Going greener with wood pellet oven

Going greener with wood pellet oven

Our news of the week is that we’re going greener, much greener – With a new wood pellet oven.

Many know that this year we have been working hard towards a more environmentally conscious business. Amongst other things, you will know that we introduced our amazing waxed bags at the start of the year; not only are they environmentally friendly but without a doubt, they contribute vastly to the longevity and quality of your bread bought from Lovingly Artisan.

These bold and radical moves are driven by our determination to be far greener, working to our lifestyle values for mother earth and how we choose to serve those we bake for. Running a modern-day bakery with the planet’s needs in mind is far from easy, yet we are making changes. Changes that started with the choice to use organic flour, the introduction of new packaging, delivery road time changes and now a new wood fired oven with all the bells and whistles Polin oven from Brook  Food Processing Equipment

One of the biggest decisions all bakers face is oven choice. The oven sits in the hub of the bakery, and you can’t afford to get it wrong. What does pay off is a conversation with friends in the bakery business, Brook Foods Processing Equipment Ann and Steve Wells. Our considerations were vast.

1. Bread texture and crust quality
2. The baking quality and colour
3. The ovens compatibility with our production methods
4. Energy and environmental impact
5. Baking times and production flow
6. Space! Our building had to be reconfigured! 

It’s all about baking in the best way possible that suits your businesses needs, and we are all slightly different. One of the reasons we’ve decided to invest considerably and instal a Polin wood pellet bread oven at our Kendal bakery was the planet! We were wasting so much unnecessary energy. We are now far more sustainable. It’s a more natural way of creating delicious sourdough. The wood pellet oven is a sophisticated piece of kit; it’s fully controllable and produces a final product that’s vastly different from bread baked in a conventional electric or gas-fired oven. You get a much deeper complex flavour and a fantastic crust.

Zero emissions – it’s good to know 

A wood pellet oven is classified as ‘zero emission’ because burnt pellets are made from compressed sawdust, a by-product of forestry operations.

How are they classified in this way? Because they only release the same amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by wood into the atmosphere that would be released during the normal decomposition cycle. This means the potential impact on the environment is equal to zero, unlike fossil fuels, such as gas and coal, which currently produce most of the electricity used by conventional ovens, which in turn are responsible for adding to our new CO2 emissions.

Loving Mother nature – Our planet

This is not a bakers whim! It’s about caring about what we do and how we do it, not just in terms of treating the bread right, but also about caring for our environment.

Baking by its very nature is energy resource-intensive, requiring ovens to burn at temperatures between 200℃ – 240℃ during baking. Then you’ve got all the energy that’s used to get the oven up to temperature in the first place. Powered by energy-efficient pellets, the oven generates steam which runs through a series of pipes that run through each oven deck. That’s why we adapted how we bake, to create a baking routine that ensures the bakery runs effectively. And even though we still have a great deal to implement, those measured changes are on our horizon and have been given importance. Your oven is your workhorse; it determines the production outputs due to the oven’s capacity.

Why oven choice is so important

1.An oven determines the outcome of what you bake and how it lasts. 

2.Baking at the right temperature determines your baking times

3.Impact on the quality and keeping of the loaves of bread produced

Our consumers want a tasty, crunchy crust with flavour and, most importantly, loaves that last and still taste good 4 – 5 days later. We want to produce bread that lasts, meaning no waste, and that it all eaten. This influences the planet, and this affects the monies a family spends on food.

We are looking forward to baking for you this week. It’s been a learning curve, lots of late nights, and early mornings baking in a marquee whilst the Brook Food crew worked their magic; which took just over a week. But it’s been worth the sleepless nights!

Going green is not easy. We have far more work to do. The essential ingredient right now in our bakery is that we have the motivation and wish to be greener.

P.S. If you can, do your bit – please use and reuse your wax bags, we are more than happy to pop your bread inside again. They make epic herb bags, mushroom bags and of course storing your sourdough in them is legendary.

The bakery crew

Photography by Artisans & Co

Photographer Ailish Adams