Learning to cook on a wood stove: Sourdough Bread

I reckon baking sourdough bread in the wood stove would have to be the main reason I love the idea of a wood stove in the kitchen. When I was still in the dreaming stage, before I actually got my gorgeous Metters Canberra installed, it was almost always sourdough bread in my imaginary wood fired oven.

There really is nothing more romantic to a sourdough baker than the thought of baking bread in a wood stove! In those lovely day dreams, the fire is perfect, the temperature steady, the bread perfectly risen and browned. I have discovered that this is far from the reality of wood stove cooking however!!!

Its getting hot in here

I have struggled to regulate my temperature and as a result, I have more often that not baked sub par loaves. I find it really difficult to predict what temperature the stove will get to, how long it will take to get there, and how to maintain it if it does manage to get there.

One big problem I am having, is keeping it from maxing out! I will put some wood on there, walk away for 10 mins and come back to a 300C oven! RIP whatever was in there.

The internet, (and common sense) tells me the type of wood makes a huge difference. I have discovered some types of wood will make the oven very hot, but I can’t work out a pattern of how long it takes to do so. Sometimes using the same wood, I can get the oven to spike in just 5 mins, when the same type and size wood will other times not make any noticeable difference.

I am quite determined to work this out. I’m sure at some point I will be as adept at this as my historical heroines, but right now I’m still getting way too many fails!

I will say, that the times I have successfully baked a nice loaf in the wood stove, have more than made up for any of those disappointing fails. It is THE BEST feeling, and even though smoke does not even enter my oven at all, somehow the loaf has a wood stove cooked smell about it. And the crust – unbeatable!

Trying to get to the SOURDOUGH crust of it

Speaking of crusts, that was one of my biggest learning curves. I usually bake my sourdough on a pizza tray in an open oven. No dutch oven. I just add a cup of water to the oven to provide humidity, and it works a treat. But the wood stove doesn’t seem to work this way. I assume it is not as “steam tight” as the electric oven? Perhaps the steam is escaping out the door seals. Whatever the issue is, the loaf comes out looking like I didn’t add any humidity at all. So when I bake sourdough in the wood stove, I need to use a dutch oven for the first 15-20 mins. No biggie, but quite interesting.

It’s Summer now in Australia, so the woodstove will get a break for a while I guess. Time to give it a good clean and a refresh, so it looks good until next Winter.

In the mean time, I would like to start collecting wood now, so that it is nice and dry by the time I want to use it. I just don’t know what wood to try! If you have any advice, I would love for you to comment and let me know.

Wood stove cooking lesson 2:

The wood stove will not retain steam. If humidity is required, you need to use an internal vessel such as a dutch oven.