because of the length of the oven, the two door system works really well as Owen can bake from inside and load wood from the side door making it much easier to keep the fire in the right place without reaching too far.
Rye Bakery Frome is a fantastic example of what can be achieved by hard work, determination and teamwork, backed by a strong ethical position on sustainability and regenerative farming methods. The food has very few food miles associated with its production and the some of the organic bread flour is now milled at Vallis Farm using heritage wheat grown locally in Somerset. They have a green waste collection from local restaurants which all goes to composting at the farm and deliver all their bakery goods by electric van.
A bit about our large ovens
Our larger ovens are built without mortar joints so everything can move when expanding and contracting during the firing and cooling process. Instead of self supporting segments, our large ovens especially low and wide domes, are hung from one or more external frames that take the weight of the central capping section that all the segments sit on. In this way very large ovens are possible while keeping the dome height to a minimum required for good baking. Our standard dome height is only 217mm, perfect for baking good bread but impossible to make self supporting!
Rye Bakery Frome- how to work inside and out with one oven There are ovens and there are two door ovens and I think we are the only company that can supply them. That’s what interested baker Owen Postgate when he contacted us in November of 2021 as he had a project at his bakery […]