Hi all, I have had a Rofco B40 for about 3 weeks and have been baking in it every day since then. I bake in terracotta cloches because I think the bread is better when it’s baked in a pot with a lid - it rises much higher and looks more impressive in my experience. And you don’t have to muck around with steaming mechanisms as the lids do that job.
However, I am having trouble getting the bottoms of the loaves to cook properly in the Rofco - they just don’t really crisp up enough and they feel soggy even after an hour in the oven. I have never had this problem in any home oven I’ve used and that’s with the same terracotta cloches. In fact, I am a bit disappointed overall with the Rofco so far as the temperature between each of the shelves is very different ; the ones on the middle shelf cook much quicker on the tops and are almost burnt after 40 minutes in the oven. So I have to do a lot of swapping the loaves around between shelves.
I preheat the oven at 240 degrees for 90 minutes before putting the loaves in the oven and then once I put them in, I have been turning it down to 150 degrees (sometimes 180) for the first 20 minutes so that the tops have a chance to rise as much as possible before a hard crust forms. And then I take the lids off and turn the oven up to 220 degrees.
However, no matter what I do, the bottoms of the loaves are heavy and soggy. - I don’t get that lovely sound when I tap them. I have taken to turning the loaves upside down to try and firm up the bottoms so I end up doing an awful lot of intervening during the bake just to try and get a reasonable quality - something I have never had a problem with in a normal run of the mill home oven. I have been baking seriously for about six years and make about 40-50 leaves per week so I have used quite a lot of different home ovens during that time.
I have tried baking free form loaves but I always come back to the pots because I like the higher loaves rather than loaves that spread out. And given that I have never had this problem using the cloches before, I don’t think they are the problem. It may be that the Rofco isn’t at its best unless you bake free form loaves in it.
Hopefully you haven't given up on the Rofco B40 as they are excellent ovens for a micro bakery and also offer a large degree of control. I now have six of them so can do 72 loaves per hour in my craft bakery.
Here's a few thoughts for you to get the best out of the oven.
You need to preheat the oven at 290C for two hours for the stones to be hot enough to do their job. 240C is way too cool, and all that will happen is that the dough will spread too much before setting.
If your using a non pre-heated cloche as well, this will only exacerbate the problem. Basically what's happening is that because of the base of the cloche you've put an extra layer between the bottom surface of the dough and (what should be) the hot stone. You can do away with the cloche as you want the underside of the dough to directly touch the stone (with only bake-o-glide between them) so that you can achieve the correct oven spring and the crust.
Re the difference in the shelves - If you haven't already got one, purchase an infrared thermometer as this will help you learn where each of the three stones is at temperature-wise. In advance of the first cycle, usually the top stone will be hottest, followed by the middle stone, and the bottom one will trail behind by a good 10 degrees C. Subsequent cycles will often show that the bottom stone is hotter than the others. This has to do with Rofco design meaning the placement of the thermostat and the fact the bottom element rests direct under the bottom stone, causes this particular stone to heat in a different way to the others. You can partially fix this by lifting the bottom stone off the element (I use stainless steel nuts that are about 1cm thick).
Lastly, it matters greatly whether the elements are on or off at particular points of the bake (and this depends on what type of loaves you are doing).Generally, it's important that the elements turn off for about 9-10 minutes at the start of the bake, and the turn on again in unison from then on for the rest of the bake. I now do this by timing, rather than rely on the thermostats (to negate the problem of the bottom elements coming back on again later than the top elements).
One extra complication - assuming the oven is hot enough to start with (as above) you can further control the spread of the dough by keeping all the elements on for the first 1-2 mins of the bake. This can help with slacker doughs, such as higher percentage rye loaves or super-hydrated doughs,
Hope this all helps.
Hi Andrew, thanks so much for your detailed response to my comments on problems with my Rofco. I have now had it for a year and am getting a reasonably good performance from it now. Thanks for your comments about the preheating - time and temperature - that’s useful and I’ve started doing what you suggest. Also on the differences between the shelves. I did actually raise the bottom shelf as you suggest when I first got the oven as I had read that this was a good idea. I am not using the clay pots with lids any more and am now actually using tins a lot of time. They are working well even though the dough does not get put straight onto the stone . I also bake free form loaves which generally work well but you can’t fit as many into the oven and also people like the bread baked in tins as they are a more useable shape. Anyway, I really appreciate your useful suggestions and thanks so much for taking the time to answer my comments. :)
Hi Andrew,
I bought my first Rofco B40 over three years ago and my second early last year. I am very happy with the results except that I am now experiencing quite significant steam loss through the door of my older oven. I have changed the door seal once as it broke but that was some time ago. I run a 'cottage' bakery so run the ovens 4 days a week for around 4 hours every day (plus the 90 minutes to heat up). Is it just that the door seal even though not broken is ready for replacement or is the problem something you have experienced? Is there any maintenance required on these ovens as I feel we work them quite hard? I would love you thoughts.
Hi Carolina, I also have the same issue with the seal on the Rofco Oven. I had to replace it after a few years and then it broke again within about three months. It is incredibly flimsy and I expect that it will break again soon. There is a black stain on the top LH corner of the front of my oven and you can see steam escaping from that corner. I think it is a design flaw in the Rofco and that they need to create a much better seal for these ovens.
Hi both,
Thankfully by luck I've caught this latest post!
For me, each oven does about 5 cycles per bake, 3 times per week (plus another 3 cycles per bake for two other days), so including initial heat-up time, these oven are on roughly about 24 hours per week for 48 weeks of the year (and probably running flat out for 80% of that time).
The seals get brittle after a while (it probably takes about 10-12 months of my usage). I've had a few instances of the seals baking mid shift, and it always happens when loading the oven (i.e. at the worst time!) as when they become brittle it only takes the slightest nick from say your peel or a tray for them to break. Thankfully in these cases I immediately move to the next oven and then replace the seal (or have previously repaired by using a stapler as a short term fix!).
At any rate the proper solution is to do preventative maintenance and replace the seals at a set interval (10 months in my case). I always have a stock of them on hand as well. Lastly, you can test how brittle the seal is getting my stretching it (when the oven is cold) with your fingers to feel if it is starting to become brittle. Sometimes also you'll notice a slight tear starting to form, in which case replace the seal as soon as you can. This is all part of using these ovens in a professional setting...
Re the doors, they will start to warp after a while - they will go in a concave shape (i.e. a slight gap on the bottom and at the top of the door) after about a year's usage, and it's obvious to me that I'm using these ovens in a much more intense way than they were really designed for. A gap at the top of the door is less of a problem, so even though steam will start to escape, the loaves won't deform. A gap at the bottom of the door is more problematic as you'll notice some deformation of the loaves on the bottom shelf towards the front. I'm at the stage now that I can tell from a baked loaf which shelf the loaf has been baked on!
Although I haven't yet gone down this route yet, the solution to this problem is to drill in door latches.
Here in the UK, RackMaster sell latches for a Rofco, but I need to stress I haven't used these yet (but will give them a try when I have some time to do the work). From my perspective I'd want two per door. One half way between the existing top latch and the top of the door, and the second halfway between the existing bottom latch and the bottom of the door. I should think that this should seal the door really well (much better than even a new Rofco).
Rofco side door catch kit | Rackmaster Limited Bakery and Catering Equipment Fabrication
Lastly, at some point an element (or the thermostat, or both) is going to go caput. The first oven I purchased has gone completely dead, and this took about 2.5 years of heavy usage (as described above) to get to this point. As it's happened this year, I haven't yet repaired it (I'll wait until the Christmas break), but basically you need to keep on hand a stock of elements (the top element is different to the other two) and at least one thermostat (it will come as a complete unit including the probe and the knob).
I'm not looking forward to this but basically I'll need to drill out the rivets at the back of the oven (I think both inside the oven and at the rear) to be able to access the element, and drill out the rivets on the front panel to access the thermostat and replace. Once I've done this procedure I'll look to use screws instead of re-riveting so that it will be more easily repeatable in the future. Riveting when manufacturing these ovens would I imagine be far cheaper than screwing, but much more problematic for us when trying to repair these ovens (as they are also likely to break down after the warranty period has finished).
Hope all this helps, and I've made certain I've turned on email notifications for this thread!
Andrew
Hi Andrew, wow, that is a very detailed account of some Rofco issues I have never thought about. I found it very interesting and will give some thought to the suggestions you’ve made. My oven is on for about 20 hours per week, for most of the year so it’s not used as heavily as yours but still quite a bit. Good idea to test the seal and to have a spare one in case it breaks. They aren’t cheap but if that’s what you have to do….. As for the element and thermostat needing to be replaced, I’d be in real trouble there because I don’t have the skills to do this myself. So I’m hoping they never break!
Thanks again for your very useful post - I really found it interesting and helpful. Cheers, Jane
Campbell's door latch kit for the Rofco ovens is available in the U.S. now at Pleasant Hill Grain. It can be ordered here.
JUST A HEADS UP FOR OTHERS
I found my standard Rofco door catch was having issues and it turned out the culprit was the bottom rivnut for the hinge coming loose. This caused the hinge to develop some play and the door no longer latch smoothly---and some sealing issues.
It all improved with re-tightening the rivnut to the stainless plate with a rivnut setting tool. After that :
Just in case it is of use to anyone.
Can you explain what you mean by retightening the rivnut hinge?
The rofco uses a rivnut as part of its door hinge (the bottom hinge pivot point uses is a rivnut, the top hinge is a fixed stud).
Rivnuts are a simple and very common way of installing a nut into sheet metal (such as the rofco door).
It basically inserts a nut through a drilled hole and then a small amount of that nut is designed to crumple when being installed so it squishes and physically clamps to both sides of the stainless sheet - very similar to a rivet.
On mine, after I removed the door one time, the rivnut wasn't clamping tightly to the sheet metal any more so it would spin when trying to reinstall the bolt and it had a small amount of wobble. This caused the door to no longer latch easily and affected the seal.
You can buy very cheep rivnut tools on ebay, just look up on the web how to use them. It is a simple matter of using the rivnut tool like you are installing a rivnut - but here you are only re-tightening an existing installed rivnut. (The process just recompresses it firmly to the plate so it fully clamps again)
Thank you for the explanation! I didn't realize this was referring to the hinge. My problem is replacing the door latches (on part on the frame of the door, one part inside the door with bearings). It looks like the latches come with rivets to attach. First, how to remove the existing rivets? If I drill it out, do I risk damaging the opening?
Anyone have any insight?
Yes, you can drill them out.
A good sharp drill bit of about 3 or 4mm should work. Make sure your drill isn't set to the high speed mode, adjust the clutch (if it has one) to about mid way. Then, just place the drill tip in the centre of the rivet and take it slow.
Because the brass latch is a standard hardware part, if you get a replacement latch that matches you only need to replace the element that is broken. I.e. either the part connect to the door - or the part connected to the main body of the oven.
Also, if you are inside the door, it is a good opportunity to replace the bolts that fix the handle to the door with stainless ones. The original mild steel bolts on mine had started to corrode so best to change those over to stainless.