Community Bread Oven

One of my hobbies has been baking hand made bread so I was delighted when my church built a community bread oven.   I had heard about these ovens but had never seen one in operation.  The basic principle is to build a wood fire in  a stone enclosure - the oven - and over many hours heat up the baking chamber.

Once the oven is hot enough - when it's used for bread - the remaining coals are removed.
This is a smoky operation - the people working with the fire have stinking clothes afterwards.

Then the oven is swept out and to my surpise, the floor of the oven mopped.  This is done to clean the oven and cool the oven to the desired temperature.

People bring in their breads to bake and final preparations are made.

The bread are taken outdoors and placed in the oven.

This is oven structure - this was just after the oven was open for use and their is now a block patio around it, instead of grass and mud.   This was in 2011 when we had plenty of snow and the oven worked fine, even when it was below freezing.

Below are the final product.

There are several spark plugs of this bread baking operation, one of them is our pastor, Bryce Johnson. He took a sabbatical to study European bread ovens.   He is one of our resident experts and bread lovers.  He expounds in an agreeable fashion about the theological signifance of sharing bread.

The breads I've brought to the community oven tasted good, expecially when still warm.   Even though this old technology,  these old style ovens have a unique taste.  For those who want to know more about this particular oven, check the White Bear Lake United Methodist Church's website.