Baking bread w/o electricity?

S

SpiritBear

Senior Member
Hey, gang..did a search but can't find anything on this, so am hoping y'all can help.

I'm looking for ways to bake bread (already have a hand operated mill + a lot of stored wheat grain) if TSHTF and there's no or limited electricity.

I make a great whole wheat bread today in my handy bread machine, but what if..

BTW, I plan to stock up on sugar, yeast, vital wheat gluten, etc in addition to the stored grain.

Anyone seen any kind of portable stove w/fuel that can be burned safely indoors, or any other way to do "electricity free" bread baking?

Thanks!

- SB
 
Hansa44

Hansa44

Justine Case
Well, I lived in a tipi for 2 years and baked loaves of bread over an open pit fire.

I don't remember my recipes, but I did use yeast (because I like the flavor of yeast in bread) I didn't use it to make it rise. I also used baking powder so it would rise while baking.
 
Karnie

Karnie

Veteran Member
splicerswife said:
Welcome SpiritBear, and what a good topic starter! Dutch ovens work well, but it's best to practice before you need it. ;)

http://muffinandbreadrecipes.com/BakingBreadinaDutchOven.html
Click to expand...
good link!

I started cooking in dutchies many years ago when DS was in scouts. I realized last fall that I really needed to "get current" with my skills. I'd forgotten how much fun dutch oven cooking can be. I've gotten all my dutchies and equipment cleaned up, but haven't gotten to use them much due to months of the burn ban in Oklahoma. However, now that we're (at least temporarily) able to have fires and charcoal outdoors, I'll be brushing up more on those skills.
 
Christian for Israel

Christian for Israel

Knight of Jerusalem
coleman camp oven:

5010B700_x200.jpg


http://www.alpharubicon.com/altenergy/colemanovenjaden.htm

http://www.coleman.com/coleman/colemancom/detail.asp?product_id=5010D700T&categoryid=27400
 
J

jlee

Inactive
Years ago, after an older cousin was married, he and his wife spent the summer supervising the building of an addition to his parents' cabin at Lassen. [They camped during the week, then spent the weekend at motels with SHOWERS!]

Apparently the cabin either had no kitchen, or the kitchen was torn up and being renovated, because my cousin built some sort of oven out of coat hangers and aluminum foil, which apparently his wife used over an open fire. I assume, though, that they had store-bought bread.


The human interest part: Our family was from California, but at that time we all lived in Connecticut, and we'd ended up buying a house down the street from the cousins (whom I'd never known well until then). My cousin's wife was literally the girl across the street. He'd just graduated from law school (Hastings) a few days before the wedding. The photographer Mike Hoover (then just a college kid) was a family friend, and had attended the wedding; we put him up on the extra bed in my brother's room [he's been in the news lately for having sponsored that Taliban spokesman who's now a student at Yale].

I spent three weeks that summer visiting my grandparents in Fresno, and during that time, my cousin and his wife drove down from Lassen to visit (my grandfather being the cousin's father's uncle/foster father). Hadn't thought about that in years; that would have been a long trip for them, but I suppose it came under the heading of "showing GiGi California" -- and of course there were SHOWERS at the motels!

My cousin's political ambitions fizzled early -- I'm sure he's happier as his life is now -- he had a long career as an attorney, and is now a judge. They are still married after -- oh dear, I feel old -- 39 years.
 
O

Onebyone

Inactive
You can always make an adobe oven from clay but would take a few days to cure so might want to make it in advance.


Can also make an oven from bricks but again need to do that in advance or else make your own brick which is going to take time.

The use to be a link to an oven made from concrete or mud and rocks. The side even had a metal plate for sauce pans. Anyone have that link? I believe you needed a small bucket or barrel for that one. You fit the bucket or barrel inside the rock stucture and it was the oven interior wall.
 
tangent

tangent

Membership Revoked
we used to cook flatbread on the rocks ringing a firepit.

woodstoves sometimes have an oven section - cheapest route here s one of the kits for barrel stoves. They sell the kits for a second barrel "oven part" too. Have seen a pic of an attachment large enough for a loaf of bread to fit in that fit in the path of a stove pipe - but have never seen one for sale.

I'd think that when a fire was dying down (thinking fore pit, but fireplace would be OK, you could surround the metal parts of the breadpan (or like the diggers - a coffee can) with hot coals and come back in an hour or so... (or as it's going out - next morn...)

-t
 
M

momof23goats

Deceased
I have cooked many a turkey on a trypod, using foil to wrap the trypod, and setting theturkey on a shelf, in the trypod, it works really good. I have also made a hole in coals, and burried what ever I was cooking, then covered it up with hot coals.
there are many ways you can bake, but a dutch oven is the easiest. get one and try it, it might take a couple of times of using it, to get it right.
 
Karnie

Karnie

Veteran Member
tortillas are also easy to make and can be used as bread. I personally prefer flour ones, but I have included masa harina in my preps.
 
W

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
My kitchen has a simple, inexpensive LP range with a pilot in the oven. It works the same whether we have electricity or not.

Available at your local appliance store.
 
V

vlad

Deceased
here is one way to bake bread in a DO.

dig a hole somewhat wider than your dutch oven, and perhaps 18" deep. when the fire in the hole dies down to a good bed of coals, shovel in four inches dirt on the coals. set DO in the hole.

also .... after supper fill in the hole with dirt. lay your sleepbag on that spot. it'll keep you warm.

PS a Dakota Hole consists of two holes, one wider than the other, connected at the bottom. the narrower hole gives air to the fire in the larger hole. make a "damper" of a packsack, for example, to control air to the fire.

there is less danger of fire spreading from a Dakota Hole, and it will likely not be seen from a distance.
 
D

Deena in GA

Administrator
_______________
I second the tortilla idea. They are very easy and fast to make. As the others have said, you can bake bread in a Dutch oven - at least that's what I keep reading. I haven't managed to get it to turn out though, so it definitely does take practice.
 
H

Handyman

Veteran Member
on a bed of coals one can use bread pans suspended on a grate and a metal wash type tub, placed up sided down over the coals,

on a open fire or a camp stove or even a cook top one can use a large tool box for a oven

all a oven is a box that is such that it can basically heat evenly all around, its interior,
 
Wise Owl

Wise Owl

Deceased
We made bread in our Weber Charcoal grill. Get your charcoal going good, or firewood cut into smaller pieces and let it burn to coals. bank the sides of the grill and put the bread in the middle. I have a couple smaller bread pans that make like a half loaf. It works great! Always wanted to try a pizza in it........grin.

We have the coleman oven also and a nice big dutch oven for back up........

If you have baking powder, biscuits work as bread also or corn bread.
 
A

Annie

Membership Revoked
We've had several threads on baking bread over boiling water. Just fill greased wide mouth pint jars about 1/3 full of yeast dough, let rise, cover with plastic and rubber band, set in a canning kettle with boiling water at least halfway up the sides, cover the kettle and boil for about 45 min. for little round loaves.

It's the same principle as steamed brown bread and works with cornbread, cake batter, and quick breads.

If you can boil water, you can bake bread.
 
B

bookworm1711

Inactive
I'm no cook, but wife & MIL are. MIL bakes bread in a Dutch Oven on a Volcano Stove. Seems to work great. The Volcano Stove uses charcoal briquettes very efficiently.
 
C

CarolynA

Veteran Member
For those "no burn" days during the summer you could always use a solar oven. I've never tried bread in the solar oven but muffins work out very well. My oven is a simple cardboard one. I bet the fancy solar ovens get much hotter & might be good to do bread in.
 
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