Baking bread on board - oven not get to 220

[tudorsailor]

I would like to bake bread on board - and not sourdough

I have a Force 10 4 hob cooker with oven. After 1/2 an hour, the oven gets to about 190 on butane (blue bottle). The oven flames are still full as if the cooker is trying to get hotter but never seems to. Currently in the Med so ambient temp is not cooling it down much

Is this normal?

Thanks

TudorSailor

 

[TQA]

I have the same stove, the oven is too big for the burner IMHO.

I find that if I keep the bread as high as possible and at the back it does OK However you MUST turn it at least once as the back bakes faster than the front.

My cheap as chips Flavel Vanessa had a better oven.

 

[jdc]

We have a 4 burner Force 10 and we bake bread without trouble when it's all working right.

First you need to make sure that the jet is correct for the regulator pressure you are using. In Europe nowadays it should be 30 mbar pressure for both propane and for butane. Here's the manual page (which 'helpfully' doesn't mention butane, only propane).
View attachment 45342

So you should make sure it's a 0.64 mm dia jet (it's stamped on the jet).

Secondly, we've found that it's very sensitive to the actual pressure from the regulator, and regulators in my experience can be quite poorly adjusted/calibrated. Best measure the pressure of the gas at the cooker. To do this I made a manometer from a length of transparent tubing part filled with water. 30 mbar pressure will give a 12" height difference.

Here's the calculation, but you can skip it if you like:
P = rho g h, so h = P / rho / g
1 bar = 100,000 N/m^2, so 30mbar = 30 / 1000 * 100,000 = 3000 N/m^2
rho = 1000 kg / m^3
g = 9.81 m/s/s
so h = 3000 / 1000 / 9.81 = 0.306m = 30.6 cm, or ~12"

FYI, when I measured our pressure this way I found only about 7", so way under pressure and the low oven temperature explained. I had to dismantle and clean the regulator's innards to fix it, but others might prefer to just get a new one should their regulator prove faulty.

 

[viago]

a bread maker and inverter might be the answer, kenwood do a 440w which uses about 0.3kwh/loaf.

generally, i dont think it's good practice to open the oven during baking. i could be wrong about baking bread though.

 

[tudorsailor]

Not being familiar with the inner workings of the over and even with looking at the manual, could you tell me how to see the jet with the diameter stamped on it?

The regulator is from 2001 so a new one cannot harm. Are they expensive? Where's the best place to buy??

Thanks for the advice

TudorSailor

 

[tudorsailor]

a bread maker and inverter might be the answer, kenwood do a 440w which uses about 0.3kwh/loaf.

generally, i dont think it's good practice to open the oven during baking. i could be wrong about baking bread though.

I have 24v electrics with 2 lots of 4 x 6v batteries in series to give 460AHrs @ 20hr rating. So what amount of my capacity would 0.3kwh represent?

Thanks

TudorSailor

 

[jdc]

I'll quite happily email the manual if you pm me an address to send it to. The burner is where the flame is at the back of the oven near the bottom. You have to take it out to have a look - two cross head screws iirc, plus undoing the nut on the gas compression coupling.

As for a regulator, it depends where you are. We switched to the 'gasboat' system with a universal bulkhead regulator as we needed to use propane or butane, and almost any bottle type. Apart from above mentioned susceptibility to getting gummed up or otherwise mis-adjusted (which was very easy to fix) we've been well pleased with the system. We purchased it from Socal who were very helpful about it.

If you're looking for spares for the Force10 however we found the Socal guy unhelpful to the point of being rude. Fortunately we discovered that our one at least uses the same burners as NEFF cookers, so we bought spare LPG jets from Cooker Parts UK.