During my internship at Red Hen I was trained on two of the main bread stations, forming and baking.
During the forming shift you are responsible for several different tasks including checking proofing, folds, and dividing and forming. Dividing and forming are two of the main tasks. We both hand divide and machine divide the dough. The doughs we deal with during the morning hours such as levain/olive, whole wheat, potato, ciabatta, and rye are divided by hand for many different reasons. Some of those reasons are that there is not as much dough to divide actually making it easier and faster to hand divide, they are too sticky for the machine divider and/or we do not want to over work/destroy all of the cell structure in doughs such as ciabatta. The doughs that we machine divide include Common Waitsfield (our country loaf), Cyrus Pringle (our 100% Vermont wheat bread), Mad River Grain (our seeded whole wheat loaf) and our baguettes (plain and seeded). The same process is used for all the doughs, they are divided, thrown onto the forming table, pre-formed and put onto racks where they are able to rest. Once all of the pre-shapes are done we start with the first ones formed and shape them into loaves, they are then either couched or put into baskets, put onto racks and wheeled over to the proofing area. Proofing is something the formers are in charge of checking until the bakers arrive for the night shift. Every 1/2 an hour or so someone goes over to check the bread to make sure proofing is on track. Once they are fully proofed we wheel them into the walk-in where they sit and retard until the bakers come in and start baking. Folds are done on all of our breads. They allow the bread to delvelop gluten strength without having to fully develop the dough in the mixer. This allows a longer fermentation time which means a more developed flavor.
During the bake shift you are responsible for baking all of the bread that was formed that day. This shift is my personal favorite, there are always two people on this shift. We have a 4 by 3 steam deck oven, 12 doors in total. Each door is capable of fitting four full sheet trays. The amount of loaves we put into each door is dependent on the type of loaf. For example, our huge loaves, each weighing 4 pounds only get 8 to a door. Our Mad River Grain batards get 24 to a door, our baguettes get 20 to a door. Each type of bread is different. We give the bread optimum space so their coloring is the same all the way around the loaf. The bake shift starts at 4pm and depending on the size of the night you will either end around 12am-2am. The weekends tend the be the smaller days, about 1,500 loaves and wednesday-friday are out busier nights about 2,500 loaves. Once all of the loaves are baked we have to sweep and vacuum out the ovens and then we get to go home and sleep.
During the forming shift you are responsible for several different tasks including checking proofing, folds, and dividing and forming. Dividing and forming are two of the main tasks. We both hand divide and machine divide the dough. The doughs we deal with during the morning hours such as levain/olive, whole wheat, potato, ciabatta, and rye are divided by hand for many different reasons. Some of those reasons are that there is not as much dough to divide actually making it easier and faster to hand divide, they are too sticky for the machine divider and/or we do not want to over work/destroy all of the cell structure in doughs such as ciabatta. The doughs that we machine divide include Common Waitsfield (our country loaf), Cyrus Pringle (our 100% Vermont wheat bread), Mad River Grain (our seeded whole wheat loaf) and our baguettes (plain and seeded). The same process is used for all the doughs, they are divided, thrown onto the forming table, pre-formed and put onto racks where they are able to rest. Once all of the pre-shapes are done we start with the first ones formed and shape them into loaves, they are then either couched or put into baskets, put onto racks and wheeled over to the proofing area. Proofing is something the formers are in charge of checking until the bakers arrive for the night shift. Every 1/2 an hour or so someone goes over to check the bread to make sure proofing is on track. Once they are fully proofed we wheel them into the walk-in where they sit and retard until the bakers come in and start baking. Folds are done on all of our breads. They allow the bread to delvelop gluten strength without having to fully develop the dough in the mixer. This allows a longer fermentation time which means a more developed flavor.
During the bake shift you are responsible for baking all of the bread that was formed that day. This shift is my personal favorite, there are always two people on this shift. We have a 4 by 3 steam deck oven, 12 doors in total. Each door is capable of fitting four full sheet trays. The amount of loaves we put into each door is dependent on the type of loaf. For example, our huge loaves, each weighing 4 pounds only get 8 to a door. Our Mad River Grain batards get 24 to a door, our baguettes get 20 to a door. Each type of bread is different. We give the bread optimum space so their coloring is the same all the way around the loaf. The bake shift starts at 4pm and depending on the size of the night you will either end around 12am-2am. The weekends tend the be the smaller days, about 1,500 loaves and wednesday-friday are out busier nights about 2,500 loaves. Once all of the loaves are baked we have to sweep and vacuum out the ovens and then we get to go home and sleep.