runnin' out of room

Been two weeks since I posted. Been workin' the twenty on and four off schedule. There are bakers here whose last day off, was before my last posting. The Jewish holidays and the start of our pumpkin farm has had us pinned down. Now that the holidays are over, time should loosen up. It got to the point, that a week ago Friday, the "House of cards, was comin' down". It was Rosh Hashanah, the first day of our pumpkin farm and we were running our cookie sale. I was trying to unload the oven. It was so crowded, I couldn't get the door opened. I mentioned this to a baker friend of mine. I said "There wasn't room enough to get the oven door open". He said "Yeah, rack oven doors take up lot of room, swinging open". I wasn't talking about our rack oven door. I was talking about our revolving oven door. All I was trying to do, was drop down a little aluminum door. There were so many racks full of product, I couldn't do it.

Saturday morning I came in during the Saturday market bake. We had reached a new low. There were racks of shaped bread, wrapped in pallet wrap, proofing in the store. No room in back. My point, today we have a meeting with the landlord, we are leasing some more space adjacent to the bakery. Without it, we'll never get thru the upcoming winter holidays.

I baked on Saturday night. We started at midnight. We are moving some folks around, adding a couple more. The corporate world calls it "Multitasking", I always new it as "Knowing different jobs". I decided that we need a "Proofer/retarder". It is a unit that is loaded with raw, yeasted product, during the day. Lets go with, loaded around noon. At that point it is thirty eight degrees. Around 9pm, it shuts off. Sits dormant for a few hours. Around midnight it adds ambient temperature air to the chamber. Around 3am, it starts to get warm, around 90'f. As it is warming up, it starts to add humidity to the chamber. At 5am, the product is proofed and ready to bake. It would allow us to start two hours later on Sunday morning. Familiar problem. If we don't have room to open the oven door, where would we have room for a proofer/retarder? Add it to my wish list.

Currently, we get all the product ready on Saturday afternoon. The last guy out at 9pm, pulls everything out and we let it sit at room temperature until we get here. It's chancy. In the summer, product is ready to soon. In the winter, product is late, because it is so cold in here.

I guess it has worked this way so far. But the thought of two extra hours sleep on a Saturday night.